For the U.S., Always a Red Carpet

A few days after Saigon fell to the Communists in April 1975, Hanoi’s soldiers went from embassy to embassy in the capital of the defeated South, replacing the flags of foreign nations with that of a unified Vietnam. But they bypassed the abandoned U.S. Embassy and never hoisted their flag over it.

One journalist who had shunned the helicopter evacuation and remained behind asked a senior Communist official why the U.S. Embassy had been spared. “Because we do not want to humiliate the Americans. They will come back,” he told Nayan Chanda, Saigon bureau chief for the Far Eastern Economic Review.

The response, reflecting perhaps more pragmatism than magnanimity, was typical of the patient, long-range approach Hanoi takes in shaping policy. It is an approach that transformed France from a defeated colonial master into a helpful and valued friend, and one that now, with President Clinton on an official visit to Vietnam, has helped turn the relationship with the United States into a cordial one beneficial to both sides.

Clinton has received an enthusiastic welcome in Hanoi and is likely to receive an even warmer one in Ho Chi Minh City, as Saigon is now known. The president arrived about midnight Saturday in the city where many thousands of residents once lived, worked and fought alongside Americans and only grudgingly came to accept their domination by northern Communists.

As correct and gracious as Clinton’s official welcome has been, the government, still suspicious of U.S. intentions here, put the lid on any undue hoopla and treated the state visit in a controlled, low-key manner without trying to diminish its importance. The last thing Hanoi wanted its people thinking was that Clinton, or the United States, had returned as the savior of Vietnam.

The November edition of Vietnam Economic Times, a monthly magazine not under direct government control, devoted its cover story to U.S.-Vietnamese relations without mentioning that Clinton was coming. The Vietnamese press noted on Monday, in a 34-word announcement, that Clinton would arrive three days later. The boxed announcement in the Vietnam News appeared above a story in which a senior official urged Vietnamese journalists to have “firm political convictions” in order to “firmly defend socialist Vietnam.”

When Clinton spoke Friday at Vietnam National University, many presidential aides were surprised that the 400 students in attendance--chosen by the Foreign Ministry for having good grades, correct political views and good moral standards--displayed no reaction whatsoever to either Clinton or his speech. They sat immobile, clapped politely at the beginning and end and left the auditorium without comment.

Their passivity reflected not indifference but the Vietnamese education system, which teaches students to listen, not ask questions and accept as gospel anything a teacher says. Asked how he felt about Clinton, Hong Thuy Cong, 19, said, as though reading a government policy statement: “As a student, I firmly support friendship between our countries.”

He and his classmates are the cadre of tomorrow: Policy is easy to recite, much easier than expressing feelings.

On the streets, where the reaction was spontaneous, the Vietnamese greeted Clinton with unabashed excitement. Thousands awaited his midnight arrival outside the South Korean-owned Daewoo Hotel, and throngs lined the streets 10 deep to watch his motorcade pass. Outside the cluster of appliance shops on Hai Ba Trung Street, hundreds pressed around television sets to watch the live broadcast of his university speech.

“It was a very good speech, very understanding of Vietnam and our culture,” said Dinh Manh Hung, 22. “I am glad the Americans are back. I hope Mr. Clinton will share all the United States knows about technology and science.”

That’s just how Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam’s founding father, would have wanted it. In a message to Americans during the war in the 1960s, he said: “We will spread a red carpet for you to leave Vietnam. And when the war is over, you are welcome to come back because you have technology and we will need your help.”

Nearly a decade later, in April 1975, U.S. helicopter pilots evacuating the last Americans from Saigon to carriers in the South China Sea realized with alarm that the red warning light on their control panels flashed on whenever they were over land. The light indicated that North Vietnamese missiles had “locked on” to their choppers.

But no missiles were fired and no helicopters were shot down.

They left on the red carpet Ho Chi Minh had offered.