“There will be a congratulatory address by Mr. Butler, the representative of the AID Mission in Da Nang,” announced Pham Quyen.
The civilian who was the sole person in the crowd dressed in a suit kept wiping droplets of sweat from his neck and forehead with a handkerchief. His white suit, white shirt, and dark orange tie made him look like a hotel guest, the kind often seen in Southeast Asia. The winds blowing west from the sea had stopped and the steaming heat of the jungles lying to the east seemed to get trapped and stagnate in the bottle-shaped valley. Butler bowed to General Liam before taking the podium. He removed a prepared speech from the pocket inside his suit jacket and, holding it in his hand, read slowly and distinctly.
“Honorable Governor, prominent citizens and new residents who are gathered here together, I consider it a great honor to be able to stand before you today as the representative of the people of America. Ever since the United States of America came to this land to uphold freedom and peace for our ally, the Republic of Vietnam, the hopes of the Vietnamese people have been one and the same with our American people.”
Pham Quyen was acting as interpreter, so Butler paused in his speech and gave a quick glance down at Pham Quyen at the foot of the platform. Without even referring to any notes, Quyen interpreted the address for the villagers.
“General Liam, Governor of Quang Nam Province and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Central Vietnam, Mayor of Hoi An, and villagers, I wish to convey the fact that our aid here has been the result of a request from General Liam himself. The American people are fully aware of the many difficulties facing the Vietnamese people, and we are prepared to leave this land of yours when it is possible for the Vietnamese people to live in peace and prosperity.”
Before turning around to Butler, Pham Quyen muttered in a low voice, “Applaud, applaud.”
The expressionless villagers clapped their palms together. In any event, their faces were half-hidden in the shadows of their big cone-shaped hats. Mr. Butler, a magnanimous smile on his face, waited for the applause to subside before he continued.
“Freedom from poverty, freedom from fear, freedom from suppression of free speech, and the right to defend oneself against foreign intrigues or attacks and to decide one’s own future — all these are bestowed upon you. Communists today are indulging in provocations all over the free countries of Asia, trying to wipe out these hopes just mentioned. They started the war in Vietnam, their goal to infiltrate the Free World.
“The ravages of war in Vietnam cannot be blamed on anybody and the future of the Vietnamese people lies with you yourselves. Not only here in Vietnam but all over the world, the Communists are stirring up wars, and the Americans are fighting wherever necessary to save their brothers. Wherever there are Communists, there are American soldiers.
“If Vietnam is overrun by these violent terrorists, the Communists, then Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines will also fall one by one, and that would mean a state of slavery for all the peoples of Southeast Asia.
“America does not like wars. Early in her history, the United States, just like your country, struggled to obtain freedom and human rights, to escape from colonization and to achieve the level of prosperity that we enjoy today. It is a prosperity that America has a responsibility to share with other weaker and less fortunate countries around her. Therefore, the goal of the foreign aid given by the United States is to maintain her promise to help Vietnam free herself from the threat of Communism and regain peace throughout the nation once more. Vietnam is now a patient in critical condition and we, the Americans, are treating Vietnam in order to make her healthy once again.”
In interpreting, Pham Quyen was very sensitive to the differences in nuance between English and his own language. When the ceremony was over, the Americans would get into their helicopters and leave, but from now on the administration and maintenance of the An Diem phoenix hamlet would be the responsibility of the provincial government. So, rather than faithfully interpreting Butler’s speech to the villagers, Pham Quyen found it necessary to convey with proper obscurity the position of the provincial administration. It was nothing more than the usual hollow rhetoric and ambiguous trickery. In fact, the harsh reality was that day in, day out, countless Vietnamese were being maimed and bloodied, losing their limbs and their lives. A speech by the American secretary of defense, published recently in Da Nang’s English-language newspaper, came to his mind:
“About one hundred countries are engrossed in the difficult task of modernizing their societies. There are no uniform standards for progress across these countries. At one extreme, there are societies still primitively structured, divided into clans or tribes with a weakly unified political system. On the other extreme, there are relatively developed countries that, with various levels of success, have made strides toward agricultural abundance and industrial competitiveness.
“This storm-like surge of rapid development is prevalent throughout the southern hemisphere. In all of history it is difficult to find any precedent even roughly analogous. As a consequence, this traditionally lethargic part of the world has developed into a seething maelstrom of change. On the whole, the changes have not been smooth. If certain confluences of events bring economic stagnation or armed conflict, chaos and violence may rage for many years. This would be true even if there were no threat of Communist aggression. With or without Communist interloping, violence is evident in radical forms across the complex international relationships in a world full of tensions. And the national security of the United States of America is linked with the safety and security of developing countries in the far corners of the earth.”
Pham Quyen was also familiar with more concrete and dispassionate expressions of the same sentiments. A certain advisor to the US president once put it plainly: “Plans for foreign aid are drawn up to dispense a variety of loans and grants: some donations are to provide recognition to foreign leaders, some are plans hastily hatched to counter and hinder Soviet aid, and others are to fund ventures to enhance the power of ruling governments.”
While Butler was delivering his speech, Major Pham Quyen filtered the appropriate Vietnamese words out from the English streaming through his head, and in the process he could hear the distinct echo of other voices murmuring:
“Foreign aid from the United States is categorized according to the following goals and consequences: to implement America’s military and political policies in the international arena; to uphold an open-door trade policy, in other words, to obtain free access to natural resources and trading markets, and to furnish investment opportunities for American companies; to support those American companies in search of trade and investment options to obtain immediate economic returns; to ensure that economic development of underdeveloped countries is firmly grounded in capitalistic processes; to make the recipient countries gradually more dependent on the United States and other capitalist markets; and to allow the debts incurred through extension of long-term loans to forge permanently binding chains of trade between the recipient countries and the capitalist markets of the core creditor nations.”
Presently the speech by the governor, General Liam, began. Major Pham Quyen had written it himself. There was not a single mention in the speech of the administrative measures that would have to be introduced in dealings between the villagers and the provincial government. It was better to avoid any detailed discussion of financial support for the farmers, the new facilities to be constructed, the amount of cement to be supplied, and especially of the rice rations or money wages to be paid before the harvest. Not a word was said about the resettlement allowances, the land allotments, or the promised grants of pigs, cattle, and fertilizer. The speech consisted mainly of high-flown talk about the notion of peace, and a call for the villagers to exhibit diligence and a cooperative attitude. As General Liam concluded the speech, Major Pham Quyen cued the villagers to clap and there was a big round of applause.