THE RADIO WAR OVER VIETNAM by Hans Johnson Photos by Harold Mull

THE RADIO WAR OVER VIETNAM By Hans Johnson Photos by Harold Mull 1 "American GI - you want an end to the war. Get out of the fighting now and alive. Come home while you can." From I Corps in the north to the steamy delta in the south on this April evening in 1970, these words crackle over transistor radios in South Vietnam. GIs recognize the voice as Hanoi Hannah and the station as Radio Hanoi, known officially as the Voice of Vietnam. Twenty-five years ago, with the fall of "American GI - should you he the last recalls. "If the guys in IRecon were shaken Saigon April 30, 1975, the Second man killed in this unjust and losing war?" by anything, it was the fact that the next Indochina War was finally over. was a typical Radio Hanoi snippet aimed at morning she could tell what happened to us Fought with the same intensity as the undermining American morale. As morethe night before," he adds. war of bullets and bombs, North Vietnam American troops poured into Vietnam in the and the United States wrestled over the late 1960s, Hanoi responded by airing sev- American Voices Against the War airwaves through a variety of propaganda eral repeats of its daily program for Ameri- What really distinguished Radio Hanoi stations, some very open, others very mys- can GIs. Radio Hanoi also ditched the tradi- were not the jabs by the Vietnamese an- terious to this day. None were more famous tional Vietnamese music it was playing andnouncers, but rather the words of various (or more notorious, some would say) than started spinning Aretha Franklin, The Roll- Americans. One who spoke freely, perhaps Radio Hanoi. ing Stones, and Phil Ochs. All were cour-even eagerly in August 1972, was Jane tesy of record donations from Americans "This is the Voice of Vietnam broadcast- Fonda - "One thing thatIhave learned ing from Hanoi to American servicemen opposed to the war. involved in the Vietnam War." "Our crypto guy used to listen to them," From that simple opening, North Viet- says John "Doc" Upton, a Corpsman who namese propaganda flowed over the short served with V Recon, V Marines, in 1969 waves for the next half hour. Drawing selec- and 70. "He called us over one day and I tively from a variety of sources, including actually heard Hanoi Hannah describe one Western ones, the programs highlighted of our unit's patrols conducted the day defeats of American and "Saigonnese" before in the northern A Shau Valley, down forces and described resistance to the war to the fact that the patrol escaped by hang- in great detail. Programs concluded with a ing onto the bottom of a helicopter," Upton list of Americans recently killed in action, a segment that opened with the phrase, "Those who died, but not for Old Glory." Jack Bock started tuning in to Radio Hanoi during the Gulf of Tonkin incident in Fonda singing anti -war songs while the summer of 1964. Working as a technical North lietnamese reporters hold representative for Philco in Thailand in that microphones. Published by Nihon year, there wasn't a whole lot to do. "You Denp.t News,July 1972. could drink or listen to the radio. I did a little of both," he recalls. Bock paid close atten- beyond a shadow of a doubt since I've been tion during this time, tuning in not only to in this country is that Nixon will never be Radio Hanoi, but to the American Forces' able to break the spirit of these people; he'll Far East Network and China's Radio Peking never be able to turn Vietnam, north and as well. "Looking back on it, it seems that south, into a neo-colony of the United States Radio Hanoi was more correct in describing by bombing, by invading, by attacking in events from that time," he adds. any way." April 2000 MONITORING TIMES 21.

Load more