The Shadow of Arms (30 page)

“The following year, Secretary of State Acheson announced that America was providing aid to France in order to relieve some of the direct costs incurred in confronting the Viet Minh. Weapons began to be shipped in by air to Saigon. A month later, President Truman's military aid advisory group arrived and started handling the distribution of bombers, tanks and ammunition used by the French to kill Vietnamese. From then until the defeat of the French in 1954, over four years, America supplied military equipment valued at 2.6 billion dollars. To assist the French colonialists who dreamed of restoring their imperial dominion in Indochina, America took upon itself 80 percent of the war expense.

“The Vietnamese people could not understand why the Americans, on one hand, were helping them by building roads and supplying food and medical supplies, and on the other hand were at the same time trying to kill them by giving cannons and guns to the French. After their defeat at Dien Bien Phu, France lost its suzerainty over Indochina. In an attempt to avoid criticism for colonialist intervention, America went on granting aid under the rubric of SEATO, the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization.

“Once the Diem regime came into power, America gave annual aid of 270 million dollars, covering more than 80 percent of the entire budget of the South Vietnamese government and military. By also underwriting an annual trade deficit on a scale of 178 million dollars, America provided perfect support for the Diem regime. However, today there is not a single Vietnamese who doesn't know that this fortune was never spent on any worthy causes. Diem and his family opened secret accounts at a Swiss bank and used the money to increase their personal wealth.

“Diem's younger brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, stashed huge sums off money and used it to run his own personal secret police agency, expanding the prisons and political concentration camps, thus giving birth to the NLF. He made vast sums of money through the drug trade. Another brother, Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc, embezzled relief funds under cover of the church, and the third brother, Ngo Dinh Can, hoarded treasure of his own by controlling disposition of various maritime licenses and trading monopolies.

“Diem appointed his youngest brother ambassador to England and Madame Nhu's father was the ambassador to the United States. Only when the crisis reached a crescendo did America realize how foolish it had been to support the Diem regime. The so-called ‘aid dividend' was a term used quite openly and, as I understand it, the loss through corruption of about 200 million dollars in military aid was discussed in the US Senate. Therefore, as we promote this modest and precious program, we hope that the utilization of the aid will be decided by the residents themselves. We should let the villagers sit down together and decide for themselves whether the available funds should be used for wells, for agricultural projects, or for other things.”

Listening to this idiotic harangue by the chief of the agriculture section, Pham Quyen savagely crushed out his cigar. Like a mule wearing blinders, the man could only see what the mule driver wanted him to see. He never tried to think through the root causes for the diversion of the aid money, nor of the ulterior motives for the aid, but merely jabbered about the chronic corruption in its administration. Pham Quyen had been well aware of these problems since his student days when he was in a reading circle in Saigon. There was no longer any doubt that this man was a figure that both sides would drive out and shun. Major Pham felt like giving him, his senior from school, some advice, but after some thought decided to leave him as he was.

Pham Quyen emerged from his musings and lifted his head. The conversation had ground to a halt. It seemed that the AID representative in an ivory-colored suit had been talking in great detail about the corruption uncovered in the past at the provincial government office. Two female office workers were serving those present with coffee and sandwiches brought in from the Grand Hotel.

“At that time we discovered evidence of corruption in the financial records of the office, but by then it was too late. One important project we must carry out in the future is the distribution of the fertilizer necessary to support each farmer's cultivation of a two-acre plot of land. At the outset, the initial allotment will be to supply forty-four pounds of fertilizer for every quarter acre, and we'll instruct them on how to mix the three different kinds of fertilizer.

“For the Vietnamese farmers, the introduction of chemical fertilizers will be a momentous transition. The quantities to be used will gradually increase. Right now, the most serious deficiency in the diet of farm families in Quang Nam Province is protein. To increase meat intake is indispensable for suppressing the communist threat. One of the essential parts of the phoenix hamlet program is the pig-breeding plan.

“We'll also be supplying, besides cement and fertilizer, surplus agricultural products from America. In each hamlet we'll construct a health center, and necessary medicines will be supplied. So, the chief of the agricultural section should bear in mind the implementation of the agricultural loan system, as well as improvements in livestock husbandry and techniques of cultivation. The chief of the education section should see to the assignment of teachers and delivery of textbooks as well as to education priorities aimed at raising able workers in the phoenix hamlets. I see that all of this is covered in great detail in the project planning documents. We, the US—Vietnam Joint Committee, believe that there should be no divergences of opinion, not even on minor details, as we examine and promote these particular objectives, thus there should be adequate discussion and consultation in advance.”

“The Developmental Revolution Committee would like to say a few words. We suggest that in each hamlet a Residents' Autonomous Council be formed with members elected by the villagers. What do you say to the idea that the governor and the chairman of the Autonomous Council be joint managers of the project in each hamlet, and that both be involved in the drafting of budgets, with the AID advisor only exercising a confirmation and economic veto power after the budgets are submitted?”

Pham Quyen had floated this proposal that he had jotted down long before in his notebook. The chief of the agricultural section inadvertently had contributed to putting on the agenda the issue of the autonomy of their office in managing the program.

“Fine. Constitute those councils, please.”

“Once the councils are formed, the advisory group will pay for the services rendered by the members.”

Both the US military advisor and the AID representative readily consented. The young Vietnamese general, the commander of the ARVN Second Division, hesitated a little and asked Pham Quyen, “If the autonomous councils are supervised by your office, what will we do?”

“Well . . . there's still the training and control of the militias, isn't there? You, sir, will be responsible for that.”

Pham Quyen's reply must have satisfied the general, for he fell silent.

The agriculture section chief asked, “Major Pham, shouldn't the Residents' Autonomous Councils be under the direction of the agriculture section?”

“I do not think so, sir. The agriculture section will concern itself with improving agricultural skills, husbandry matters, and the management of the crop loan system. But all of those matters will be parts of programs processed through decisions of the Developmental Revolution Committee and the Autonomous Councils. And, it's a different issue, but you should not forget that you're an immediate subordinate of His Excellency, the Governor. Accordingly, I would remind you that your opinions should be expressed within the boundaries of your role as an officer of the provisional government. I ask that you refrain from remarks exceeding that role that involve internal matters or questions of support within the office. I do hope that in the future you will be more interested in agricultural technology and related productivity issues.”

Pham Quyen then looked back at his secretary, Lieutenant Kiem, and added, “Delete the section chief's last comment later. The old man would be furious.”

“I understand, sir. Look through all of this yourself and then submit it.”

Pham Quyen looked over at the chief of the agriculture section and grinned. “Sir, I have a bit of personal advice. Among us there can be no Jacobins or Girondists. They're all out there in the jungle.”

The agriculture section chief looked back with a blank stare, saying nothing. Major Pham once again addressed the Americans.

“There's one last thing the Developmental Revolution Committee would like to suggest. It's urgent to set up a transportation section to take charge of supervising the storage, distribution, and control of all this great variety of commodities. It will be needing vehicles and warehouse facilities. At a minimum, we estimate that ten large trucks should be available and at least two good-sized warehouses need to be built.”

“You may send up the budget for the warehouse construction. As for the vehicles, give your request to the lieutenant colonel.”

One of the military aides turned to the US military advisor for Quang Nam Province and said, “All right, we'll send over ten military trucks on indefinite loan to the provincial government office.”

Pham Quyen was quick to follow up.

“And while you're at it, can you please solve the problem of fuel for the trucks, too?”

“Any vehicle in possession of a permit issued by your office will be eligible to get gasoline at the American fuel warehouses nearby.”

“Thank you. Now the two problems our committee needed to settle have been resolved.”

At those words, the AID mission representative looked around the room, then said, “Ah, now we have guests with us who will put all these discussions in order and very succinctly get us to the heart of the matter. I believe their comments will give us some ideas for creative plans we can implement enthusiastically. Now, we'll hear from Dr. Geronimo, a community development specialist, and Mr. Richards from the International Support Volunteer Corps.”

Professor Geronimo, a specialist in rural development from the Philippines, had an unhealthy yellowish complexion and was wearing gold-rimmed glasses. The young so-called support volunteer was growing a yellow mustache in an attempt to hide his apparent greenness and bestow a bit of dignity on himself. Major Pham wondered why this Professor Geronimo, who probably could not even speak Tagalong, had left behind the thousand miserable islands of his own backward country and flown to this harassed land. With perfect English diction, Professor Geronimo embarked on an extremely abstract speech:

“Well, Gunnar Myrdal went so far as to say that corruption is an ethnic custom in Asian cultures, however . . .”

 

 

20

Major Pham sent the car back and headed for the alleys of the old Le Loi market on foot. After passing along the streets in the new market with their colorful window displays and flashy signs, he slowly threaded his way through alleys in which heaps of Chinese medicinal herbs had been piled up alongside fruit, dried seafood, and other edible goods. These narrow alleys, the stained walls and even the graffiti were all extremely familiar to him.

The main avenue through the old market district cut across Doc Lap Boulevard and stretched all the way from the pier at one end to the inter-city bus terminal at the other. Unlike the new market, here were countless narrow walkways and alleys as bewildering as a labyrinth. Less than a block away there was a cluster of cheap whorehouses. In front of one of the bars, teenagers were sitting around a wooden table on the sidewalk, eating shrimp and drinking liquor.

Small buses were busily coming and going in and out of the terminal. In the nearby freight cargo lots, oversized trucks were lined up to unload their heavy cargo. The regular stops on their delivery routes were painted on the trailers. Pham Quyen passed by a chaotic line of peddlers in the freight lot and approached a brick building that had colorful drapes hanging in the windows. As he opened the glass door, an office girl looked up from her abacus and account ledger, then rose and bowed politely. Inside, the air conditioner was running and it was very cool. A man seated at a huge mahogany desk cluttered with papers held out his hand and smiled.

“Welcome, sir.”

“Well, I was wondering if the payment has been completed?”

The man removed some papers from a drawer in the desk.

“Yes, sir. It's all been paid.”

The two men sat down on black leather chairs facing each other.

“Madame was quite pleased, too. Our staff brought in some laborers and it only took us ten days to finish with all the repairs. This is the lease contract from the realtor, and these are miscellaneous receipts. Have a look for yourself, sir.”

Pham Quyen quickly flipped through the papers handed to him.

“Five hundred thousand piasters. Expensive.”

“Expensive? Not really, sir. The American who was the previous tenant was paying twenty thousand per month. Even if he only stayed there ten months, that was still two hundred thousand down the drain, you see. But since your lease is on a key money basis, after six months you can move out whenever you want and recover the full deposit of five hundred thousand.”

“All the furniture has been moved in?”

“The place was already furnished. There's a double bed, a dining table, chairs, living room set, a fancy chest, dresser, dish cabinet, and Madame has already purchased the electric appliances herself . . .”

“Then the total was . . . ”

“All together, the cost was two hundred fifty thousand piasters.
D
irt cheap, sir. To tell you the truth, since it was for you, I didn't have to charge for the work done by the staff. That was debited to your account.”

Cuong, who acted as a dealer for the provincial government office, for practical purposes had been a kind of financial manager for General Liam's interests in Da Nang. He had no choice under the circumstances except to assist Pham Quyen as well, since he was the primary agent for General Liam's business operations. Pham Quyen had laid down a general rule regarding the business of the general and himself, a principle of two shares to one: After every two transactions for General Liam, the third one was for himself. The scale of dealings was large enough that a mere division commander could become a millionaire within two or three years on the front lines, so from General Liam's perspective, as governor and military commander who had a hand in all the business in the province, there was plenty to go around and no reason to object to Pham Quyen's cut.

“The fertilizer will be flowing in continuously,” said Pham Quyen.

“That's good news, indeed. The more you supply the more they demand, that's how it works with fertilizer, you know. No matter how much the supply grows, our margin will be one hundred percent of the original cost. For now it looks like the price of cement won't be slipping, either. For the strongest demand in the short term rice is still best, though.”

“No, not rice.”

Pham Quyen replied with firm resolve. Cuong narrowed his eyes.

“Why not? The police superintendent is even dealing in heroin from Vientiane. His dealers are right out there in the main alley.”

“Listen, Mr. Cuong, I'm still the one who plans the business. With their base in the Mekong Delta, the influential men of Saigon are still holding exclusive rights for rice sales. For a long time we in Quang Nam Province have been buying rice from them.”

“I'm talking about imported American rice, sir. It's out there on the pier, right?”

“That rice is to be shipped out to the villages to be used as wages and resettlement aid.”

“You don't get it, do you? You deduct and pay in piasters instead of in kind, sir. That way you can have half of the rice supply fall into your hands, sir.”

Pham Quyen had been mulling over the idea for some time. But he did not want to exploit his access to the rice. It was a staple food and extremely sensitive, so why take the risk of being exposed to a stinking scandal for the slightest mismanagement. If anything like that happened, the general would have to take off his uniform before joining the cabinet, and for Pham, a single blunder of that magnitude would terminate all of his opportunities. Until the general returned to Saigon, he meant to cling tightly to the general's coattails. Then, like so many other adjutants of generals and admirals, he might later step up into a dream job as a manager of foreign property somewhere like Bangkok, Hong Kong, Singapore, or Taipei.

“What's the price of cinnamon these days?” Pham asked.

Cuong licked his lips. “Cinnamon, sir? Ah, that reminds me of the good old days. Your late father, sir, would know very well. Da Nang used to be renowned throughout Vietnam for the cinnamon trade. Ships from India and China swarmed in for cinnamon like bees to a flowerbed. Only four or five years back we still had decent cinnamon harvests. Nothing like in the time of Bao Dai, though, of course. And now . . . see for yourself, we only have what little the old women in the highlands peel and carry down to us, never anywhere near enough to meet demand. Truly, cinnamon is an item that brings to mind the old days of peace and quiet.”

Befitting a Da Nang merchant, Cuong's mumbling had acquired a touchingly nostalgic tone. Pham roused him from his reverie.

“So, there are still cinnamon merchants?”

Cuong instinctively lowered his voice.

“Cinnamon and cloves are both highland products, so they are sometimes handled by traders with connections to the Liberation Front, I think. There's one Indian merchant here, a money-changer, who buys up small lots of spices and ships them overseas.”

Pham Quyen knew better than anyone where cinnamon was to be found. As a boy, he used to accompany his father when he went with his assistants to buy and they traveled days at a stretch through the highlands. The region was now up on the edge of the Second Division defense zone.

“Negotiate with that Indian merchant to see how good a price you can come up with.”

“What, what did you say?”

“I'll never touch rice trading. Instead, I'll appoint you as the exclusive cinnamon dealer in Da Nang.”

“Cinnamon these days? Where on earth can you get it, sir?”

“From the upland jungles.”

“No matter how good the price, nobody's going to want to stick their necks out that far for it.”

Pham Quyen chuckled.

“There are many kinds of business for which people risk their lives. War, for instance, is such a business, don't you think? I'll order the soldiers to conduct a cinnamon gathering operation.”

Cuong pounded the table. “Truly, you are your father's son, sir. That's something nobody else would have even had the sense to spot. It's a business of an entirely different order than trading in military goods.”

A stocky man in shorts and a T-shirt walked in and bowed to Cuong. “We finished the job, boss.”

“Ummm, so you're done with the moving and you've helped with the unpacking and arranging, too?”

“Yes, I've just come from there, sir. Madame wishes for you to have dinner at home.”

“Well done. Send the boys home and you can call it a day, too.”

The man left and Cuong hurriedly washed his hands at the sink.

“There's something I'd like to show you, sir.”

After sending the office girl home, Cuong turned off the air conditioner and locked every window before leaving the office. Pham Quyen trailed slowly behind. Cuong walked off in the direction opposite from the parking lot and headed into a narrow pathway, lined on both sides by small shops with bins of goods open beside the walkway. The goods for sale were no more than small bags of American cookies, a few canned goods and jars of instant coffee, but Pham Quyen knew that the owners of these shops were prosperous traders, each owning his own warehouse as big as seventy square yards.

In the alleys of the old market there were hundreds of such small shops, while those down on the pier and in the new marketplace mainly handled necessities and luxury goods. But the merchants themselves could not always say what sorts of business was being transacted in the labyrinth of the old market. Rumor had it that even a tank or a helicopter could be bought and sold disassembled, in pieces. Next to Saigon, Da Nang had the biggest market in the nation. There were products from all over the highlands, from Pleiku, Kon Tum, and Bien Hien, not to mention places like Quang Tri, Hue, Hoi An, Tam Ky, and the coastal towns of Quang Ngai. From the old days Da Nang and Haiphong had been major ports for the Mainland China trade, and under the Hue Dynasty they had greeted merchant ships from the Philippines and Malaysia.

“That is my brother's business.”

Cuong pointed with his finger toward a cinder block structure at the end of one of the pathways. The signboard said it was an automobile service shop. Through the wide-open gate a storage space and an empty yard could be seen.

“The land is mine and my brother owns a few vehicles.”

Pham Quyen walked into the yard and looked around. They had come in through the back gate and the front door was on the far side of the yard. There were a couple of maintenance bays for vehicles, just a roof set on pillars with pits dug under the wheel rails. A place for washing cars had also been set up. There was one Renault sedan in the yard and a half dozen so-called box cars, which were improvised on the chassis of old American military Jeeps with crude bodies shaped like a box. Then Pham Quyen noticed another vehicle in a corner of the garage. Cuong chortled and followed him over to take a look.

“I knew you'd notice it, sir. A Land Rover is as tough as a water buffalo. You can't damage it even with a hammer. This one could speed all the way up Route 1 to Hanoi. It's like brand new, sir, just arrived from Saigon a week ago. We bought it from some foreign consular official who was heading back home.”

“Is it for sale?”

“No . . . it was, but now it has an owner.”

As the garrulous Cuong had said, the Land Rover looked as solid as an armored personnel carrier. The shiny khaki-colored paint was enough to make a sheik covet it for his personal war games. The thick canvas cloth covering the cab had a dappled green pattern like the British commando vehicles in Malaysia in the old days. A round hatch plate had been installed that could serve to anchor a machine gun turret.

“Isn't she a beauty?” someone said from behind them. Pham Quyen turned around to look. A long-haired man in a white shirt with a Chinese collar and black Vietnamese pants was smiling.

“This is my younger brother, Thach,” Cuong said.

The man bowed. He looked to be about the same age as Pham Quyen. Thach looked so good-natured when he smiled that he made a good first impression on almost everyone.

“My brother graduated from college like you, sir,” Cuong proudly continued. “He lived in Hue for a long time.”

Pham Quyen guessed he had solved the problem of the draft for about ten thousand dollars with his brother's help and now was taking it easy. Pham Quyen shook his hand.

“Too bad there's no factory in Vietnam where he can work as a technician.”

Thinking the man must work for a useless engineering facility, Pham Quyen opened the door on the Land Rover and looked inside.

“Now that the car's found an owner, it must be in good spirits, too,” Thach said. Pham Quyen looked back at the two brothers.

“This car, whose is it?”

“Yours, sir. You can drive it away right now.”

Cuong urged Pham, pressing him on the back. Actually, from the moment he first set eyes on the car, Major Pham had been thinking how much the general would like it. He was well aware of the general's vanity. His white silk scarves, the ivory baton wrapped with snakeskin, all of it from the Kalashnikov automatics down to the Czechoslovakian and Polish pistols reflected such tastes. The general despised the olive drab sedan he had been issued for its mundane lack of personality, and he preferred to ride in a new model Jeep with camouflage netting over it.

Pham Quyen calmly asked, “When did I buy this car?”

“It's a gift, for free, sir. A souvenir in anticipation of future business together.”

“But it must have cost a million piasters, no?”

“Our deals already have surpassed twenty times that. By the end of the year it'll be fifty times. And as you said earlier, we are to have the cinnamon monopoly, that alone will be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

Cuong checked his watch.

“It's getting late. You should hurry home. We, too, need to close for the day.”

“All right. I'll have the office use this car.”