Thurs 15 Nov 9pm Ho Chi Minh City = Saigon

Thurs 15 Nov 8pm Ho Chi Minh City = Saigon. Up this morning at 4.30am, breakfast 5.30, depart hotel in Hoi An 6am, flight to HCMC departed Danang 8am arrived HCMC 9am, got 2 breakfasts, one in Hoi An hotel, one on plane. Good start to the day. New minibus to what was called Siagon's 'WHITE HOUSE' ie where the President (of South Vietnam) lived and conducted official business as with the WHITE HOUSE in Washington. This building became HQ of the war effort by the South supported by US against the North. The french had gone/eased out by the US; Eisenhower, Kenedy and Lyndon Johnson poured more and more troups and equipment in to stem the spread of communism trying to avoid a repeat of Eastern Europe in Indochina. North Vietnam, led by Ho Chi Minh and supported by former enemies China, Russia and others, out thought and out-fought the Americans and their allies until the final debacle at the White House where the communists burst through the gates much sooner than anyone could have believed and the last americans and south officials were helicoptered off the roof in a panic evacuation to US warships in the South China Sea. A devastating defeat for the US which it has taken them over 30 years to recover from and forget before making comparable mistakes in Iraq. But maybe if they hadn't delayed the march of communism in the far east, we would have had an equivalent of eastern europe with Chinese or Russian domination in Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Burma, Indonesia, Malaya, even Japan? India? Who knows? Anyway the 'WHITE HOUSE' is now called 'UNIFICATION HOUSE' and is open to the public.

After checking into The Saigon Hotel, we were taken to the 'War Remnants Museum'. Tanks, aircraft, bombs, howitsers, field guns, rockets, prison cells, a used guillotine and photographs. All on display. A moving display of history that took place in my adult lifetime. Especially the photographs. No holds barred depiction of this war. I photographed some of the photographs. Vietnamese school children (15 - 18?) were doing a 'project' on the museum. Making notes from the photographs and their captions. It all happened before they were born but their parents and uncles and aunts and grandparents must have been involved. Possibly on different sides. What must these children have thought. Many of the photographs show terrible scenes of war. Terrible for both sides. Most terrible were the photographs of civilain families caught up in the war because their village was in the wrong place. What have the politicians of today learned from this appauling war? I fear nothing.
But maybe the children of Vietnam, and visitors from all over the world who crowd this museum every day as today, will learn, and remember this stuff, and others will remember photographs and films of other wars in other museums, and yet others will remember stuff they have seen on the tele in the news and documentaries, will remember it when the next war is being planned by the politicians. National and International travel and communication enable, for the first time in history, masses of people from all over the world to see for themselves the legacy of political adventurism as recorded by photo-journalists in war zones. Maybe this is where hope lies.
John