Vietnam A Reporter's War

Chapter 1 Sunny Saigon

"Welcome to Sunny Saigon," said the large blue Pan American World Airways sign as I was driven in a VW station sedan into the city centre. Saigon was indeed sunny, as it almost always was, and the roads were crowded with small motorbikes and motor scooters. A man, his wife and three small children sailed past, all on the one motor scooter. It was the only way to get around quickly in a city with almost no buses.

I had expected war. I thought armed men with rifles would line the streets - instead the streets were lined with trees. I expected the press conferences to be in tents - instead they were held in an airconditioned auditorium in an American officers' club which sported a swimming pool on the roof. I thought we would live on combat rations - but Saigon was full of bars and restaurants. It was like arriving in Brisbane in summer, with the bright glare, the heat, the heavy humidity and the light clothing indicating that this was no city of four seasons.

The Volkswagen was driven by the Reuter office driver, a tiny old toothless Vietnamese man named Bien who understood no English. This had proved a great disability a few months earlier when another Reuter correspondent had screamed at him in English to stop because they were driving straight into imminent danger. Bien had just smiled and driven on, and the correspondent knocked him out - as the only way to stop the car.

On my trip in from the airport, there was another Vietnamese in the car, along with the red-headed Reuter correspondent, Michael Neale, whom I was replacing. This Vietnamese was also very small and thin, weighing barely forty kilos. He seemed to have burn indentation marks on his right temple and left arm. He spoke a strange version of English and seemed altogether a bit superior - treating me as if here was another rookie he'd have to look after.

His name was Pham Ngoc Dinh and he had the title of Reuters office manager, but he really played the role of a Vietnamese reporter. He was one of a group of educated Vietnamese who were employed by the major American newspapers and magazines, and international newsagencies like Reuters. Except that Dinh, as he was called (the last name being the given name in Vietnam), was different. Unlike the others, Dinh was an uneducated peasant whose English was so poor I couldn't understand him. In fact his English was so distinctively his own that it had for long been christened "Dinglish", and at first I wondered why Reuters employed him at all - especially since there was a well-educated Vietnamese interpreter in the office whose English was word perfect. This was Dang Tran Lan, whose film-star looks contrasted sharply with Dinh who was too thin, too scarred, and too fierce around the eyes. Besides, he needed some dental work.

Dinh had walked into the Reuter office several years earlier and had offered to work for nothing in order to learn how to be a journalist. He'd been taken on and given a paid job as office boy. I didn't like him at first: he had that almost fanatical hard glaze about his looks which I had expected of the Viet Cong. But that was before I recognized the willing laugh that separates the peasant from the pedant, for Dinh was to become inextricably bound up in my view of life and war.

He told me later that when we met he wasn't very impressed with me either. "I believe it myself too young this man," he said in that curious language he had taught himself since beginning at the office. Dinglish was a language all his own, and the more colourful for it. "That time I say, ooh, too young," he recalled, though I was twenty-five and he was only twenty-eight when we met in February 1967.

The Reuter office was right between one end of the main Tu Do Street and the Presidential Palace, and opposite a big park. It was a long, narrow office with the desks necessarily facing each other across a corridor which led to a back room with two telex machines.

Upstairs there was a small flat for the bureau chief so he would always be on hand should a big story break. On the front of the building was a sign reading simply: "Reuter London" and on the door was a small plastic British flag that was to finish the war with a bullet hole in it.

The bureau chief at that time was an Englishman with swept-back hair and the nose of a boxer, Derek Blackman, whose personality suited a newsagency perfectly. He was probably in his early thirties, but he never said: Blackman wasn't into personal details. He liked to be always in the office ready for the next story. He kept staff at a distance working them as hard as himself, and he filed stories as quickly as he could type, which was very quick. He did not, at least to us, question the war, and seemed motivated only by the desire to beat other newsagencies to the teleprinter. This meant perforce that he was not a social man, and he never did show much humour.

But the person in the office I had been most looking forward to meeting was a legendary correspondent called Jim Pringle who was widely regarded in Reuters as their top man. He was certainly the one they sent to all the worst danger spots in the world - Northern Ireland, the Dominican Republic, New York, Cuba, Haiti, Vietnam. They used to say in London that they wouldn't bring Pringle back to head office or war would break out in Fleet Street - he had such a knack of attracting violent news. His reputation was that of a fearless Scot, and during my previous eighteen months in London I had carried an image of him as a slightly larger version of Sean Connery.

When I first entered the Saigon office there was a shortish, slightly round-shouldered man of about twenty-eight sitting at a phone. He looked unfit for his age, and his blue eyes were disconcertingly large, distorted by very thick pebble glasses. When he hung up he was introduced as Jim Pringle. Trying not to look surprised I searched his soft smile for some indication that this was really him. I noted, I thought, beneath the fair, wavy hair and pink face, a pugnacious, almost deadly, fix of the eyes. "Is that you Hugh?" he asked pleasantly in a lilting Scottish accent as we shook hands. Perhaps his strength lay in putting people off their guard, I thought.

Life in Saigon centred on Tu Do Street which started at a big, ugly, red brick Catholic cathedral just near our office and ran down to the river. Two blocks down Tu Do was the central square with the old French Opera House nearby, now the seat of unelected government. On opposite sides of the square stood the two best-known hotels. There was the tall, modern, Caravelle, which stood out like an American in Hong Kong, and the other was the four-storey Continental, an old European-style hotel, with spacious rooms, ceiling fans, palms, and a restaurant opening on to the pavement. The big trees out front made it look like a movie set for a Bogart spy thriller in a tropical outpost of empire. In the square a statue of two giant soldiers running into battle took the eye from the surrounding buildings.

A block from our office a new American Embassy was being built. This was so heavily fortified against attack that it had already been christened "Pentagon East". Our office had a screen door made of thick inch-square wire meshing. I said, half jokingly, "God you've got big mosquitoes here," and was told that this was a grenade guard - the idea being that if a Viet Cong threw a grenade at our office, it would hit this door and bounce back well clear and probably kill someone else. But we never kept it shut - just clung on to it with the fingers of one hand while looking out into the park.

For it was boring at times minding the office and waiting for news to happen.

At first I didn't feel worried at all about the war, probably because no one else looked worried. Everyone was driving around on motor scooters, and bikes, and Saigon generally looked like a happy little Asian city. Only the green military vehicles, and the tremors from B-52 bomb attacks at night, indicated that anything was wrong in this tropical capital.

I was pleased when I found out I'd be staying at the old Continental and not the Caravelle, but not so happy when I discovered I was sharing a large room in dormitory-type accommodation with three other journalists. There was a severe shortage of rooms because of the large number of foreign reporters covering the war.

Back at the office, Blackman told me the first thing I would have to do would be to "get accredited". This meant I had to get an accreditation card which would allow me, as a journalist, to go almost anywhere in Vietnam to write about the war. Without it I wouldn't even get on a plane.

Blackman said I would have to get this card from "MacVee", and when I asked who he was I was told Dinh would take me to "Juspao" and I'd find out. What I was about to find out was how much the Americans loved using acronyms - to the extent that they became a jargon language of their own. MACV was Military Assistance Command, Vietnam - the clear inference being that it was only there to assist the GVN (South Vietnamese government). JUSPAO was the Joint United States Public Affairs Office.

Everything was very close together in Saigon, with three and a half million people struggling to get closer to the centre, and further from the fighting. Nothing was ever very far away. Dinh and I walked two streets down a back road to JUSPAO - which was only one block away from the Continental. At JUSPAO all American military announcements were made. I was happy that my office and my bed were so close, because I knew that newsagencies get very upset if they are even five minutes late on a big story. If they are, then the major newspapers and TV and radio stations will use the opposition agency's story - or start buying that other service.

At JUSPAO I handed over some passport pictures and filled in a couple of forms. My signed card was then stamped within a plastic cover to stop forgeries. The card read as if there were no war: I was "accredited to cover the operational, advisory and support activities of the Free World Military Assistance Forces, Vietnam". "Free World" was another phrase the Americans liked to use. On the back the card said: "The bearer of this card should be accorded full cooperation and assistance, within the bounds of operational requirements and military security, to assure successful completion of his mission. Bearer is authorized rations and quarters on a reimbursable basis. Upon presentation of this card, bearer is entitled to air, water and ground transportation under a priority of 3, but only within the bounds of the Republic of Vietnam." The card was numbered and given an expiry date.

It also mentioned that I had signed a "flight release" - their way of saying I wouldn't sue them if a plane crashed. The priority for travel was about equivalent to that given to a colonel, and the card showed that the Americans were serious about allowing reporters access to the war. But you could lose this card if you wrote anything the American command listed as classified information. This was necessary to prevent journalists unwittingly placing American troops in danger, but it equally had the potential to be used for political censorship. I was also required to get a similar card for the GVN, but it was never necessary to show this Vietnamese card in Vietnam. Which indicated clearly enough who was waging war in Vietnam, despite the acronyms and euphemisms.

As well as a card I needed an American military uniform to wear out in "the field", as everyone called the bush. This was recommended because it ensured no Americans would accidentally shoot you as a Viet Cong, and it stopped snipers from shooting you first, because if you were allowed to dress differently from the soldiers you were obviously very important. It also ensured that the soldiers treated you as one of their own because, in the end, you depended upon them for your life. For day to day wear in Saigon there was a special garb many correspondents wore as a uniform: a green safari suit made by the local tailor, with holes for pens and little pockets on the sleeve for the inevitable packet of cigarettes. But I didn't smoke so I just wore blue or green trousers and white or blue shirts.

To get my military uniform, Dinh took me to the Khu Dan Sinh black market - where most of the correspondents got their clothes. We arrived at a large warehouse with rows of people sitting selling every possible type of American military merchandise. It was a huge Asian-style market right in central Saigon - just two blocks from the official market - and well known to everyone. I tried on boots from a large selection of second-hand pairs - realizing only after I left Vietnam that I had almost certainly been donning dead men's boots. Where else would they have come from? There were also webbing belts, green plastic waterbottles in canvas coverings, and packs: all second hand. A UPI (United Press International) photographer I knew claimed to have bought a brand new helicopter, unassembled and still in its box, at the market and shipped it to Singapore where he sold it for a fortune. To believe this you have to appreciate just how many helicopters were entering Vietnam - for example, the United States had lost about 4,500 of them shot down or otherwise destroyed by 1968. The market sold "everything, no exception", Dinh said - even American weapons, though they were not on display.

It was Dinh who advised me to get things like waterbottles and an army helmet, and I was later glad of his advice. Dinh thought it was very funny that I held various pairs of army trousers alongside my legs to test for size (there were no changerooms). Even so, I had to settle for a 7

few pairs that were too big for me, for I was less than seventy kilos and much smaller than the great majority of American troops.

From the black market Dinh took me to the place where all the Reuter people got their names sewn on their military shirts, above the pockets. This was American forces practice, and the correspondents often did it too. It was always stitched in black writing on green so it could only be seen close up. But when I went back to get the shirts the next day they had my name as HUG HLUNN. I didn't bother to get it changed and remained HUG HLUNN for the next year in Vietnam.

On the drive back to the office, Mr Bien, the office driver, asked Dinh in Vietnamese how old I was. (Dinh always called him Mr Bien because of Vietnamese respect for age.) Dinh told Mr Bien he didn't know as yet, but he would tell him the next day because he would be taking me to get my initial three-month visa. These were the sorts of difficult tasks which fell Dinh's way and which we non-Vietnamese would never have managed - at least not without paying large amounts in bribes. Mr Bien told Dinh that this man was too young and they both agreed on this, as I sat there ignorant of all that was happening around me.

That night, to end my first day in Vietnam, I went up on the roof of the Caravelle - the tallest building in Saigon, at almost ten storeys - because I had heard you could see the war from there, though it sounded unlikely. But from the top I could indeed see explosions like lightning flashes on the ground afar off, without hearing or seeing anything clearly. I had been given to believe in London by Reuters that I would be covering the war from this sort of position. But in bed that night I felt the tremor - and thought I heard the rumble - of bombs. And I soon grew to recognize the distinctive reverberating tremor of a far-away B-52 bombing raid.

Now, I went off to sleep with my helmet next to my bed, I didn't mind as much that there were so many others living in my room, and I began to wonder why I'd agreed to come to Saigon.

It had happened the previous November. I was sitting rewriting a story on Reuters' world desk on the fourth floor of their building at 85 Fleet Street, London, when a smiling character suddenly appeared in front of my typewriter. "Why don't you come up and have a cup of tea sometime?" he said. And he left. My immediate boss rushed over and said, "Go, go!" He told me the person was none other than David Chipp, Reuters' manager for Asia. I wondered what I'd done wrong. I had been working in Reuters' head office for just over a year and I knew the only time anyone acknowledged your existence was when you had made an error in a story.

Upstairs, in David Chipp's office, a woman with a trolley made us a cup of tea, in fine china cups - not like the old mugs downstairs. Chipp asked what I was like at jumping in and out of helicopters. I didn't immediately get the significance of the question, but said I didn't think I would be any good.

He then asked if I would be interested in an assignment to cover the Vietnam War - but I said I wasn't really interested. My only military experience had been in the school cadets where I quickly joined the band and played the cornet. I was the only cadet in my year who was never given even one stripe.

Normally a Reuter journalist had to work at head office for three years before becoming a correspondent, and Chipp said he was giving me an opportunity many others wanted. This was true, and I knew at least two writers on the fourth floor who would have given anything to be sent to Vietnam. But I wasn't keen, even though my own country had sent some troops there. I imagined the Americans were winning the war easily and, being a Catholic-educated boy from the conservative Australian state of Queensland, I had never thought to question America's role in this small country in Asia.

Chipp asked me to think about it, and when I got back downstairs several colleagues were waiting. They were all surprised I hadn't accepted at once. This made me begin to wonder if I might be missing out on something. After all, I reasoned, Vietnam was on the way home to Brisbane and I was having my fare paid. Chipp had even said I'd get a holiday in Australia at the end. Thoughts such as these, and the fact that in any event it was only for twelve months, swung me around, and I accepted. Had it been the start of summer, however, I don't think there would have been any way I would have gone - not with Wimbledon and the cricket on. Looking back, I'd guess I was chosen because I had never expressed strong views on Vietnam. (Reuters never did send the two blokes who were keenest to go.) As well, I was single and young, I could write a news story, and Chipp liked Australians.

That I might have been heading for danger had never occurred to me because I knew that the Americans would be such a dominating influence that I would be with the safe side. And this was the impression I was given at Reuters before I left. "All that we require you to do is sit up on a hill with the Americans and watch a battle and write what happens and what they say," a senior executive told me at a briefing.

The popular view of America at the time, and mine, was of a country so powerful as to be untouchable in war, particularly in some tiny little place in Asia. In fact, in Peking eighteen months before, I had had an argument with some Chinese students who said the Americans should get out of Vietnam because they could never win. I said that was ridiculous, that they could win anytime they wanted: all they had to do was to get serious and start using jet bombers and other big equipment that had not yet been brought into play.

With my air ticket and 10 pounds in travelling expenses in my pocket I went down to the Fleet Street pub next door to say my farewells. There were several famous agency correspondents there and I said I would buy a round of drinks because I was cashed up. When I pulled out the money and with it the air ticket, an old Reuters hand grabbed the ticket. "Hey this young correspondent's been given a one-way ticket to Saigon and 10 pounds to get there by Reuters," he said, and an American correspondent remarked that he got 100 pounds just to go to Dublin. So they all insisted that it was I who should be bought drinks. What they were never to know was that the expenses sheet I sent from Saigon claiming the full 10 pounds was rejected in London as excessive. The letter I received said seven pounds was enough and would I please refund the balance.

Reuters sent me via Singapore, where I worked for several weeks. I couldn't get a visa for South Vietnam because I had been to communist countries, so I had to get a new, clean passport from the Australian Embassy. The Vietnamese ambassador had suggested this as a way out and the Australian Embassy happily complied. And we all pretended nothing unusual had happened.

I flew out on a Pan Am Boeing to Saigon.