06. Juli 1968
1502, 19 Saturday Tag der South Ferry - s.K. 90, 25.

1502, 19 Saturday - (engl.) Samstag, Sonnabend; s.K. 601, 1.

1502, 21-
1506, 7
Sonderkorrespondent Bernhard Weintraub ... Student‹, erwiderte er - »American Impact on Vietnam’s Economy, Politics and Culture Is Profound By Bernhard Weinraub [sic] Special to The New York Times - Saigon, South Vietnam, June 27 - Ten years ago fewer than 1,000 American servicemen were stationed in Vietnam, and their presence was scarcely noticed.
Today, 530,000 American troops and 12,000 civilians are swarming through this tortured country, and their presence is affecting the very roots of South Vietnamese life.
[...] Lambrettas and cars. In 30,000 to 40,000 homes and in the village squares throughout the country, South Vietnamese families watch in fascination ›The Addams Family,‹ and ›Perry Mason‹ on armed forces television. In college classrooms students read John Updike and J.D. Salinger. In coffee shops, young men who work for United States agencies and girls in miniskirts sip Coca-Cola and complain that the Americans have taken over.
The American presence has also contributed to a tangle of more profound changes that remain, with a war on, contradictory and complex. Students, teachers, Government employes and businessmen insist, for example, that the influx of American soldiers, civilians and dollars is tearing the family apart and creating social havoc.
[...] ›An impossible situation has been created,‹ said an American-educated lawyer. ›The poor families come to Saigon from the countryside because of the war. The father has few skills, so he becomes a day laborer or drives a pedicab. Before he was respected by the children. He knew about the farm.He knew about the land. Now he knows nothing.
›The young boys wash cars for the Americans or shine shoes or sell papers or work as pickpockets,‹ the lawyer went on. ›They may earn 500 or 600 piasters [$5 oder $6] a day. Their fathers earn 200 piasters a day. Here is a 10-yearold boy earning three times as much as his father. It is unheard of.‹
Beyond the impact of the Americans and the American dollars, of course, there is the over-all shattering impact of the war itself. Virtually every young farmer or peasant is forced to join the Government forces or the Vietcong; more than a million people have become refugees; the disruptions of farms and villages has led an additional two million to flee to the cities. [...] This traumatic break for many farmers - and the social problems that await them in the cities - has stirred anger among many Vietnamese, especially since thousands of families in rural areas are physically moved out of their farms by allied troops to create free-strike zones.
›Want to Die There‹
›The Vietnamese never wants to leave his village,‹ said a professor at Saigon University. ›They want to be born there and they want to die there.
›That is not easy for you Americans to understand, since you can move from village to village in your country,‹ he went on. ›But here it is very painful for a Vietnamese to leave his village, and when they are forced to move they hate you. It is as simple as that - they hate you.‹
[...] ›This country is going from a kind of Victorianism to a plastic imitation of the teenybopper in the matter of a few years,‹ said a junior American official. Another declared:
›It’s easy to blame everything wrong here on the Americans - the Vietnamese love doing it. But, look, this society was damned rotten when we got here and what we’re getting now is an exaggeration of the rottenness, the corruption, the national hangups.‹«
[Es folgen Ausführungen über den relativ geringen Einfluß der buddhistischen und kath. Religion, während zeitgenössische amerik. Autoren wie Hemingway, Faulkner und Salinger viel gelesen und ihre Lebens- und Denkweise bewundert werden.]
»Ironically the strongest American cultural influence has touched folk singing in the antiwar ballads of the most famous college singer in Vietnam, Trinh [sic] Cong Son.
The broadest social - and, by extension, cultural - impact of the Americans has fallen on the powerful middle class, who exclusively ran the Government’s bureaucracy, taught in primary schools and colleges and served as lawyers, doctors and businessmen. This socially conscious class, to all indications, had little link to or sympathy for the peasants, or even the army.
American officials say privately that the disruption within this entrenched class is welcome. Middleclass Vietnamese are naturally bitter. Especially at their decline in status.
›A university professor may earn 18,000 piasters a month [$150], while a bar girl can earn 100,000 piasters [$850],‹ said 58-year-old Ho Huu Tuong, a lower-house representative who was a prominent intellectual in the nineteen forties. ›The intelligentsia are the disinherited, the lost, because of the American impact. We have lost our position.‹
›Money has become the idol,‹ said Mr. Thien, the Information Minister. ›Money, money, money.‹
The theme is echoed by poorer Vietnamese - the pedicab drivers, the small businessmen, the maids, the cooks - but for them the problem of status is irrelevant and the flow of American dollars is hardly unwelcome. ›How can I hate the Americans?‹ asked a grinning woman who sells black-market cigarettes at a stand on Tu Do, in the heart of Saigon. ›They have so much money in their pockets.‹
Taxation a Problem
At the official level, only enormous American assistance - $600-million this fiscal year - keeps Vietnam afloat. The figure is exclusive of American military expenditures of more than $2-billion [hier ist Johnson ein Übersetzungsfehler unterlaufen: 1505, 7f. »Millionen«, richtig: Milliarden] a month.
[...] Only 6 per cent of last year’s budget was met by direct taxes on income and business profits in comparison with about 80 per cent in the United States.
This results on Government reliance on levies on foodstuffs, tobacco, alcohol, matches and other items that fall with heavy weight on the poor. And, through bribes and bureaucracy, the rich often pay no taxes at all.
[...] Since 1962, land distribution in South Vietnam has been at a virtual standstill and the bulk of the land remains in the hands of absentee landlords. [...] There is a general feeling that Mr. Thieu, Mr. Ky or any other Vietnamese leader would have enormous political difficulties, even if they agreed to every possible reform that the Americans have urged.
For the heart of the Government or ›system‹ is an unwieldy, Kafkaesque bureaucracy that hampers progress at every turn. And in that area, the American impact has been minimal.
Paperwork, documents, stamps, bored officials, bribes are everywhere. Officials work four-hour-days.
›It will take at least a generation to change the system,‹ said one of the highest American officials at the United States mission. ›Maybe more than a generation.‹
[...] A South Vietnamese publisher told an American recently: ›You are our guests in this country and Vietnamese have been very friendly to you. Do not outlive our hospitality.‹
[...] ›Smugness of so many of them is appalling,‹ said a junior American of- ficial. ›If we were not at war it would be funny.‹
But a student at La Pagode, a coffee shop on Tu Do, observed: ›Americans must fight for us so we can live in peace.‹ Had the student volunteered to join the army? ›No, I must study, I am a student,‹ he replied«; NYT 6.7.1968.

1502, 32 ... Lambrettas und Autos - Johnson ist beim Ausschneiden des Artikels ein Teil verlorengegangen, denn vor diesem Teilsatz hat er handschriftlich »missing« notiert.
Lambretta ist der Markenname eines ital. Motorrollers der fünfziger Jahre.

1502, 35 »The Addams Family« - Cartoon-Serie aus den vierziger Jahren von Charles Addams (1912-1988) über eine Familie netter Monster mit oft makabren Pointen; s. 1507, 28f.

1502, 35 »Perry Mason« - Rechtsanwalt in vielen Kriminalromanen Erle Stanley Gardners (17.7.1889-11.3.1970), der durch scharfsinnige, logische Plädoyers seinen Mandanten aus aussichtloser Lage zum Freispruch verhilft; s. 1507, 29.

1502, 36 John Updike - Geb. 18.3.1932, amerik. Schriftsteller; satirische, gesellschaftskritische Romane; »Ehepaare«, 1968, »Rabbit«-Tetralogie, 1960-90.

1502, 36 J.D. Salinger - s.K. 466, 36-467, 1.

1504, 12f. Trin Cong Son - Trinh [sic] Cong Son, vietnamesischer Komponist und Sänger; wurde als Student 1967 durch gemeinsame Auftritte mit Khanh Ly bekannt; seine Lieder erzählen von der Hoffnung auf Frieden und der Suche nach innerer Gelassenheit; schrieb, nachdem er die Kämpfe um Hue während der Tet-Offensive überlebt hatte, die ironische und makabre Ballade:
    I saw, I saw, I saw holes and trenches
    Full of the corpses of my brothers and sisters.
    Mothers, clap for joy over war.
    Sisters, clap and cheer for peace.
    Everyone clap for vengeance.
    Everyone clap instead of repentance.
Vgl. Karnow (1983), S. 531.

1504, 29 Ho Huu Tong – Eigentlich: Ho Huu Tuong (1910-1980), vietnamesischer Publizist, wandte sich als Mathematikstudent in Frankreich dem Trotzkismus zu, arbeitete nach seiner Deportation 1931 als Lehrer in Saigon und gründete die trotzkistische »Oktobergruppe«, die später als »Liga der internationalistischen Kommunisten« die IV. Internationale unterstützte und Stalin kritisierte. Tuong gab 1936 die erste legale trotzkistische Zeitung »Le Militant« auf frz. heraus, wurde im selben Jahr verhaftet, sagte sich während des Krieges vom Trotzkismus los und arbeitete nach 1945 in Tonkin im Bildungsministerium. Tuong wurde wegen seiner Opposition zum Regime Ngo Dinh Diems 1957 zum Tode verurteilt, begnadigt, 1963 freigelassen; Parlamentsabgeordneter zur Zeit der Regierung Nguen Van Thieu. Weil er nach der Eroberung Saigons durch den Vietcong Demonstrationen organisierte, wurde er in ein Umerziehungslager geschickt und verstarb kurz nach der Freilassung. Vgl. http://ru.wikipedia: ХО ХЫУ ТЫОНГ [Zugriff vom 26.7.2011].

1504, 34f. Mr. Thien, der Minister für Information - Ton That Thien, geb. 22.9.1924, vietnamesischer nationalistischer Politiker und Journalist; aus der vietnamesischen königlichen Familie stammend, studierte Medizin, Wirtschaft und Politik in Paris, London und Genf; arbeitete 1945 unter Ho Chi Minh im Außenministerium der Nationalen Front der Viet Minh und als Radiosprecher der englischsprachigen Sendungen von Radio Hanoi, distanzierte sich von den Kommunisten, als sie China um Hilfe baten. 1954- 64 Aide, Dolmetscher und Pressesprecher für Präsident Ngo Dinh Diem, seit 1964 Journalist, wegen seiner kritischen und unabhängigen Beiträge zeitweise angegriffen; während der Tet-Offensive in Hue vom Vietcong gefangengenommen, gelang es ihm zu fliehen; hob als Minister für Information (April –Dezember 1968) in der Regierung Tran Van Huong jegliche Pressezensur auf; ging nach der Einnahme Saigons durch den Vietcong nach Kanada, lehrte als Linguistik-Professor in Quebec; vgl. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ton_That_Thien [Zugriff vom 26.7.2011].

1505, 2 Tu Do, im Herzen Saigons - Die Flanier- und Ausgehstraße der frz. Kolonialzeit, die Rue Catinat (zwischen Saigon-Fluß und der Kathedrale Notre Dame), wurde während der »amerikanischen Zeit« Saigons zur Amüsiermeile Tu Do (Freiheit) mit unzähligen Tanzbars und Stundenhotels; heute heißt die Straße Dong Khoi (Straße der Volkserhebung).

1505, 21 Mr. Thieu - s.K. 13, 14f.

1505, 21 Mr. Ky - s.K. 13, 14f.

1505, 26 kafkaeske - Kafka: s.K. 1860, 9-12.

1506, 8 © by the ... York Times Company - s.K. 116, 25.

1506, 10-34 Lynn Tinkel. / Lynn ... Zuges, oder Fahrgäste - Die NYT vom 6.7.1968 berichtet unter der Überschrift »Woman Who Took Snapshot in Subway Acquitted in Court«: »A 22-year-old Bronx schoolteacher went into Criminal Court yesterday to fight a summons she received last month for taking a picture of a friend on a subway platform. She won her case.
The teacher, Lynn Tinkel, pleaded not guilty to violating a Transit Authority rule that requires written permission for anyone to take a photograph in a subway or any other Transit Authority facility.
›It’s the principle of the thing,‹ Miss Tinkel said when she left the courtroom. ›I did not see anything wrong in taking a picture of my friend on the subway platform.‹
Judge Arthur Goldberg agreed and dismissed the charge.
Miss Tinkel received the summons after snapping a picture of James Lunenfeld, 24, also a teacher, at 2:30 A.M. on June 19 on the platform of the IND line’s 59th Street station.
A Transit Authority’s spokesman said later that the rule was in the interest of safety, but that now ›a new look at the situation might be necessary.‹
He added: ›The rule gives us a chance to tell photographers they can’t use tripods - people might trip over them; or that flashbulbs might blind a motorman or passengers. When people with cameras show up, crowds form and then you can’t be too careful.‹«

1506, 14 INDependent - s.K. 369, 28.

1506, 24f. Kriminalgericht an der Centre Street 100 - s.K. 16, 10.

1506, 35f. 82 Grad Fahrenheit ... von 73 Prozent - Wettervorhersage der NYT vom 6.7.1968: »Temp. range: today 82-63 [...] Temp. Hum. Index 73«. 82° Fahrenheit entsprechen fast 27° Celsius; s.K. 22, 39-23, 1.