Saigon Songs

From: Bill Hayton <bill.hayton@bbc.co.uk>

Date: 2008/10/30

Subject: [Vsg] Saigon Songs

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

There's a programme coming up on BBC Radio on Saturday which might interest members of vsg. It's presented by former foreign correspondent Martin Bell.

There's a fuller description at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7698055.stm But here's an excerpt from the page...

The Saigon Songs date from the Americans' hearts and minds campaign, between 1965 and 1967, as they poured their ground troops into Vietnam in support of the South Vietnamese government. The campaign was run by Maj Gen Ed Lansdale of the US Army, who by all accounts was a most remarkable man. His weapons were not guns but words and music, through which he hoped to persuade the people in the villages to resist the North Vietnamese communists and the home-grown insurgents, the Viet Cong. Maj Gen Lansdale gathered round him a group of singers and performers including Pham Duy, the most noted Vietnamese folk singer of the time, and Hershel Gober, a young lieutenant from Arkansas who was as handy with a guitar as he was with a rifle, and was serving with Vietnamese forces in the Mekong Delta.

It's possible to listen to programmes after they're broadcast at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/ The iplayer should work for people outside the UK so long as they have RealPlayer on their computer.

Bill Hayton