Word: okamura
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Kill Me." His destination, deep in the jungle, was a camp sur rounded by mine fields and 16 barricades of barbed wire. The Viet Cong held Okamura a prisoner there. They insisted that he was an American, despite his Japanese passport, press accreditations, and a miniature Japanese flag on his knapsack with an inscription in Vietnamese: "I am a Japanese correspondent. Mr. Okamura. Please do not kill me." He learned later that six G.I.s, two Australians and one Filipino were also imprisoned on the post, though he was not permitted to see them. Clusters of artillery shells dropped near headquarters...
...Okamura most wanted to meet was Huynh Tan Phat, No. 2 man and chief strategist of the National Liberation Front, the political arm of the Viet Cong. After repeated messages, Phat finally arrived at the camp after Okamura had languished there more than a month. He was a short, wiry man with piercing eyes, a thin mustache and a crew cut, wearing a well-tailored khaki shirt and trousers, plus the standard "Ho Chi Minh sandals," cut from old tires. When Okamura complained that he had been robbed of his cameras, lied to and starved, Phat replied: "You have been...
Phat, a onetime Saigon architect and, like Photographer Okamura, a Buddhist, insisted-for what it was worth-that he was a Socialist, not a Communist. He said that the Viet Cong had initially followed the guerrilla tactics of Nguyen Giap, the victor of Dienbien-phu, but "now Giap's lessons are outdated. Times have changed. American weapons are different. Now, except for tanks and planes, we have everything we need. Our weapons are as good as the enemy...
Most of the Viet Cong weapons seen by Okamura were either homemade or of U.S. manufacture, with a sprinkling of identifiable Communist bloc arms. Phat scoffed at sizable outside aid, saying, "You don't understand the logistics. If we needed to supply only small units, it would be easy to get enough from Hanoi. But we have to supply a million people-V.C. political cadres as well as soldiers. We grow our own food. We have ordnance depots in the jungle where we make weapons-crude but serviceable." Besides, as he put it, "we get stronger every time...
...Okamura, 22 Ibs. lighter as a result of his ordeal, was finally released after 53 days. The Viet Cong returned all his possessions except two films with pictures of the photographer in conversation with Phat, which were forwarded to him later. Among the Communist's last words to Okamura was a warning that the Viet Cong planned to intensify terrorist reprisals such as the vicious bombings that killed 42 people aboard a floating restaurant in Saigon last week (see THE NATION). These will continue, he threatened, until "every single American is gone." As to the ultimate outcome...