Rock, Rock To Victory

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31042, 23 April 1966, Page 14

Rock, Rock To Victory

(By JILLIAN ROBERTSON in the "Sydney Morning Herald”) ( A little bit of Freud, "a little bit of Madison Avenue, and a little bit of war. . .)

Guitars as well as guns are helping to win the war in South Vietnam. This year music—especially rock n’ roll and pop—is playing a big part in psychological warfare, called by the Vietnamese “psywar.” Under the direction of Lieutenant Colonel Vu Quang, the three psywar battalions of the Vietnamese army, have recruited pop stars, songwriters, actors, dancing girls, musicians and men who in the West would be employed by advertising agencies writing copy for hairspray or cornflakes. Instead the “copywriters” compose leaflets. Colonel Vu Quang says the new psywar policy centres on providing frontline variety entertainment to strengthen the combative stimulant of the troops and to “win the hearts and minds of the civilians.”

As well as using the convential methods of war propaganda, this is done by dropping thousands of leaflets out of bombers, with concerts,

MEMBERS of a South Vietnam “ cultural ” platoon “in action.” No casualties were reported.

films and music, music music. . . .

Pop stars of the “eutural” platoons go from village to village performing carnival type road shows called psy-ops.

"It is hard getting pop star recruits,” said Lieutenant Hung of the 3rd Psywar Battalion in Da Nang, “they could earn more money in Saigon nightclubs and bans. And they don’t like getting shot at. “After the audio-visual teams go in, other platoons of psywar come in with medical aid, distribution of food, clothing, wheat, rice and cooking oil.” “Come On Our Side” Before road shows arrive town-cryers on three-wheeler bicycles with tape recorders blaring out “come-on-our-side” type music peddle through hamlets and villages. Protected by 10 Vietnamese infantrymen I went through Viet Cong territory on a psyoperation to a rice paddy hamlet undergoing pacification north of Da Nang. It was remote and unconnected by roads. We travelled by armoured utility vehicle, sampan and foot along a winding jungle track with rifles cocked. The area was highly dangerous. The hamlet was a huddle of shack-type houses— -a garbage heap of poverty—surrounded by rice paddies. About 200 people were squatting or sitting crosslegged on the ground in front

of the only stone building in the hamlet, the pagoda-roofed meeting hall. Children were sitting around looking bored. A Vietnamese captain was standing on a makeshift stage reading a speech.

“Whizz-ked” Cadre The psy-operation was underway. Next, two teen-age girls in jungle-green outfits led by a “whizz-kid” cadre in a splotched camoflage suit and thin-soled shoes that would har.Hy defy jungle leeches, churned out the latest Saigon rock.

The old men and women of the village were confused. But not the young. Cheering and yelling broke out and an American lieutenant made a propaganda speech in Vietnamese.

Afterwards the lieutenant explained: “It’s hard for these uneducated Oriental minds to understand why America is in Vietnam when America doesn’t want to colonise the country. “They keep asking: ‘What’s in it for you?’ “One of our greatest problems in ‘psywarfare’ is convincing the rural inhabitants don't colonise like the French did. That we are an ally, not a conqueror.” No V.C. Singers The Viet Cong don't have pop-singing recruits or road shows, but their propaganda is efficacious. A translation of a typical Viet Cong pamphlet la: ’“Die Americans are like the French people, our suppressors who we fought against for ten years for our liberty. Our fathers, our families died for that liberty. You must kill the Americans because they come here and want new colonialism. They are worse than the French. The Americans have come here to make us live in the way of their life—they will make us like a slave, like a bird inside a cage. “The South Vietnamese Government is mistaken, they are only a valet to America. ... We will distribute the land to you.

’ But the psy-op show goes on. Although these road shows have a carnival atmosphere their purpose is never lost. The plays and films chosen to entertain—and persuade—are similar to cowboy and Indian thrillers In which the goodies are the South Vietnamese and the baddies are the Vietcong. It’s Viet au-go-go all the ways.