The Revolution:

People are beginning to understand that the revolution is a long growing process, as opposed to Liberation. Our friend, the former political prisoner, Chi Hien, in the first few days after Liberation bragged about her position and her activities. More page 7 recently she says calmly that she and her friends are studying the meaning and goals of the revolution, and gaining skills themselves that will make them useful individuals in the future.

Various underground and opposition groups are organizing together, compromising making decisions for the long term future ahead. Individual Saigonese are beginning to enjoy the idea of no more foreigners. Those who depend on foreigners for the businesses are worried about the future Government workers are all back on the job, working for the new government. I asked a woman at Logistics what her salary would be, and she said she had no idea. We were told that Quang Ngai hospital workers were getting two cans of rice and 50 piastres a day - very, very little. Most people are functioning in their normal ways.

In thousands of families, relatives are appearing on the doorstep after not having been heard from for twenty years It's like Rip van Winkle's tale, people who were 18 when last seen, are now 40 years old. Families are being reunited, full of emotion and joy. Northerners here in Saigon are very excited about going back north, and those who are poorer or have large families are waiting for the railroad to be built taking them all the way.

We attended an outdoor meeting of religious leaders and political leaders, held on a crowded little street in a suburb. I attended a women's meeting led by Chi Yen talking to the women about some basic changes the revolution had to offer, such as medical and child care.

The audience applauded loudest when Yen said now women could walk safely on the streets because there are no more "self-defense forces' terrorizing everyone.

The meeting was held outdoors, in the evening, in a poor and crowded refugee camp: The people were excited about the possibility of free education, honest examinations, day care centres, going home to the countryside, and good free medical care. Their fears had been based on the abundant rumours, and Yen assured them that children would not be taken away from their mothers, women with nail polish would not have their nails pulled out, soldiers and police would not have their throats cut, half American babies would not be boiled alive, women with American husbands would not be discriminated against people are free to wear whatever clothes they desire, and they need not hide in the dark to eat a chicken or pork, but just eat it quite freely. No one will starve.

Someone asked if soldiers will still get their financial compensations (which in most cases hadn't been paid by the Thieu government anyway). Yen bristled slightly at this, and only I in the audience knew how recently her husband was killed fighting for the revolution (actually not fighting, but writing). She answered that brothers and sisters in the Liberation struggle have sacrificed themselves for decades with no thought of compensation so now Thieu government soldiers' families will have to do some sacrificing too. There isn't enough to pay people for a family member who is dead, only enough for those who are alive. The audience murmured in agreement.

There was a huge festival on May 7 downtown, led mostly by student groups There were banners and streamers and pictures of Uncle Ho, and ten or hundreds of thousands of people attending. It wouldn't be true to say they were all waiting joyously for this day to come, for the revolution, but now that this change has taken place, people have something to look forward to, something to think about, other than continued war and suffering and destruction.

It's hard to fathom peace for people who have been at war for so long. Buses on Highway 1 run all day and all night now! Vietnam has never had GVN (Government of Vietnam) traffic moving at night before. People at the demonstration were of all sorts—young giggly students cheering and then giggling with each other. Old women looking, solemn and carrying obviously precious pictures of Ho Chi Minh. Students looking busy and happy, PRG soldiers looking calm and pleasant.

In the huge mass of people I saw no guns or arms at all. The soldiers in the streets were unarmed. Way up on top of the palace we could see two guards, presumably armed, but the whole military government—the officials—were standing on a balcony of the palace, for all the world to see, as Thieu had never done. I mentioned this later to a high level cadre, and he said that the revolution belongs to the people it's not something being done against them.

I heard a man a few days ago tell a beggar that he shouldn't beg anymore, now there was a revolution and everyone would have work to do, and enough to eat. This morning a woman eating breakfast with us at a noodle stand told another beggar that what the government says is true this time, and that she won't have to beg. At the same meal a woman from the north, mother of 8 children, asked both me and this other woman if we knew a way for her to not have any more children. She responded that as soon as the new government gets better organized they'll surely offer such services, and free.

People on the streets are interested in the changes, and talking freely. Some are absolutely thrilled, like the majority of cyclo drivers I've talked to. A few are still living in a dream world, like a young woman who handed Paul a letter in English saying she wanted to live in freedom and would he marry her and take her away, and that though she didn't speak English, she would try to please him as a wife. But those are few, thank heavens, it's just that as some of the few foreigners left, we meet some. Paul told her to wake up and" look around, and see what's going on in the world outside her own head.

The present Saigon government is a temporary military government, run by a committee, whose job it is to restore full security in the city and make way for the political government to take over. Already the security is phenomenally better than it's ever been for Vietnamese, with little or no robbery in the suburbs.

We've heard of some cases here and in Nha Trang of shooting armed robbers, and these examples apparently influence other would-be thieves. Paul heard of a young man with a red arm band and a rifle, posing as a cadre, firing into a bus in Gia Dinh that wouldn't stop for him. He shot and killed an old woman. Some genuine soldiers were nearby and caught him, and asked the people on the bus what they thought they should do with him. This was a day or two after liberation. They said shoot him, and so they did.