Monday, October 10, 2016

'Hanoi Hannah,' Whose Broadcasts Taunted And Entertained American GIs, Dies

HoangsaParacels:  Thật ra Đài Tiếng Nói Vẹm chỉ độc có nói láo và nói lếu, khoe khoang những thành tích biạ đặt, khiến người nghe chỉ muốn đập nát cái radio cho đỡ phải nghe lải nhi.  Lính Mỹ chỉ hiếu kỳ vừa nghe vừa chế riễu, pha trò cho đỡ buồn, chứ chẳng có tác dụng gì.  Cũng như đám tù cải tạo cứ mỗi khi nghe cái loa nhà tù phát nào là:  " chiến tranh lạnh "nhạt", nào là: 1 Răng (Iran) đánh nhau với 1 Rắc (Iraq) là cười đến vãi rắm."


Trinh Thi Ngo, known as "Hanoi Hannah" for her propaganda broadcasts during the Vietnam War, holds a portrait of herself in her younger days while at her residence in Ho Chi Minh City in 2015. Photo: AFP

Voice of Vietnam
One of North Vietnam's most recognizable wartime voices fell silent last Friday, when former radio broadcaster Trinh Thi Ngo, dubbed "Hanoi Hannah" by American servicemen, died. The radio service says Trinh was 87 when she died.
Trinh broadcast under the pseudonym Thu Huong, or Autumn Fragrance. At the height of the war the Voice of Vietnam aired three 30-minute segments of hers a day.
The North Vietnamese Defense Ministry's propaganda department wrote her scripts, she told the Voice of Vietnam. Their aim was to degrade U.S. troops' will to fight, and convince them that their cause was unjust.
Don North, a former ABC News reporter, remembers that "members of the special forces A-team would sit around at night and tune in around 10 o'clock to her broadcasts". "They would listen very carefully," he adds, "you know, break out the beers and listen to Hanoi Hannah."
North says that Trinh's broadcasts had a "minimal" effect on her listeners. Nor did most GIs find her message credible, North says.
"As she said herself, when she used interviews or tape sent to her from anti-Vietnam war people in the States, she thought they were more effective than her own broadcasts," he says. Among the anti-war activists broadcast by Trinh was actress Jane Fonda.
Trinh did not talk about U.S. victories or the horrible losses suffered by North Vietnam.
She studied English and loved Hollywood movies. She volunteered to join the Voice of Vietnam in 1955."Our program served for a cause, so we believed in that cause," Trinh told C-SPAN in a 1992 interview. "So we continued to broadcast."
Trinh never joined the Vietnamese Communist Party, and quickly forgot any anger she had felt against Americans.


Bill Bell chuyen

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