Vietnam: A Television History; Interview with Everett Bumgardner [2], 1982

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Transcript

Conditions in rural South Vietnam in 1966

VIETNAM

BUMGARDENER

SR #2710

Tape 1, Side 1

Americanization

TVP 007

August 24, 1982 (taped)

Washington, DC

Take One.

Clap Sticks.

Second Mark.

Second Sticks.

Clapsticks.

Interviewer:

Explain to me what the conditions were like in the countryside in '66-

what had happened, what were the realities in the areas of importance

were, Saigon or other important cities?

Bumgardner:

By late '65 you were in a situation where you had had a successive

turnover of governments. After the death of Diem, you had short lived

governments. The continuity of leadership in the Vietnamese countryside

was short lived. Policies were changed. One day, force was present, the

next day it was removed. Ah, little or no economic assistance for the

people, ah, whose normal resources had been curtailed, that is the

landlord, the money lenders, uh, due to insecurity no longer operated

in their area.

And they were left pretty much on their own, uh, from the government

point of view. However, among the fabric of the society in and out of

the hamlets and villages was the omnipresence of Viet Cong. They had

their cadre, they had their workers, uh, in among the people either

overtly or covertly, and both at times, and a force. You're aware that

in underdeveloped countries like Vietnam, for generations people had

been, uh, forbidden... you're aware...

Interviewer:

Give me a lens change.

Can I stop for a moment?

Interviewer:

Sure.

Sound. Marker. Take Two.

Clapsticks.

Bumgardner:

During this time, uh, due to tradition, the people had little, uh, in

the way of weapons to protect themselves it's forbidden for generations

that they should keep weapons. As a result, two or three guerrillas

coming into a village in the absence of government presence or

government forces can control hundreds and literally thousands of

people by the threat of force. Uh...

Interviewer:

Did they even have to use force?

Bumgardner:

Quite often they had to use force on the dedicated, uh, members or the

leadership element to either drive them out, to leave the people

further in the hands of Viet Cong, uh cadre or the threat of force, if

you do not cooperate with their, uhm, thought seminars and uh their

proselytizing endeavors. As a result, uh, in the absence of the

government due to the vast turnovers and the changing of the rules, uh,

minute by minute, day by day from Saigon, the enemy had a field day in

terms of exerting his influence and his control over many areas of

Vietnam. So that's uh...

Interviewer:

Is there anything else that uh, and you can change the lens, anything

else in terms of what had happened. Describe a little more what it

meant, the changes in the countryside, landlords had been forced to

leave areas. You mentioned briefly the money lenders. What were the

conditions in the countryside that the Viet Cong had come in and

responded to?

Bumgardner:

Uh, traditionally, landlords, uh, absentee landlords in the most part,

controlled vast areas of the rural, um, um, rice lands in the southern

part of the country. Uh, they had been driven out by the enemy, by the

Viet Cong, some of them assassinated, some of them were threatened out.

And the second echelon of control, called the "taka" or middle man who

actually lives in the village and does the work for the landlord, were,

uh, compromised.

They were either inactive, inert, or um, were in no way able to exert

any control over over the rural people. In this way, uh, the peasant,

which is the reservoir of manpower for an insurgency, was left to the

Viet Cong for guidance, was left to the Viet Cong for day-to-day advice

as to how to survive. Quite often this very presence of the enemy

exerted yet another uh debilitating influence upon the peasant. He got

poorer, and poorer, and poorer because they exacted taxes from him, ah,

in addition, ah, to his, ah, normal daily expenses.

Interviewer:

But were the were those taxes during '65 felt more severely then the

other kinds of taxes, the other kinds of economic problems that

peasants had? Was...

Bumgardner:

Well, all of these...

Interviewer:

Was there a sense, I'm trying to get at, in general of being less well

off in NLF areas that may have been with landlords and middlemen?

Bumgardner:

In answer to the question of the well being of the peasants during

these areas, I would have to say that his economic life uh deteriorated

considerably. But, in a perverse way this gave rise to opposition to

the government. Because, without anyone talking, uh, back to him,

without anyone holding an argument with the Viet Cong cadre, the Viet

Cong quite often can turn the peasant's mind into the idea that if you

revolt, if you join us, we can change this system.

Each year you are worse off- each year you are poorer. Next year your

children will be in a worse position for the future then you are now.

Join us, you have only your shackles to lose, that's in the manifesto.

And they carry this out pretty much in their proselytizing. As a

result, as a result, many young men and women voluntarily, willingly

joined the Viet Cong in order to, to change the political, economic

cultural system, uh, in Vietnam.

It's pretty hard to understand how you can be under a, um, total

domination of a strict enemy who uses force when necessary and still

rally to his cause which he in part has imposed upon you as an idea of

breaking out of, of those conditions. But under constant, uh, uh,

propaganda, and I must say, uh, tremendously, uh, well motivated

leadership, uh, the key mark, the, the, the, most important thing, I

think, in any insurgent organization led by the Communists, is, is, is

ah, is qualified leadership, dedicated leadership.

The good will of these people and the extremely tough conditions under

which they live, their self-denial, their living among the people, at

the level of the people, uh, their uh, constant, uh, observation of

being willing to give their life and their future for their cause tends

to be catching among the young uh peasants, and uh, they joined this

organization that then becomes their father, their teacher, uh, becomes

everything all encompassing. And they, in turn, develop this esprit de

corps, which is very hard to develop, ah, at the national level in a,

any developing country where you have so many conflicting loyalties the

loyalty of the family in, in say, in Vietnam, where...

Interviewer:

Before we go on to that, if you don't have time before he starts to

make a lens change, just tell me. We'll continue rolling.

Bumgardner:

I was just in the process of starting that starting the lens change

when you told me.

Interviewer:

Okay. Good.

Were there any other reasons why they were able to get good people,

good leadership, why the NLF was able to get good leadership in the

countryside? They're the ones you've already mentioned this response to

previous conditions.

Bumgardner:

In Vietnam, for generations, the real power and the economy and the

education through which you get power, uh, was in the hands of a very

few people. Maybe three to five percent of the population controlled

the government, controlled the economic life of the country. If you

were a peasant, or a lowly born, it was almost impossible to break out

of, of this chain of your father and your grandfather. The Viet Cong

offered social mobility. In those days, '65 and '66, before the great

pacification experiments, the great pacification uh, programs came in

to try to change this.

A perceptive, intelligent rural boy with a little education could

understand from the propaganda of the enemy that there might be some

social mobility, that today he was a peasant boy riding a buffalo,

tomorrow he may be a corporal, a year later he may be a sergeant And

for him to reach some position like that, uh, in the uhm, uh regular

forces of Vietnam, would have almost been impossible.

He was cannon fodder. And because of his lack of education, in a modern

army you don't understand artillery, you don't understand tanks, you

don't have the calculus and the math to do some of the chores of

warfare, but in a guerrilla army where it is ah principally ah on ah on

the basic operation of ah of a platoon, or at, the most a company, ah

the farmer boy, the peasant boy can master these and due to high

attrition, here is ah here's the point of the knife being turned is

that probably one of the greatest reasons the communists can offer

social mobility is there is tremendous casualties against the

government forces in the early stages, that is to say there are many

deaths and and uh wounded spots to fill so there's a quick way to move

up in the Communist uh uh uh guerrilla force.

Interviewer:

What was the relationship of the of the people recruited uh to

families, how they would...

We're out of film here.

Okay.

Vulnerability of youth to influence by the Viet Cong

Marker. Camera roll seven eleven, take three. Clapsticks. Go ahead.

Interviewer:

So let's go back to uh the family question.

Bumgardner:

The significance of uh cadre of uh a young rural boy joining the uh

Viet Cong uh tremendous change to his status. It was a tremendous

change for his family because everyone in the hamlet knows that he went

off to join either the government side or to the Viet Cong side. There

are no secrets in the rural area, there are uh few secrets in the

countryside. As a result, the government then classes his family uh as

a possible security problem. And the police, constabulary forces,

military forces the administration, uh seeks them out at all times and

I guess you could say they're under some form of harassment then on.

Either outright harassment or from a point of view of the government

trying to talk the family into getting the boy uh to come in through

the Chieu Hoi Program, the surrender program, or something or simply

desert uh uh the forces he joined. For the boy, Vietnamese families are

extremely close. You can't in the American sense of the word,

understand what the big family means uh to Asian folks. Uh it is almost

uh uh impossible to describe how close the families are.

For him to cut this umbilical cord and to go off into the jungle to

where he cannot get back to see his family too often he is jeopardizing

his safety and his unit if he comes back. Uh he has to form new

liaisons with people that he may not know. He needs a new father and

mother, uh he needs a new counselor, he needs a new teacher, he needs a

protector. He finds all of this in generally the political cadre of the

unit he joins. They replace all of this for him. So what he has to do,

is really find all of the um things that he previously got from his own

family and from his community he has get that from the unit.

This in turn works for the Viet Cong, it builds the kind of elite units

that they are well known for, because having cut, cut the bridges,

having burned the bridges in back of him he has to depend upon his unit

for everything. And as a result they can mold him, and develop him, and

train him, and bring him up through the ranks in the form that they

want. They control his behavior, his thoughts, his actions. Uh it's a

complete metamorphosis. If you look back when he was riding that

buffalo in uh the patty field from the time he that he joined the unit

and became uh uh a fighting uh soldier against the government.

Interviewer:

Was there a uh an effort um at that level to to make Communists of

these young men, or what ah what was the the new view of the world, so

to speak.

Bumgardner:

At this uh at this point...

Interviewer:

Start again.

Bumgardner:

At this uh at this point of his education, at this point of his

education, there's very little attempt, or very little mention of uh

what we would classify as Communist doctrine. He's developed into a

super nationalist, an anti-government fighter. Uh a savior of his

village and his family eventually, and for uh and for uh and very great

emphasis on his children and grandchildren the future, sacrifice

yourself for uh what's going to happen in the future. If he survives,

and he shows a great deal of intelligence and dedication, a superior

quality which the Vietnamese call [incomprehensible] or zealousness,

which is more than just ordinary drive.

Uh then he is brought up through promotions and importance uh in the

cadre organization, in the guerrilla organization to where people do

begin to talk to him about his economic and political thoughts, and

it's that point later, or when he has proven himself uh that he is

introduced to to uh what we in the West would recognize as as uh

Communist indoctrination, and eventually he, is sold on this uh

political uh economic system and becomes himself a teacher of that to

others.

Interviewer:

What did being a uh super-nationalist for that young man or woman mean

in detail?

Bumgardner:

I can, I can tell you what this means uh to the individual in terms of

how it limits his behavior. Uh, it gives him a philosophy uh an esprit

de corps, which is pretty hard to duplicate uh in uh in Western society

and uh in Western armies because of the freedom which is prohibited,

which is uh permitted.

Interviewer:

Start again.

Bumgardner:

Ah, let me give you an example of um... how the super-nationalism uh

impacts upon um a a boy who is joining the Viet Cong. It limits his

acitivities, it limits his behavior and it controls his behavior. He

has to uh at many times during the course of his uh his day, break the

old habit of uh thinking first of his family, and lastly about his

country or his mission. And make decisions which uh uh effect uh uh

what he is doing. That may harm his family, it may ac--actually

jeopardize his family. He has to put mission and cause before family ah

considerations, for the immediate.

This is extremely hard uh for rural people to do. It also uh puts him

in a position of where, well he might be an extremely passive person uh

an extremely sensitive young man uh who uh may be Buddhist may regard

human life very highly, and uh actually uh uh lose merit for his

passage to the life beyond by taking uh human life, he has to steel

himself and he has to be able to be a pretty savage fighter.

Ambushes, quick hit and run uh, uh, operations, participate in the

terrorism and the um beheading or assassinations of village chiefs or

effective government officials who are opposed to him. So he undergoes

quite a uh psyche change, uh, in uh, going, uh, towards, uh, this um,

uh political goal. Uh, uh he can accept this and they generally do very

well because uh the cause justifies the act. They are so imbued with

their cause, that it follows on that anything they do to attain their

ends and uh it justifies the means by which he gets there.

Interviewer:

Would you define uhm what the cause is.

Bumgardner:

The cause is... the cause for all of them is revolution to change the

economic uh, the political and the social systems of uh, of uh, their

country. It is uh, a an attempt as one very uh, uh well known

Vietnamese told me at one time, it really comes down to an attempt to

destroy the ethics and the philosophy of uh, Confucianism. That this is

really what they're uh, doing to to break the chains of Confucianism,

as the Communists might uh, uh might, uh, tell their cadre...

Interviewer:

And so it's, it's uh, an attempt to leap frog the the city Vietnamese

and become a modern state or, or what?

Bumgardner:

Social--it's an attempt to bring social justice and and uh, upward

mobility to the uh, to the peasantry or the lowly uh, born Vietnamese,

to break this endless cycle, of son, grandson, and grandfather, uh,

knowing that they're always going to be, uh, at a certain station of

life, they are not going to be able to break out of this endless chain

of poverty.

And through the proselytizing propaganda of the insurgent force, and in

the case of Vietnam, the Viet Cong, they could convince a considerable

number of people who had been mistreated by the government for

generations, who had been mistreated by the Diem police, uh, who had

been, uh, held back from, from, uh, from progress, and they recognized

it, and as a result this became a big gamble for them to break this

cycle, to break out of this cycle. Perhaps not they personally, in the

in the short run, but certainly the class of people they represented. A

class struggle.

Interviewer:

Would you describe the the uh, the view of of countryside people for

city Vietnamese.

Bumgardner:

The urban-rural conflict exists in any society. We have it in the

United States, you have it in Europe, but I don't think it's, uh, uh,

as prevalent as it is in in underdeveloped societies, because there the

haves almost always reside in great numbers in the cities at the seat

of power, the seat of control; where the armies operate from, where the

police operate from, the economic systems. In rural countryside places,

such as Vietnam, you have a small frog in a small pond who carries out

the uh, edicts of the central government.

A high, that's a also another indication of a, of a society uh, that

has no social mobility. A very rigid, centrally directed system. Oh,

other than these few people who enjoy privileges and power, uh, for

whom the laws seem to be uh made to help, and to hinder everybody else,

uh, the rest of the people, uh, of rural Vietnam uh, simply have to uh,

endure these uh, these uh, restrictions upon their mobility and their

uh, desires, uh, uh, for the last hundreds of years.

Interviewer:

We're out of film...

Challenges for the Pacification Program in the South

VIETNAM

BUMGARDNER

SR #2711

Tape 1, Side 2

Americanization

TVP 007

August 24, 1982 (taped)

Starting. Marker. Go ahead.

712. Take four.

Clapsticks.

Interviewer:

Let's uh, let's go on to your experience, as, as I think the

city-countryside thing for discussion.

Bumgardner:

When the Americans arrived in Vietnam, in force with the advent of the

advisory effort, and the uh, larger, uh, economic mission, uh, group of

civilians, there wasn't really very much expertise among uh, this group

of people. There wasn't very much to read about. You could read of the

French experiences and of, Malaysia who had a similar problem that was

somewhat successful in fact um in terms uh, of the military effort was

quite successful. Ah, the Americans were left to try to figure out what

it was they were going to advise the Vietnamese to do.

The Vietnamese have had some experiments, they have had uh, some

attempts to separate the Viet Cong or the Viet Cong families, uh, from

the uh, rest of the population who had no family or other ties,

political ties, uh, to the enemy. And this proved to be a failure

because the man assigned to do it would have had to gone into the Viet

Cong uh, part of, uh, the population division.

And this kind of an insurgence in this situation almost every family

and I'm speaking of the large family, the mothers, the grandfathers,

and the uncles and cousins, has uh, some of the people, some of their

family members, uh, in the enemy opposition. The next experiment was

almost directly taken from Malaya, and that was uh, removing people

from extremely remote uh, areas, that were under constant, uh

insurgent, harassment, or control, and bringing them to larger, new

villages, and they called this a agroville project.

Some twenty two or twenty three of these larger relocation uh,

projects, were instituted and while it accomplished uh, some of they

uh, aims, uh, it really made uh, the economic and the um, social life

of the villager, uh, quite painful , and quite often it simply

collected him into one spot where the enemy could uh, shot at him,

harass him, mortar him, uh, to to throw fear into him for joining

their, or at least being allowed uh, allowing himself to come to the

government side. So this failed. Uh, by the time the Americans

resources were available and the and the um, and the civilians who were

there to advise upon this pacification idea, pacification meaning the

the taking back of geographical and and um, and groups uh of population

from enemy control, and then eventually converting them to resources

for the government side or to their own side.

Interviewer:

Put it another way for me.

Bumgardner:

All right.

Interviewer:

Just say pas, just define pacification for me here so that we can...

Bumgardner:

Pacification essentially means the uh, deprivation of population and

areas to enemy control and enemy uses for resources, and converting the

people into a viable force to protect themselves and uh, of course

protecting the uh, the uh, ideals of uh, the host government, uh,

prefers, of adopting the democratic system as opposed to the Communist

one. Uh, this has uh, a mixture of military force and military ideas,

along with, uh, creating a uh, political system that is more amenable

to the wishes of the peasants, uh, some democracy involved, an economic

system that replaces the landlord and the money lenders, uh, with uh,

uh, a more Westernized or, uh, freer type of uh, uh, source of funds,

to for the villager to develop his own independent economic life.

Interviewer:

Let's um let's talk about the main elements of pacification, the ones

that you think are most important was land of the tiller the central

element or obviously there were dozens, but let's go one by one through

the ones that you think were most important in terms of being

successful.

Bumgardner:

To take back an enemy area or to pacify it, involves many many delicate

steps. It is a it involves a great deal of timing, and it uh, involves

a great deal of depth of knowledge of that particular village and their

history and what has happened to it. Regardless of what the mix are,

regardless of how you divide up what it is you do, it has to be done in

the correct phase. In the first phase, and I don't know what percentage

this is, but the first phase, and the first percentage your resources

you put in are military. You must exclude major enemy forces from the

area, and you must build a cofferdam around that area so that they do

not reintroduce themselves midway through your, your process.

And after you've brought security to the people, to where they can

depend upon, uh, their tomorrows, depend upon the government's word,

uh, then you begin a process of economic and political building so that

they can become self sufficient and do their own protection. There is

not enough soldiers in any army of the world to protect everyone, and

you can see the logic of this just in plain mathematics. You would need

one soldier to protect one individual, uh, you would have half the

people in the army, and you don't have that kind of resources.

So the people must protect themselves. Eventually, you can provide a

main force, you can provide a constabulary force over a period of time,

but the end purpose of this pacification is to prove to the uh, rural

people that their interest in their future lies with the government and

not with the Viet Cong.

Interviewer:

The way giving people security, the way the word is is used, ah,

implies that it would be popular for them to be secure from the NLF

when in fact a lot of areas, it might be unpopular. Um, isn't security,

isn't the definition of security in those terms of, in in government

terms, security for a new set of people with power and a new set of

ideas?

Bumgardner:

Ah, security is a tricky word in a rural, insurgent area. Ah, it means

twenty-four hour security. When you initially move in and displace the

insurgent force, the Viet Cong, you must do it on a seven day a week,

twenty-four hour basis, because if you lapse for just one hour, the

enemy guerrilla force, political forces, can move back in to that

hamlet and punish anyone who cooperates with the government. So it has

to be per, pervasive, and it has to be constant. And you have to give

to the peasant uh, his uh, a feeling that this is permanent and it it

will be there as long as required.

In the mean time, uh, you educate him to the fact that uh, if he wants

the economic, political, social benefits of the program that you are

about to start after security is established, then he must be willing

to defend it and take some chances to defend a better way of life. And

you, so therefore you must give him a better way of life. If you simply

move in with military forces and uh, say OK we've done our job, now

here are weapons, you must protect yourself, it's a failure from the

very beginning because you haven't convinced him of the necessity of

giving up his life or fighting an enemy force uh, uh, because you

haven't put anything different into the pot, into the equation.

Therefore, you must go through stages of developing a better life for

him, educating his children, bringing the health of the village up to

par, providing money that he can borrow, uh, in order to buy his to buy

his seed grain and fertilizer, and increase his harvest so that the end

of the year he has a little extra money so he can use this extra money

to educate his children, so the children once educated can break out of

the of the the rural poor status and perhaps go one to be something

much greater than than would uh, normally be possible without the

education.

Health conditions in the villages

Interviewer:

Would you describe briefly, uhm, what the the uhm health conditions,

educational conditions, ah, just a thumbnail sketch of what uh, what it

is like...

Bumgardner:

Okay. In 19...

Interviewer:

A remote place with [inaudible] communications...

Bumgardner:

In ah, remote rural portions of, in remote rural portions of Vietnam in

the '65, '66 era, you found inadequate schooling from the point of view

that perhaps the teacher, uh, who taught the children were barely uh,

more literate, uh, than the children that she was teaching. Uh, you

found that the schoolhouse was simply a bamboo thatched roof, or a uh,

a poorly, uh, constructed, uh, uh, local edifice. Uh, you also found

that perhaps they were so limited, so many children and so few school,

uh, uh, chairs, that only some of the selected boys could ever go to

school.

Girls had little or no possibility of receiving any education. And that

education for a rural uh, child generally stops after the third grade,

and absolutely by the end of the fifth grade. So without this um

further education uh, he had literally no chance to break out of the,

uh, of social pattern that he and his grandfather were locked into. The

health of the uh, of the hamlets were pretty much the same. Twenty to

thirty miles...

Interviewer:

Let's start over...

Bumgardner:

The health of the um...

Interviewer:

Excuse me a second, is this noise outside coming over . .

Camera roll 713, take five. Clapsticks.

Bumgardner:

In terms of uh, what the rural health was like in those days, I've been

to village and hamlets in the Delta, remote areas where there were no

health rooms, and no one who was well versed in any kind of you might

even call first aid, so anyone who had dysentery which can be fatal,

uh, anyone who had high fever simply had to uh, wait it out, and they

were lucky if it turned out to be a minor uh, bacteria or a minor

virus, and it turned out to be something more serious meningitis or one

of the more serious disease they simply uh, had waited too long before

they could be transported some fifty or sixty kilometers ah, into a ah,

government facility.

Quite often when they got to the government facility, it was so crowded

they still had hours to wait or uhm, unfeeling medical personnel,

overworked who simply didn't pay too much attention to them. It was the

very basic medical facilities that uh, that anyone could imagine. The

problems of uh, mobile medical teams were also magnified by the

culture, that you might have a doctor to come around to a village once

a month, or once every three months, and treat everyone ah, from as an

outpatient. He would find someone who ah, needed medication for a

chronic condition and he would leave the medicine, and tell them and

instruct them how this was suppose to be taken.

Invariably because of the naﶥt頯f the people, by the end of the

third day they'd taken all of the medicine because if one teaspoon is

good uh, five teaspoons must be better and as a result, quite often

they had side effects from the medicine. So what was needed, of course,

was um, uh, medicine that was uh, closer to the people ah, and was more

sophisticated in in terms of uh, of uh, of of public health uh,

considerations, which up through '65 existed only in the cities and the

major towns and the major villages.

The Pacification Program's problems of leading and accessing the villagers

Interviewer:

Let's go on to uh, the other pillars of the pacification program that

were uhm, that we felt were important.

Bumgardner:

Traditionally, uh, the village was organized ah, ah, in sort of a

paternal uh, way. Uh, the richest or most important man, uh, was

generally uh, designated as the village chief or the village leader, or

he was appointed by the government, or if the government did not trust

that village for some previous reason, some past reason, they would

send in an outsider, a person not even from the village in order to be

their village chief, and you can't imagine the immense power this gave

this person.

Uh, generally, under a non-democratic system, everything that came into

the village came through his hands, so quite obviously his friends and

his family in most cases, benefited first, uh, from any of the

resources the government uh, was able to uh, to uh, share with the

people. Uh, service, public service, was an unknown word. It's simply a

public servant, simply didn't see himself in Vietnam as a person who

served ah, a constituency. He was there to dominate them, to carry out

central orders, to direct the peoples' daily lives and as a result, a

conflict developed between the population and ah, the government

officials.

The Viet Cong, understanding this because they were from the people,

would not use the word, the same word in Vietnamese to to designate

their leadership or their ah, people ah, who served in the hamlets,

they called their people "cadre" or "canbol", to differentiate between

the Vietnamese word which meant government official, because the people

felt so badly and so estranged from normal civil servants, the Viet

Cong didn't want to be mistaken or identified that they were simply

another government, so they changed the very word which they called ah,

ah their administrators.

Later on, after the Americans and the host government, uh, learned a

little bit more about how one uh, changes the minds of people, how one

pacifies them, uh, they developed a very large cadre of nationalist uh,

civilians who they called cadre also. Oh, they lived and administered

among the uh, uh people of the hamlets and villages much in the way

that the Viet Cong had been doing for the past fifty years.

Interviewer:

Let's go on to to ah, describe the dimensions of the problem, ah, from

the government...from our point of view.

Bumgardner:

The uh, tremendous geographical and uh, human uh, dimensions of this

problem in Vietnam uh, just can't be overstated. It's a country with

many jungles, many inaccessible areas, uh, few roads and has a spine of

uh, high mountains running down uh, uh, the central part of the

country. You have, you had approximately twelve thousand populated

hamlets and villages within the country, and they were separated by

miles, quite often, from from their neighbors. As a result, uh, you

needed to have some type of pacification program that built upon

success. There were not enough forces, not enough resources, not enough

cadres, not enough anything to go out and simultaneously try to pacify

or secure twelve thousand hamlets and villages at the same time. You

had to do it piecemeal.

Interviewer:

And mention uh what portion of the population that rural society was,

why...it was important.

Bumgardner:

Ah, these twelve thousand hamlets and villages comprised about ninety

percent of the population. There were only ah, ah, a small number of

really large cities in Vietnam, ah, major portion of the population,

ah, lived in the countryside. As the war went on, and the security in

many areas could not be guaranteed by the government, as the enemy used

more and more, uh, terror tactics, on uh, uh, hamlets, that uh, like

Catholic hamlets and uh, hamlets that would not uh, readily go along

with their domination.

Uh, the urban people or the urban population increased significantly,

perhaps doubling ah, because they sought safety, ahh, in the urban

areas they sought economic, uh, uh, advancement, and uhm, there were

some social mobility later on in the in the cities as opposed to the

countryside, they were able to lose themselves among the large uhm,

migrant population.

Interviewer:

What was the proportion of that ninety percent of the population, and

that was open to government influence and...

Bumgardner:

In trying to determine where the loyalties ah, ah, were among the rural

people, I might say that ninety five percent of the urban people who

had lived there over any length of time, eventually came to see that

the future, ah, was with the non-Communist world, it was with their

government, perhaps their government was imperfect and corrupt, and at

times oppressive, but they saw the other side, they saw the insurgents,

and the Communist as a long term greater threat.

As a result, the people who eventually came to the cities in great

numbers, and who stayed there and who worked and who prospered a little

bit more than if they would have stayed if they'd stayed in the

countryside, eventually chose, and I think the proof of this pudding is

that most of our refugees who have left Vietnam since the takeover have

have come from the uh, mostly the urban the urban areas. Going back to

the uh, uh, population control picture of uh, whose allegiance belonged

to whom, and early '55, I had occasion to visit many of the hamlets in

the Delta, in the central area, and found that there were huge areas,

like the whole, almost the entire province of Quang Ngai in central

Vietnam, that couldn't ever be pacified in my opinion, because almost

every family had a father, or or a close relative in the Viet Cong.

Now in trying to turn that family against the Viet Cong, against their

uh, relatives and bringing them over to overtly support the government

and to literally take up arms against their relatives was an almost

impossible tra--task. Many times the government, backed by the

Americans, uh, uh, attempted to pacify these areas, but I term, I, I

want, I prefer to call them occupations of those areas, which is about

as good as you can do. Uh, changing their mind was almost impossible.

Uh, there were many other areas, uh, like that.

Six great areas, there were six great areas that you had to put in the

same category as Quang Ngai and Ca Mau the most southern province in

the country, because these are the relocation areas after the Geneva

Convention of where about one hundred thousand of the former Communists

troops that fought against the French, bivouacked for up to a year. And

during their time there they married into the local population, made

propaganda to such an extent that these areas were almost permanently

converted ah, to insurgent-oriented people.

Now, if we exclude those areas and we go back to the other parts of the

country, in '55 I found that there was about a fifty-fifty uh,

division, that about half of the people were anti-government and

pro-Liberation Force, and the other people were either neutral, and we

have say that in terms of sometimes neutrality is a vote for the

insurgents, cause they're unwilling to supply intelligence or unwilling

to to cooperate with the government. Uh, but at least they were denying

their resources, uh, to the insurgents. Uh, due to some problems on the

insurgent side, and some minor successes with the government...

Interviewer:

We have clean through...

VIETNAM

F. BUMGARDNER (cont.)

SR 2712

This is a head of SR 2712 to go with the head of Camera

Roll #714. WGBH, Vietnam Project, Americanization TVP 007. Continuing

the interview with Ev Bumgardner, August 24, 1982.

Camera Roll 714. Take six. Clap.

Interviewer:

Can you generalize now about what conditions were in '66 in terms of...

Bumgardner:

In general early '54, '55 you might have had half of the rural people

supporting the insurgents giving them their their cooperation, and the

other half ah being neutral or at least in some way supporting the

government. By late '65 early '66 through some problems on the

insurgent side, making some mistakes, perhaps the overuse of terror,

and some small successes on the government side and doing the right

thing, they probably effected a ten percent shift of ah...

[Phone rings in background]

Bumgardner:

By late '65 or early '66 I would say a slight shift towards the

government had occurred. Ah. Principally due to some problems that the

insurgents had. Perhaps the overuse of terrorism, ah, some small

successes the government had had in key areas around major cities doing

some things right for the first time that you had this ten percent

shift. So, probably a a 60-40 division of rural people towards the

government.

Terrorism of the villages by the Viet Cong

Interviewer:

Would you tell us what terrorism is just recently. How the VC used it.

What their ends were?

Bumgardner:

In most cases the Viet Cong used terrorism in a very careful manner.

They used it as a scalpel instead of a, of a hatchet, that terrorism

was a threat they held over ah the government apparatus. If you keep

killing a village chief you get to the point of where no one will take

the job of coming in to to ah run that ah that ah village, or no local

person will step up and take the leadership, or you can use the threat

of assassination ah to to ah let him sit in place but be entirely

inactive, ah be a village chief in name only but not exert his control

and to give perhaps even false and misleading information about the

security of the place ah back to the government, ah, to indicate that

it's more in government control than it is so that the government does

not send security forces there.

But, the threat of force and the willingly, willingly using the force

is a tremendous tool in in destabilizing ah ah a sitting government.

Ah. In order not to alienate too many people, the Viet Cong would use

it very carefully principally on ah people who had been recruited as

intelligence agents in the villages and hamlets. Ah. The apparatus that

were there to represent the government, and in some cases ah villagers

who tended to espouse pro-government or anti-communist sympathies. The

average villager who simply was neutral. Ah. Who simply bent with the

wind like the bamboo was very safe ah from the terrorist because he was

he was not the target. He was ah a ah a a non sequitur in this

equation. As a result he was safe by being neutral.

Interviewer:

Let's, before we forget it, go back to... give us your personal example

of... knowledge of VC areas and VC troops and how you ha...

Bumgardner:

Well, my personal knowledge of of the VC ah modus operanda how they

operated and how they obtained their success and what their political

and social messages were came to me beginning about early 1964 or I'm

sorry late '64 right after ah ah... My personal observations on the

modus operanda and the methods of operation of the of the Viet Cong

began to take shape in late 1964 after the Diem government fell.

Ah. I was asked along with some friends, both Vietnamese and Americans

to form up what you might call survey teams to go go into the hamlets.

It was first chance we had had to really do anything of a of a nature

where we could operate without a a large government presence which, of

course, tended to make the villager ah apprehensive. We went in ah for

a period of six months and interviewed people. Lived in the hamlets

with the people. Ah.

We took along medics who held ah ah medical call for ah minor ill,

illnesses that occurred in all hamlets and talked to the people at

length to develop a a rational of what had happened to the Diem

government, why it was unpopular, why the people gave their support to

the enemy and in so doing we ah gained a great deal of information

about ah ah ah his program and his cadre and ah how he ah managed to

destabilize the government. We called this the Long An Survey.

Ideological warfare in rural South Vietnam

Interviewer:

Do you want to mention a specific instance of going down into the

dungeon with those people, was that particularly revealing for you?

Bumgardner:

We did this in a number of ways. We we did these surveys or had these

long talks with villagers and and people in rural areas by going to

their homes, by quite often going to the prisons where some of the Viet

Cong were were held prisoner and one particular case in in a a very

remote area of Long An I was on the spot in the district town when they

brought in a rather elite platoon of propaganda people, armed

propaganda team, in fact, and they had them in an old French dungeon

and the value to me of talking to these people before they had been in

captivity overcame my reluctance to crawl down into this dungeon and

and ah sit with them and talk with them for hours.

As a result of of experiences like this a number of us developed for

the first time a really ah truly understanding of what kind of

apparatus we were working against and how they how they managed to do

what they did with so meager ah resources. Other occasions ah ah took

us to the schools in Vietnam ah where with a an edict from the local

province chief we would have the senior or the most ah mature of the

males and females in the classes there come away with us to the

athletic fields out of teacher's sight and we'd sit with children and

quite often from children ah great truths emerged and ah ah old friends

like Douglas Ramsey who spent seven years as a captive with the Viet

Cong ah later in his life.

We used to sit with the children and ah find out what it was their

parents talked about and why they and many of their friends would join

the Viet Cong and ah what the government had to do to regain their

loyalties. Many of them told us during these interviews that they were

going to graduate from that school and then go off and join their

friends in the Viet Cong.

Interviewer:

What was your your feeling ah at the time ah about that challenge as an

American ah working in Vietnam? Did you feel that optimistic, did you

feel we could do the job?

Bumgardner:

I felt like all of the Americans who were assigned there and who stayed

there any time. If you had any political or moral qualms about being

engaged in this type of new warfare you soon left. Those who stayed

tended to be the most dedicated people. That is, people who could

accept this challenge, who felt ah that again ah it was a long

proposition ah where we had to support the Vietnamese over a long

period of time to almost any lengths. Ah. We couldn't lose this, that

for international as well as domestic reasons we couldn't lose this.

This was as much a war as say WWII or Korea to us. It was a different

kind of of conflict. But it was one we had to master, and as a result,

I accepted ah the ah part of the job that ah was ah pretty difficult ah

for most Americans to accept from a moral or a political point of view.

Ah. Literally taking part in a conflict ah which was not in a a direct

way involving the security of the United States, of being a a surrogate

ah government representative sometimes. It even amounted to the fact

that ah we were involved with our counterparts to the point of where we

were the only communication chain from the lower level back to the

central government to get things done.

We were doing a job for village chiefs and district chiefs that they

couldn't do for themselves because of their own bureaucracy, and in

that way, it was an invigorating ah circumstance. It was a a a ah most

unusual situation which you could be in and and from the standpoint of

seeing micro and macro economics at work, of seeing a developing,

budding political system, of seeing democracy ah a context which was

not ah very well known in Vietnam being introduced to see what its

problems were, of trying to get it introduced, or trying to get people

interested in electing their own officials, setting up economic systems

like a rural bank, land reform which was fraught with many problems,

land reform being a a method of of increasing social mobility and

economic mobility, taking the land away from the vested gentry and

breaking it up and getting it to the people, and then being able to

institute a government program allowing them ah ah credits and monetary

flexibility so that the production didn't go down.

So that you could keep production up and so forth. These were

fascinating things from an intellectual standpoint and ah and

invigorating from the point of view that to my knowledge very few

Americans have ever faced this in the past. We've had wars that

involved tanks and airplanes and and basic ideologies but not this kind

of of delicate...Out?...

Military and political security as means of the Program

Turning. Camera Roll 715. Take eight. Claps.

Interviewer:

Let's start with the...

Bumgardner:

By '66 when we started what I think was the the most important

pacification program that ah ah we started ah in the in the entire

period where we had come together and understood the various things

that goes into pacification from the point of view of first security,

uh then democratic evolution of the political system, making the

changes that were necessary. Ah. Of trying to sail in front of the Viet

Cong revolution with an evolution of ourself. But, an evolution that

would ah mature in in a time that would satisfy domestic politics in

the United States.

We all felt under a tremendous time constraint from our our superiors

that if we developed a program which we thought would work, in five

years we were pushed to make it bear fruit in two years because we were

working against this this backlash developing here in the United

States. The the opposition at home which really had nothing to do with

the Vietnamese directly but it had a heck of a lot to do with our

ability to stay and see it done and continue to have the American

taxpayer put up the resources.

Ah. We attempted to convince the Vietnamese government that main force

troops are necessary but what's really more important for the security

of the people local people are regional forces and popular

force--people drawn from the local population properly trained properly

armed who provide close and day and night support. They live there.

They're the families ah of the villagers there, and that they stay

there forever because if you move the regular army in from fifty miles

away the peasants knew that eventually the army was going back to their

base and then everyone who had cooperated would have a visit from the

Viet Cong enforcer.

So, we were successful in developing this paramilitary force ah

beginning in in the sixties and to the late '60s, '70s ah because we

put so much effort in it. We put so much force on the Vietnamese to

accept this idea and we had the resources committed so that we could

raise a tremendous number of local military forces. The follow-on or

third phase of security then was to get the old men and the young

children of the hamlet to take an active part in their security as

lookouts. Gave them old weapons and we didn't expect them to fight the

Viet Cong units but when they saw a VC unit approaching or they were

aware of it they would fire the guns into the air, draw attention to

the fact there was infiltration going on.

Make them do a an overt act which forever put them on the side against

the insurgent and for the government. In the economic field ah we

introduced agricultural credits and the most successful thing we ever

did I think was to introduce what's called the Honda rice, a particular

type of rice ah developed in the Philippines which when properly

fertilized developed tremendous yields. Four hundred percent increase

in in the peasant's reward for his labor and it was not a proto

periodic rice as the indigenous rice, that is to say, it didn't depend

upon the lunar ah conditions ah to mature.

It was simply a a certain amount of time in the ground and you had a a

crop. So, they could three crop their paddies a year. With the increase

yield you can see that they soon had enough surplus to buy a radio and

a Honda bicycle or a Honda motorcycle, hence its name. Ah. That was

successful. It depended, however, on on high fertilization ah backup,

that you had to introduce fertilizer and distribute it. Ah. The

democracy part of it or the self-government part of it was more

difficult.

Peasants for generations had been told what to do. Suddenly to say hey,

hey democracy is here. Elect your own village chief and your own

administrators. Quite a new idea. So, they tended to look to the

traditional leaders to tell them who to elect (chuckle) and quite often

it was really the same people who would oppress them because they

didn't know what else to do. In a few cases in some cases the old

rascals were thrown out and somebody new was put in, but in general the

elective process takes a long time.

It takes literally generations before you can build an understanding of

democracy and to have democracy work ah in a way that is is positive

for your political situation, and the village level in Vietnam, the

villa--the hamlet and village, the district, the province and the

national level represents the flow of power back and forth. And, the

Vietnamese were never willing to let democracy go as far as electing

the next level of government, the district chief who really had

tremendous control because he had control of all the forces in his area

and he who controls the gun really controls.

So as a result we had these experiments in self government ah

successful a few times, unsuccessful in many times and never getting

beyond the lowest level of government. Whenever it seemed that this

political process was getting out of control someone some village chief

or in the case of the central government where you had a national

assembly popularly elected, got too powerful and challenged the

government something happened to these people. They were out of power,

out of resources, or in the case of a a famous Vietnamese, Tran Ngoc

Chau who was a a ah firebrand in the Thieu government ah he was sent to

jail for contact with his brother who was on the other side.

So, the government while going along with the general concept of a

freer more liberal ah type of political environment did not really

believe you could bring over a short period of time a free choice or

democracy to the rural population without the government itself being

displaced. Ah. As a result, we made a little head road here but not

very much. The, by the end of '66 in this era of the great pacification

effort, the integrated pacification effort. We had taken back and

secured a great number of people ah from the Viet Cong.

We had made roads secure for ah unescorted travel. Ah, we had had

increased those roads by 500 to 1000 percent in some areas where a

person could reasonably drive in his jeep ah in a remote area without

expecting to be ambushed or blown up. This allowed the administrators

from the government to bring supplies, to come and bring leadership ah

ah to the lower levels. It allowed the people to move out of the areas

when they had to for commerce, to move their resources out to sell

them. Ah.

To receive ah medical aid and so forth. And, during those those days of

the big pacification program ah Vietnam looked like it was ready to

take off. It looked like we had attained our in, and then, of course,

that was ah stepped upon by the famous Tet Offensive and after that we

had to start all over again because we had lost the security umbrella

around all of these these gains.

Exigency of the Program's implementation

Interviewer:

Did ah...were we ah...just mention the ah the principal obstacles in in

your mind whether on our side or the Vietnamese side in ah making it

take off.

Bumgardner:

Okay.

Interviewer:

Was there underestimation of the of the ah the nature of the problem

from a policy level ah or complete...

Bumgardner:

There are a few basic problems. There are a few basic problems in

implementing a pacification program. One is from the the strategy

concept. What you're asking the ruling gentry of the country to do. The

three to five percent of the people who control ah all facets ah of of

a country in the throes of an insurgency. You're asking them to be very

effective, non-bureaucratic, non-corrupt. Don't think about yourself.

Think about the country. So that when you are successful you have

displaced yourself.

They're, that that vested gentry can look forward to their children and

their grandchildren, their great grandchildren benefiting from this

hard fight against the communists, if you don't change the system. You

keep them in power and they're they're family members in power. If

they're very successful and you have social mobility then the rulers of

the future are going to come from all aspects of life. You're going to

use the resources of all the people and through a democratic process

th--some of the better ones are going to rise up and take over the

positions they hope to reserve for their grandchildren.

So, you're asking a man to work hard, risk his life, fight the enemy so

you can be, you yourself be displaced. In Confucianism terms that's

kind of a contradiction. Okay. The second thing you have is the trying

in a short period of time ah to make a bureaucratic neutral type of

administration. The public servants take fire and become active and do

their job in an enthusiastic way. Because when you're fighting a war of

attrition or you're fighting a protracted war ah the idea is to

survive.

As a soldier told me who would not move very quickly towards the enemy

dug in a in a fence line. He said you've only been here a few years.

I've been here all my life. Why do you want me to rush to my death

towards that fence line. They will be in that fence line next month and

the month after and and many times it will come back to that fence

line. I simply want to survive. I've never forgotten that. Well, this

this applies not only to the soldier but it applies to the civil

servant. Ah.

It is unknown in Vietnamese culture for the lower echelon administrator

to make suggestions up to the boss or to say no, boss, you're wrong.

Here's a better way to do it. You're only there to take orders from top

downward. So, as a result implementation of programs are very clumsy

very slow and very, inefficient. Quite often the implementer not

knowing really why he's doing certain things.

Interviewer:

And why....Let's, why don't we start again.

Beep, beep, beep.

End of SR 2712.

VIETNAM

BUMGARDNER (cont.)

SR 2713

This is a head of SR 2713 to pick up with Camera Roll 716 for WGBH.

Vietnam Americanization, TVP 007 and we're continuing with an interview

with Everett Bumgardner on August 24, 1982.

Turning. Marker. Camera Roll 716. Take nine. Claps.

Interviewer:

Start with the US as...

Bumgardner:

After we developed an expertise in pacification and an understanding of

the Vietnamese mentality and the limitation of the government's forces

for implementing change, we had on our own side a a tremendous ah

problem. We had all of these eager young Americans who spoke the

language, understood what they were doing, working with Vietnamese they

liked and admired but always under this push from Washington to get

things done quicker. When the Viet Cong talk about a protracted war

they mean just that.

That one of the most important weapons they have is time. When they

talk about fighting a twenty, forty, fifty year war most Americans

laughed and scoffed. That was funny to them. It wasn't for the Viet

Cong. They thoroughly were willing to fight fifty years. They would

wait us out. If we were successful one year and we thought everything

had been completed and retired they'd be back the next year and undo

what we had done and they were willing to do this fifty times, if

necessary. That's the way they were indoctrinated.

We had pressures on us from Washington. Every day. Every week. Every

month. To get the figures, to get the numbers. How many enemy have you

eliminated? How many hamlets have you taken back? How many roads have

you secu--have you secured. Get this thing over and looking in back of

the the reason for this was, of course, that a protracted war would

become unpopular eventually and we'd lose the support of the American

people and we'd lose the resources. Get it done while you can.

Make hay while the sun shines. But there are some things like an

evolution of a of a system of ah changing the nature of a people, of

having a people who were denied access to a weapon all their lives

suddenly have a weapon thrust upon them say now it's okay. You're

supposed to defend yourself with this. This is a very long process.

It's one really that takes a a bit of ah brain washing as the communist

used the term. Of convincing people ah of working with them, of

educating them.

Starting with the young and and ah bringing them forward so they where

they accept these things as normal requirements on a a citizenry. Ah.

We would have something that would ah be successful in a pilot project

because in a pilot project we had no focus upon us. The, the

administration the government, the American government wasn't looking

closely at us. The press wasn't reporting on what we were doing and we

could take our time.

So that the pilot project was very successful. Then in the analysis of

this, the administration, the leadership would buy this and say now you

have to mature this thing, you have to make it bear fruit in a third of

a half or a fourth of the time. A baby takes nine months. You can't

have a baby in two months, and we kept feeding this back up the line

but we kept getting orders back down, it's got to be done faster,

faster, faster.

We, and John Vann is was a very close friend of mine who was killed in

the war there and he used to use a phrase almost everyday that we have

enough time to do something over ten times but we don't have enough

time to do something correct the first time and take ten years. Ah. He

was very aware of this problem of pressure to get things done quickly

even though often it was imperfect and had to be done over again the

next year.

Interviewer:

Put that a different way. Say it again. Ah...

Bumgardner:

Ah. Eager Americans knowing what to do and how to do it ah after being

there some time understood how long it would take ah to change

Vietnamese ways of doing things and then the Vietnamese have to believe

this and they had to be convinced that it was important in order to

sustain it after we left, after we were not immediately involved. This

took time.

Constantly from Saigon and from Washington to Saigon ah we got the

pressures ah to get things done more quickly to to ah speed up the

whole process so that we could wind this war up in a way that we wound

up WWII ah Korea and so forth. We were caught in this ah domestic

political ah problem of doing things quickly ah if not perfectly.

Escalation, Vietnamization, and the fate of the South

Interviewer:

Was the introduction of so many American troops ah a sign that we were

going to lose?

Bumgardner:

When the, had the introduction of the American troops ah the ah the

process ah had two of...let me start all over again.

Interviewer:

Do you want to answer that?

Bumgardner:

Yeah, I will. When the American troops were introduced ah there were

some good benefits to it and some bad benefits. The good benefits were

that in the in the immediate we got increased security. Ah. The bad

benefits ah were that we introduced into essentially a civil war ah

situation a foreign ah element. The French had been there as conquerors

and as as ah ah the exploiters of Indochina and as a result of that the

the communist nationalist forces formed a coalition to drive out the

foreigner, drive out the the French.

Ah. By reintroducing American troops in the minds of many

unsophisticated people it was almost like history repeating itself.

And, it became a good propaganda ah vehicle for the enemy. It also

escalated the war because North Vietnam simply wanted to maintain some

kind of parity in the size of their military forces as to those that

they were opposing, and as we raised the ante they were forced to raise

the ante so the war got larger and larger and more people got killed

and injured and there were more devastation and and in terms of the

size of the military operation it took much longer to put back a

populated area, to put it together again after two giant war machines

had clashed in in the in the area.

So, it had negatives and positives and the fact that we could never

stay there forever, and the fact that the American army was not going

to be an occupation army and stay there for twenty to forty or fifty

years almost had defeat built into it because as you exercise one limb,

which is the American army, at the expense of the other limb which is

the Vietnamese army, the one that exe... not exercises so much gets

weaker and I think Madame Binh put it very correctly when we announced

Vietnamization. She said...

Interviewer:

Say who she was.

Bumgardner:

Madame Binh was a political leader...

Madame Binh was a...

Interviewer:

Just say Madame who was...

Bumgardner:

Binh, who was a political spokesman for the ah the Viet Cong, said

after we announced Vietnamization that it would be admitting defeat ah

for the South Vietnamese because if two people could barely carry a

heavy stone when one set it down how could the other expect it to carry

it alone, and she was alluding to this very fact that ah ah the ARVN or

the regular army of Vietnam could not stand against this huge formal

army that had been built up to contest the American army, and as we

withdrew they were not going to withdraw also. They were going to keep

the size of their army. And, essentially, it moved in to the

traditional set peace battle and the country was lost by division to

division contact and not through the insurgents and the guerrillas at

the lower level.

Interviewer:

Cut.

Preceding this note to the editor is several seconds of reference tone

at minus etb and ah coming up is an interview with Vernon Gillespie and

we're going to... go to magazine 717 or Camera Roll 717.

Transcript

Transcript

Series: Vietnam: A Television History

Raw Footage: Interview with Everett Bumgardner [2], 1982

Contributing Organization: WGBH (Boston, Massachusetts)

AAPB ID: cpb-aacip/15-833mw28g9r

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Description

Credits: Publisher: WGBH Educational Foundation
Writer: Bumgardner, Everett

AAPB Contributor Holdings: WGBH
Identifier: 79594220e2d167a5db2baf962ea4d70a6ad6ffa3 (ArtesiaDAM UOI_ID)
Format: video/quicktime
Color: Color
Duration: 01:15:28:11

Citations: Chicago: “Vietnam: A Television History; Interview with Everett Bumgardner [2], 1982,” 1982-08-24, WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed May 13, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-833mw28g9r.; MLA: “Vietnam: A Television History; Interview with Everett Bumgardner [2], 1982.” 1982-08-24. WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. May 13, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-833mw28g9r>.; APA: Vietnam: A Television History; Interview with Everett Bumgardner [2], 1982. Boston, MA: WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-833mw28g9r