LAUREN FRAYER, HOST:
Fifty years ago this week, the Vietnam War ended with the fall of Saigon in South Vietnam. In the long years of that war, both the U.S. and Vietnam aimed radio propaganda at each other. One of the Communist North Vietnam's most notorious programs targeting U.S. GIs was fronted by one woman nicknamed Hanoi Hannah. Reporter Nga Pham brings us this story from Hanoi.
NGA PHAM, BYLINE: Hanoi Hannah, one of the most recognizable voices from North Vietnam during the war.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HANOI HANNAH: How are you, GI Joe? It seems to me that most of you are poorly informed about the going of the war, to say nothing about a correct explanation of your presence over here.
PHAM: For eight years from 1965 to 1973, she broadcast to the American troops serving in South Vietnam. John Rockhold, an American veteran who was stationed in the Mekong Delta in the early 1970s and now resides in Ho Chi Minh City, recalls.
JOHN ROCKHOLD: You could listen to Hanoi Hannah almost throughout the Southern Vietnam. And there was no restrictions or anybody saying that you could not listen to that. And in a way, it gave you a different view from just listening to the radio programs put out by the U.S. government and the military.
PHAM: Hanoi Hannah's real name was Trinh Thi Ngo. She was born in 1931 in Hanoi, into a prominent business family. Ngo died in 2016, but for Trinh Lu, a former colleague and close friend, memories of her remain fresh.
TRINH LU: Our families were very close. Trinh Ngo came to our family to learn English, along with some of my sister. But later on, a lot from the BBC English by radio and the Voice of America Standard English.
PHAM: Trinh Thi Ngo joined Communist-run radio Voice of Vietnam as a announcer in 1955 under the name Thu Huong. Ten years later, when the first U.S. combat troops entered Vietnam and the war became known here as the anti-American war, she was assigned to do a radio bulletin directed at the American soldiers three times a day.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HANNAH: Defect, GI. It is a very good idea to leave a sinking ship. They lie to you, GI. You know you cannot win this war.
PHAM: She read them news scripted by the military, played anti-war music and read out the names of GIs killed in action and even their hometowns to demoralize them.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE?")
PETE SEEGER: (Singing) Where have all the flowers gone. Long time passing. Where have all the flowers gone?
PHAM: Did she believe in what she was talking about?
LU: Oh, sure. She completely believed in what she does, believe in the meaning of it and very proud of it. She's very wholeheartedly devoted to the job.
PHAM: There are contradicting opinions about the effectiveness of Hanoi Hannah's radio programs. The Vietnamese said her voice induced, quote, "fear and regret" into American soldiers, but it is not known if any soldier defected as the result of her broadcasts. U.S. Veteran John Rockhold.
ROCKHOLD: It wasn't very psychological warfare. When we listened to it, we liked the music she played. But most of the stuff she was saying was - we took it as funny, you know, laughing about it. After a while, you started to realize, too, that the material she was using - she could have got that from a lot of American military broadcasting.
PHAM: This week, as Vietnam celebrates its victory over the U.S. half a century ago, there's been a lot of talks inside the country about the role of propaganda. Hanoi Hannah's last broadcast was in 1973, as U.S. troops were leaving Vietnam. The Voice of Vietnam today broadcasts in 13 foreign languages, but the real propaganda war is fought over the internet.
For NPR news, I am Nga Pham in Hanoi. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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