Word: okamura
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...Akihiko Okamura is a courageous, persistent Japanese photographer who set out last April to see what the war in Viet Nam is like from the Communist side. Armed with six cameras, 182 rolls of film and a Vietnamese dictionary, Okamura, 36, simply boarded a northbound bus out of Saigon and sat tight. He did not have to wait long. Some 500 yards beyond Bencat, a government stronghold 27 miles from the capital on Route 13, five Viet Cong in dark green government uniforms boarded the bus. Two miles later, they ordered the driver to stop and invited the photographer...
...Okamura describes his experiences in the current issue of LIFE, the next few weeks were like passages from an Oriental Kafka. The villages he visited changed hands with maniacal rapidity. Once he saw a convoy sweep by, heavily guarded by U.S. and South Vietnamese soldiers who protected themselves from ambush by spraying the jungle on each side with machine-gun fire. No sooner had the convoy passed than 500 Viet Cong on bicycles emerged from the jungle and pedaled madly in pursuit until it was out of sight. On his devious journey to guerrilla headquarters, Okamura was escorted...
...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...
...Arthur Okamura...