NER Washington forum; Filmmaker Felix Greene

I think perhaps the most disastrous policy that has ever been an NCAA did for the future of this country was enunciated by RASC when he a year or so ago said that the United States would create itself obligated to suppress every liberation movement where ever it occurred. Well this is just leading straight to disaster. The voice you just heard was that of British journalist and filmmaker Felix Greene author of the book a Vietnam Vietnam and maker of the film Inside North Vietnam. Felix Creme is our guest this week on Emmy our Washington forum a weekly program concerned with significant issues in the news. I'm national educational radio public affairs director Vic Sussman Felix Greene was born in England but has for many years made America his home. Mr. Green was at one time a senior official of the BBC and was for some years head of the BBC bureau in New York. His film Inside North Vietnam now being distributed nationwide was made during a three and a

half month visit to that country in 1967. First I asked Mr. Green to tell us about his film Inside North Vietnam. The film. Up is. An attempt to indicate to the American people what life in North Vietnam is like. I think it is is a sort of an appalling film both approaching and moving. According to me because when I see it it brings back memories of my time now and it shows. First of all the immense destruction that the bombing has caused in off Vietnam. And of course why the. The interest in it is great is because it has revealed to the American public I think for the first time that the idea that a military targets are being bombed is quite erroneous. I

show city after city that have been totally demolished without a single building that's standing. But on the other hand I did not want to give make a film that was just another horror film we don't know as we see enough of the battle scenes and war films every night on television. I was more interested in getting into the into a really intimate and revealing relationship with the ordinary people so I lived with them in the villages high. Project over the fields with of my showed what happens to a village and how it's organized under a bombing attack. What happens to the victim to the injured after tax. How they've evacuated the hospitals the big hospitals which have been destroyed in the cities have been evacuated to the countryside and how the small village clinics have taken over from the from the large hospitals. And so I think in the end you get both an impression of.

The terrible nature of this war and the extent of the damage but at the same time you also get the the spirit of the people which is very remarkable. All of us who have been now come back with the same story when Harrison saw as we went there the New York Times already Lockwood for life David Chandran and myself. I think there's the four of us who've been from here. We will come back pretty much with the same story that the bombing has. Consolidated opinion now. It is not a grim country you had a great deal of often reminded me a little of Britain during the Blitz you know there's a certain cheerful defiance that comes across people comes upon people when they're being attacked. And I think the film conveys all this. I think it comes also as a revelation to many people in this country the. The extreme simplicity of the life

95 percent of the population in North Vietnam are peasants living in small huts around rice paddies and. In bamboo made hats and I think the average wage in North Vietnam is only 15 cents a day. And you get the sense that what I'm seeing is an epic battle. Never before is so great a tonnage of bombs been dropped on so small a country and and yet here a group of group of farmers girls with rifles on their backs and schoolchildren helping all people and everybody and it sees people that is making the whole vast military base. Mystique of the United States lockups Felix Greene made his film in North Vietnam in 1967. I asked whether he thought things had changed much since that time.

From what I gather from other people who've been there it hasn't changed except that perhaps it's become even more rigid. That is the bombing has of course continued. There are no cities left now except apart from Hanoi and Haiphong all the cities are destroyed. And when I say destroyed I mean totally destroyed. No no buildings left. But I think the the life that this film depicts and the kind of spirit of the people is certainly there today. I know a professor from this country went and came back recently and he saw my film and he said this is exactly as I have seen it just in the last few weeks. So I think essentially the that the film is still accurate. Greene is an outspoken critic of U.S. policy in Vietnam. I asked him to give an explanation of just what he thought the U.S. was doing wrong in his opinion the United States represents 6 percent of the world's population its control something like 60 70 percent of the world's wealth.

And this in itself is is a pre-crisis situation because this preponderance of wealth. And power is going to be challenge than it is being challenge that's being challenged by the Soviet Union. It's been challenged by the growth of the industrial and political power of China. And it's being challenged in a more baffling way from a different quarter and that is by the poor people of this world. There are hundreds of millions of people in underdeveloped countries of the world who are determined not to be poor anymore who are determined not to go on grubbing around with a wooden plow giving 50 60 70 percent of their produce to some rich landlord living it up in the city. They're determined to have education. They're determined to have medicine if they fall ill. And the United States has reached the point where.

Like all great systems of the past it is attempting to hold what it has. The economy of the United States cannot continue as it's continuing now without large land areas of the world being within its orbit of control or influence. Just like the British when they ran their empire they had to have large land areas from which to draw materials and in which they could place us up this capital and it's the same the same is true today. And so what we're really seeing is a vast international system. Deciding that the area which we call the free world. Is going to remain as it is and not encroached upon by the other powers that are challenging it. And this is really the part of America's international dynamic. Now the British when they ran their international system called the British Empire. They

developed a rhetoric of justification which sounds rather quaint to us now. But looking back they used to call it the burden of the white man's burden. They would justify the empire by saying we were giving a. Good government to India and giving the benefits of a Christian religion to the heathen in Africa and so forth and in this way we we encouraged ourselves to say that what we're doing in the world is good. What we never talked about of course are the billions of pounds sterling that trickled back from the Empire to enhance the wealth of the of the United Kingdom of the the British Isles. Well that system is gone. But it's an American system that has taken its place and in some senses the the communists I think are quite correct and accurate when they call it an empire. It isn't imperialism as we saw it under the British because the Americans the American

nation has never wanted to take over political control over other countries. What it has taken over is commercial and financial and military control. And has been able to determine and then caress other nations almost as effectively as if a direct political control had been taken over some of these countries. So what we're seeing is what we have seen is the emergence of a new international system. And in order to protect this system the United States has had to develop a fantastic network of. Military Power. I think very few people in this country realize that. If you take all the bases in the world there are over 3000 American foreign bases that the American nation runs. It has a navy larger than in total tonnage than all the rest of the navies of the world put together. It has

happened. It has a three to one miss our superiority over the its nearest rival which is a Soviet Union. It has squadrons of bombers flying in the air. It's got a thousand hardened missile bases in this country with missiles. Preterit get it with nuclear warheads. Directed to China and the Soviet Union with a countdown timer of 30 seconds. Now this the world has never seen such a fast military establishment as the one that the United States has developed. Now what makes it difficult for us to realize is that first world we're fooling ourselves with. House rhetoric too. We call it the defense of freedom and democracy. This defense of the free world. Now democracy and freedom are great concepts and I don't want to denigrate them in any way. But I do denigrate and what I do challenge is the use of these words as in

false ways. If in fact we were ready if in fact we were deeply concerned about freedom and democracy we wouldn't have been supporting the people we have been supporting since the war. I mean just look at them. The true heroes the protest is the Sigmund Rees the Francos. The Chiang Kai-Shek ce. Dmn. And a bunch of them there and key. The dictators down in South America. Now I'm not one of these have the faintest glimmering of an idea of what either freedom or democracy mean. So what we're doing is just like the British did using. Rhetoric to justify our position. But the rhetoric has no relationship with reality. We are supporting these people not because they represent freedom and democracy but because they represent our interests. Which is a very different thing. So this it's in this kind of perspective that you've now got to see that the war in Vietnam.

If the world was soft tomorrow it wouldn't basically solve anything because I think we have other Vietnam's. As long as we go on. Identifying ourselves with the the rich. And the privileged Greeks like we have done. Just so long will we be having a rough moments on the hands. In South America and in Asia. I think perhaps the most disastrous. A policy that has ever been an NCAA TD for the future of this country was enunciated by RASC when he a year or so ago said that the United States would feel itself obligated to suppress. Every liberation movement wherever it occurred. Well this is just leading straight to disaster. What I think we should do is to remember that this country itself began with a war liberation. And that we should begin

to understand much more intimately and in a much more. Feeling rather than intellectual way. What the aspirations of the ordinary people in the world are. And begin to understand them and begin to understand also. That we are talking sheer nonsense when we say that grievances must be redressed without struggle. I think I've been to every underdeveloped country in the world almost and you should just. I mean if if you went to. The farmers in Peru for the miners in Bolivia or somewhere and said look I don't struggle but get it through your through a democratic process. You've got grievances and adjustment ones but they've got to be redressed in an orderly fashion they'd laugh in your face. Because they're subjected to very small very powerful oligarchy as they have no democratic machinery to which anything to be changed and they're ruled by a small segment of the public that

has about population that has not the slightest interest in the well-being of the people. They're interested in that in retaining their privilege and privilege position and their wealth. Now the tragedy of the United States is that it is allied itself. Since the war with these privileged groups. We've given the money we've given them aid we've given them tremendous amount of military equipment. Now that military equipment is used not to fight a war or anything like that but it is used to maintain these oligarchy is in a privileged position. So my position is very simply this and that is that there are a great many. Liberation movements that we should be supporting and not attacking. And I think the future of the United States as a great nation will depend on the extent to which it can understand that this is a revolutionary well that it can identify itself with revolution

and help change because revolution is afterwards only change that has been denied too long and that it has to it has to come through violence. If we can anticipate the changes that are necessary then the revolution might not be a violent one. But I think we as long as we go on this being this tiny island of. What to most people in the world it's unimaginable wealth in a vast world of poverty. Just so long will we be having to fight to maintain a privileged position. And it's because we're trying to maintain a position of power. In the Far East that we're fighting this Vietnam War. It isn't that we're getting rough out of Vietnam. Obviously this was costing us far more than any commercial wealth would ever get out of that little country. But what we are indicating by this war is first of all that we're going to hoard what

we have regardless of what the people themselves think. And also we're going to we're indicating that wars of revolution will not succeed. And we're determined to prevent them from succeeding and that the area with you know commercial and military and financial control will remain in our control. Cuba contracted out. China before that contracted out. The Vietnamese are wanting to contract out and this is where we drew the line and said no. So the significance of the Vietnam War goes far beyond. The. Future of. Vietnam itself. What is being fought out in Vietnam. Is the position of the privileged and the wealthy and which we are the leading. The Leader. Against the poor in the dispossessed. And I think it's time that we began to understand the dynamics of power in the well and.

Began to understand that the future security of the United States does not. Does not depend on our military power because military power in Vietnam has shown that it is powerless but it will depend on the extent to which we can understand the aspirations of the ordinary people of the world. We hear a great deal about the so-called communist conspiracy to take over the world. Critics of U.S. policy call this a fabrication something left over from the State Department days of John Foster Dulles. What does Felix Greene think of the Communist Conspiracy. Well I think this country as a whole is paranoid about communism. This country is more frightened of communism than any other country that I know. It's least it's less likely to go communist than any country that I know. But there are more people frightened of communists. I mean the Communist Party what is it a miserable little what 5000 members or something. Half of them are FBI agents or whatever the story is. I mean there's no possible danger of internal subversion in a

country. Communism operates effectively where there is disorder and where there is no. There's no hope for the grievances. Describe Vietnam. Yes yes it does. Yes it does and what what what has happened you see is that the communist particular the Chinese have I think analyze the world situation much more accurately than we have. They have identified specifically and very badly and in all their actions with the under-privileged with the with the poor of the world. And so communism is using the grievances of the world. Now I think if we came to an understanding of what these grievances are and what the adjustments have to be. And what adjustments have to be made. I think we have more to offer than communis have. But we have nothing to offer

the ordinary people. If we go on supporting the oligarchies that are suppressing the people. And that's why I always talk about the Communist International Conspiracy and so forth. To a certain extent this is correct because they have you. They realize that this is a revolution of wealth and then identify themselves with a revolution. And that's why to a certain extent the the domino theory is correct. If the United States gets out of its pushed out of Vietnam. It will give a tremendous impetus to the left wing movements I think all around the world. But I think we should be supporting those movements instead of the communists that's being smarter than we have. They've realized the passions and the tremendous vitality that has been sitting in the well. They may sense the sense of the urgency now.

Most people in this country don't because we live very comfortably. I hate to say this but I think even the poor in this country. Are not poor by world standards. They are poor by American standards but they're not poor by African standards or by Asian standards. And so even here it's extremely difficult I think for anybody who's not been outside this country or only to you know London and Paris and so forth it's extremely difficult I think for American people to understand the passion that a determination of the great multitudes of the poor to improve their lot. Now the communists have come as movements have allied themselves and recognize this passion for helping it. And they have every right to by default if we default on that then then then they have every right to succeed. But it's a failure of our own comfortable

Anglo-Saxon Weston. Comfortable. Selves it's a failure of our imaginations to do that that have led to the predicament that we're facing today. Green is one of the few Western journalists who have interviewed Holcim him I asked him to give his impressions of the North Vietnamese leader when I've interviewed a great many of the so-called great leaders of the world and. I think it is probably one of the most impressive of those that I've met in a paradoxical way because there is nothing to be impressive about him. You know there's no aura of the great man you know most of the so-called Great men have you know they strut around as if they're conscious of being a great you know all that I think. And you know people back away from music come into a room in this way you know and he had a great man comes. There was nothing of that sort of tour with Ho. I mean when I

first met him I was setting up my cameras with I was going to do a television interview with him. And I was setting up my camera and lights and so forth for the television interview. With the help of some Vietnamese technicians in. Round the corner came round the door came this little old man. With a rumpled suit and gym shoes or sandals on his feet. You know I looked at him and for a moment I thought it was the janitor who had come in to help. But it was mean and he said hello to me and went straight off to the cameraman and the other people and began to chat with them in the most informal way. He's this great simplicity of character I felt with him shrewd of course he's been a revolutionary and shrewd but good sense of humor. But essentially a very simple man I can understand why they call him Uncle Ho. He talks English by the way he learned English while he was washing dishes at the Carlton Hotel in London as a boy.

What is it like to cover a war to be in a city under aerial bombardment. Green is still a British subject but lives in California and has applied for American citizenship. So the bombs that fell around him in North Vietnam were bombs from his adopted country. How did it feel when of course from a technical point of view it's difficult you know to get one's batteries recharged or have to run when the cameras from Jeep batteries and of course the moving around in North Vietnam is difficult because all the bridges have been knocked out you have to wait until night when they put temporary pontoon bridges over the rivers and things like that. But the them the most impressive and. I think the most impressive moments that I remember them not one was actually jumping into cover from a bombing raid but it's to be in a village or small hamlet or something like that when the air raid warning begins and the voice of the woman sounds through the loudspeaker and it usually goes something like this she announces that

some brains have been seen 25 miles or 25 kilometers away and appeared to be heading in that direction so she suggests to the villagers to get near that area shelters which are just holes in the ground. And please be sure she says that no children are left. Then there's a pause and she says. The planes are now about 15 kilometers away please get near your air raid shelters make quite sure that there are no children on their own and get into your area shelters and just stay outside. We will keep you informed and then there's another one there by 10 kilometers way and you'll see the same thing but always make sure that no children are on their own. And then the last announcement is something like this. The U.S. says now this is about five kilometers away they're still coming to us heading our way we do not know where the target or not. And but we suggest you get into your air raid shelters make sure that no one's in the street. This is the last announcement. Good luck. And then there is dead silence as the whole little hamlet is it well holds its breath its most

dramatic moment and everybody peers up from their shelters and then you hear the drone of the planes coming and if you look up you wonder if they're going to circle around the village and come down to attack it or whether they're going on. Of course if they do come round down to attack it then you duck into your hole and there's these tremendous explosions one. And before they go off and then people climb out battery charges to see who's been killed who's been injured people in charge of the medical clinics run off for their little stretchers made of bamboo pick up those who are injured take them to the little village clinic. I tell you this this these attacks on the villages are to me of some the most tragic and most moving moments of my time in North Vietnam. Felix Greene is one of a number of Western journalists to be admitted to North Vietnam. David schönbrunn Lee Lockwood Charles Collingwood were others. I was there I asked any consistency in the way they were received by the North Vietnamese people when I was

received like Harrison Saulsbury was and Lee Lockwood in. David Chandler an extraordinarily well they have. It's very difficult for people to believe this but they have a friendly feeling towards the Americans. I've never met anybody who was never entertained by anybody even simple villagers without them saying do send our best wishes to the American public. Now this is difficult for us to understand until I explain that they are very political people. They do they realize that the United States is going through a particular phase in in CAPTUS way of thinking in the communist way of thinking going through a particular phase of advanced capitalism where these things are essential. I mean there are workings out of the system but they don't blame the Americans for being part of that system. And so this they really have a genuine or a good treatment towards Americans. I mean it's an interest amazing thing both in China and in North Vietnam. I was in a small village in Tanwar province which is a very heavily bombed part province in North Vietnam and I

was being entertained by the village leader and he had just filled his glass with my in my room at the table with some rice wine and he was lifting his glass let us drink to the Great American people and just at that moment when the evening bombing it began all around but he never paused for a moment and there we were with the bombs falling around this man drinking to the health of the of the American people. Now we say this is fake. This is put on for public relations. But when you've been there you know for three months as I was on I had a sense I was with last week or before the end came to believe it was genuine because it is said with some feeling. And you see it from people who are not you know they're simple people too. They cannot all be told to do this. You've been listening to a conversation with British journalist and filmmaker Felix green. Our guest on any are a Washington forum a weekly program concerned with significant issues in the news. I am national educational

radio public affairs director of the exhaust MN inviting you to be with us again next week for another edition of NE our Washington forum. This program was produced by WMUR American University Radio in Washington D.C. This is the national educational radio network.