Behind Hanoi’s Rice Curtain--Poor and Grim

Recently returned from a week in Hanoi, an experience rarely given private American citizens, political scientists John and Mae Esterline say the trip was difficult, the city poor and grim.

The week was, said Esterline, who retires in July as a professor of political science at Cal Poly Pomona, “the most profound experience I’ve ever had since World War II, the poverty and lack of modernization was just overwhelming.”

“It wasn’t different from what we expected,” said Mrs. Esterline, whose book, “They Changed Their Worlds: Nine Women of Asia,” is being released this month by University Press of America. “It was just so much more extreme.”

For the Esterlines, the week in Hanoi was yet another adventure in a 45-year partnership that included two decades of hopscotching with their two children to Foreign Service postings in India, Ceylon, Cairo and Damascus, the Philippines and Washington D.C., where John Esterline served variously as cultural affairs officer, director of cultural and informational affairs and deputy director of personnel for the U.S. Information Agency. From there, a 17-year career at Cal Poly, one of those a year in Taiwan as exchange professor at National Chengchi University, where he taught diplomacy and she taught English; joint authorship of “How the Dominoes Fell: Southeast Asia in Perspective,” which was published last year by Hamilton Press; and a slew of joint presentations to clubs and councils and even aboard the ocean liners Royal Viking Sky and S.S. Rotterdam during this last 25,000-mile, 11-country journey to Southeast Asia.

They Work Well Together

The Esterlines work well together, even to sharing an office--though each has a personal computer--in a converted bedroom of their artifact-filled Claremont home. The pattern has long been established. In Hanoi, he asked the questions and she took the notes. On “Dominoes,” they alternated chapters. Both like to talk, but never interrupt.

It probably comes from all those years of being strangers in a strange land, a way of life that can either make or break a family, Mrs. Esterline said. “So many times we’d arrive in a city and our postings were never glamour posts, you must remember, and for a month or two it would just be the four of us huddled in a hotel room. We’d feel like we were the only friends we had.”

Those were days when wives in the Foreign Service were graded as assets to their husbands. Mae Esterline said she consciously cultivated groups her husband was interested in and the Esterline children were raised under the rule that even if they weren’t in the mood for some official function, “you have to do it for our country.”

Amazingly, Mrs. Esterline said, both their children hoped for Foreign Service careers for themselves. In both cases, however, life took a different turn. Son Bruce, 40, is a program officer for a nonprofit foundation in Texas and daughter Marie Hoy, 38, is development consultant to a girls’ academy in Massachusetts. There are five grandchildren.

‘I’m just as glad (that the children didn’t follow a Foreign Service career),” Mae Esterline said. “Today to be in the Foreign Service is far more dangerous than it is rewarding. We were in plenty of trouble spots, but in those days they never tried to kill you.”

The Hanoi visit was purely independent, arranged and financed by the couple. Since the United States has no diplomatic relations with Vietnam, they were unable to get any official or unofficial assistance in obtaining a visa for Vietnam. Nor could they look to an American embassy or consulate had they gotten ill or run into any other problems.

40-Minute Interview

After nine months of seeking visas, the Esterlines were granted them through Hanoi’s Institute for International Relations. The institute also took responsibility for the couple: providing them with a driver and interpreter, arranging seminars and meetings, among them a 40-minute interview with Foreign Minister and Deputy Premier of Vietnam Nguyen Co Thach about Vietnam’s economic and political situation.

“Somebody in Vietnam has to take you under their wing,” Mrs. Esterline said. “You have to have someone there at the airport. It’s 45 minutes from town and there are no buses, no taxis. We were totally dependent on the Vietnamese for food, transportation, lodging, everything. And actually what the institute did for us, providing us with a car, an interpreter and driver was a tremendous drain on them.

“It’s hard to imagine. They live on such a minimal level of existence. There’s no surplus of anything. When we arrived, rice had been rationed. “

Her husband, shaking his head at the memory, said “when we arrived, it was around 8 o’clock at night as we drove into town. We thought we were in the outskirts, but we were in the center. Everything was so dark and gray. There was perhaps one street light per block. And just low wattage. Hanoi was not damaged by the war. The old French City is quite nice. But it’s as if nothing had changed since World War II.”

Their intensity about visiting Vietnam initially came about for professional reasons. “Dominoes” went into its second printing and updates were needed, plus there was an invitation for a Vietnam update from the Asian Survey, the prestigious scholarly publication issued monthly by the University of California Press.

But there was also a personal need to visit Hanoi, Esterline said. Harder to define, it had to do with all those years of working in the Foreign Service, John Esterline said, years when the foreign service was the perfect vehicle for idealists like themselves to work for their country. Also, said Esterline, there was a strong sense of the tragedy of the Vietnam War.

Consequently, although they openly viewed the Vietnamese government with skepticism, the Esterlines say they also had a “consuming interest” in that nation.

A Hospitable Reception

Their Vietnamese reception was almost disconcertedly hospitable and non-pressured, Esterline said. “We were living on meager food, really tasteless stuff. Our last night they gave us a dinner. Plum wine, frog legs. It was not ornate, but you got the feeling they were giving us the best they had. It was very touching. Especially for us with our anti (Vietnamese policies) background.

“It was remarkable, the lack of pressure. You know how they have all these pictures of the Communist leaders, like big banners, especially in the Middle Eastern countries. In all of Hanoi, we only saw one picture of Ho Chi Minh. We drove by his tomb, but no one ever suggested we go to visit it. One night we went to the theater and we thought we’d see lots of nationalistic stuff, flags waving, all that. But nothing. Actually it was very sophisticated and not an ounce of propaganda. We were stunned, especially since we knew the Russians had built the lovely hall. But it was definitely bourgeois entertainment.”

The sessions with Vietnamese leadership were equally low-pressure, he said. Neither antagonistic nor propagandizing. “They seemed to be honestly trying to explain their position,” said Esterline.

“We learned about their production plans, their political problems, their production problems and the difficulties of feeding 60 million people. We were impressed by this man, their foreign minister (Thach). He was articulate and I think quite honest. He said, ‘We have been dreamers,’ meaning the Vietnamese, ‘for 10 years. We have tried to establish equality, but we’ve only established equality of poverty.’ ” Vietnam is committed to socialism, Esterline said he was told, but Thach also acknowledged the need for improvement in the way Vietnam handles its political affairs and said he hoped communication between the United States and Vietnam is established.

The Esterlines agree. “The U.S. has never recognized the State of Vietnam, and we agreed that the two big issues between the two countries are the MIA problem and the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia . . . . “

Mae Esterline said they could “see the Vietnamese point of view” on these issues, just as they understood American policy. Nevertheless, “our feeling is you have to work around these things (the issues that divide the U.S. and Vietnam). To mix a metaphor, it’s like bringing home the bacon without spilling the beans.

Offering an Option

“We believe the U.S. should recognize Vietnam to give that country an option other than the Soviet Union. Basically, Vietnam doesn’t receive any development assistance. This increases their dependability on the Soviet Union.”

The Esterlines spent 40 minutes with Thach. Afterward the foreign minister walked them to their car. The couple is still amazed that so much time would be given them, “an obscure American couple.”

“Actually, there was this emotional and intellectual pressure,” Mae Esterline said. “We didn’t know why we were being singled out for such special attention.”

On the other hand, her husband suggested, maybe the reason Vietnam granted the visa and why Thach was so eager to talk was that it was unofficial. “I think they thought that because we are writers, we can present their feelings to American audiences.”

The Esterlines do have a lot of writing ahead of them before taking off next fall for another trip to Southeast Asia, this time to Mauritas and Bangkok for the 30th anniversary of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation. (Mrs. Esterline edits the proceeds of this Manila-based foundation, which recognizes Asians in public and private life who have made contributions to Asian societies.)

In addition, the Esterlines are trying to arrange an exhibit of contemporary Vietnamese art at a local museum. Even when you’re no longer “official,” Esterline said, it’s hard to resist some Ping-Pong diplomacy.