Interview with D. Pete Peterson, US Embassador to VN (fwd)

[AnHai Doan <anhai@cs.washington.edu>]

>From vn-forum:
Profile: Our man in  Hanoi; former prisoner of war becomes ambassador
to Vietnam, the country that imprisoned him

60 Minutes -- CBS, Inc.

OUR MAN IN  Hanoi

LESLEY STAHL, co-host:

Our man in  Hanoi was just that for six and a half years.  After
being shot down over North  Vietnam in 1966, Captain Douglas "Pete"
Peterson was North  Vietnam's prisoner of war till 1973.  So why on
Earth would he want to go back there?  Because the president asked
him to, asked this three-term congressman from Florida to be our
first ambassador to  Vietnam.  And who better to tell that story than
Bob Simon, who was CBS' man in the Gulf, was for a time himself a
prisoner of war?

(Footage of rice paddy)

BOB SIMON reporting:

There was no red carpet for Pete Peterson the first time he landed
in  Vietnam, just this green rice paddy 60 miles east of  Hanoi.  It
was Captain Peterson's 67th bombing mission when his F-4 Phantom was
hit by a surface-to-air missile.  It was a dark and moonless night.
By the time he and his co-pilot hit the ground, Peterson was in so
much pain from so many broken bones that he wasn't sure he'd make it
through the night.  In fact, he wasn't sure he wanted to.

Ambassador DOUGLAS "PETE" PETERSON: I took the .38 out, and I had
to make the decision of whether or not I wanted off the planet then,
or I was going to wait it out.

SIMON: So you actually take out your .38 and think about doing
yourself in?

Amb.  PETERSON: Absolutely.

(Footage of Peterson; photo of Peterson's F-4; vintage photo of
Peterson; vintage photo of Peterson family; Peterson holding vintage
photo of self)

SIMON: (Voiceover) Pete Peterson was surprised to find himself
sitting in a rice paddy, the remains of his brand-new F-4 several
miles away because Peterson knew one thing for sure when he joined
the Air Force, when he waved goodbye to his pregnant wife Carlotta
and his two young kids: He knew he was invincible.

Amb.  PETERSON: Well, as a fighter pilot, you have to feel that
way, even if you're not.  You never know when the golden BB's coming
your way.  And, of course, you're confident it's not going to be
you.  I learned later that that wasn't always true.  But at--at
that time, at that photo, clearly, I was invincible.

(Vintage photo of Peterson and Bunny Talley)

SIMON: (Voiceover) It was a faith shared by Peterson's co-pilot,
Bunny Talley, who now found himself trying to help the man who was
quite clearly beyond help.

Mr.  BUNNY TALLEY: I said, `Hey, we've got to go.' So I got him
out of his harness, and then I grabbed him and--and tried to carry
him.  And--and boy, every time I touched him, he just started
screaming--and rightly so because he was hurting so bad.

(Vintage photo of Peterson and Talley)

SIMON: (Voiceover) Finally, Captain Peterson ordered Lieutenant
Talley to leave him and make a run for it.

Mr.  TALLEY: And boy, I just thought to myself, `What am I going
to explain to Carlotta?  How am I going to explain this to her?'
And I wasn't sure if he did himself in before they got him, or
whether he shot it out with them.  He wasn't going...

SIMON: You thought Pete was dead?

Mr.  TALLEY: Yeah, I thought he was dead, one way or the other.

SIMON: And then you're sitting there.

Amb.  PETERSON: And it's very quiet, if I recall, but not for
long.  I saw flashlights some distance away, and I could hear
voices, voice--high octaves, and they were--they were making a lot of
noise, and were--I mean, they just came my way.

Mr.  SINH and Mr.  CHOP: (Through Translator) Just here.  Right
here.

SIMON: Right here?  It was right here?  We're standing right in
the spot where Peterson landed?

Mr.  SINH and Mr.  CHOP: (Through Translator) Yes.

SIMON: And when you approached the tree, what did you do?

Mr.  CHOP: (Through Translator) I thought I had no other choice
than to jump and hold him.  If I didn't jump, maybe he would shoot
me.  And I was very frightened at that moment, and I thought the
thing to do was jump on him.

(Vintage photo of  Vietnamese militia)

SIMON: (Voiceover) Mr.  Sinh and Mr.  Chop were militiamen in the
village of Andoi.  They were the first to welcome Captain Peterson
to North  Vietnam, with a machete and an old French musket.  It was
the high point of their lives.

Did he try to resist you?  Did he fight you?

Mr.  CHOP: (Through Translator) No, no.  Let me tell you very
frankly, if he had resisted at that time, he wouldn't be alive
today.

SIMON: You would have killed him?

Mr.  CHOP: (Through Translator) Yes.

(Footage of Simon with Sinh and Chop)

SIMON: (Voiceover) Mr.  Sinh and Mr.  Chop had never seen a downed
American before, but they knew exactly what to do: Get his boots and
clothes off right away--except it wasn't so easy.

Amb.  PETERSON: They started to take my flight suit, and they
couldn't get it off.  They couldn't get it, whatever--I couldn't
remember what...

SIMON: Couldn't work the zipper?

Amb.  PETERSON: I don't know what the problem was.  But this one
came at me with a knife.  And so, as he got closer to me, I just,
out of normal reaction, I just grabbed his--I just--I bit him.

(Footage of Sinh and Chop; photo of  Vietnamese paper)

Amb.  PETERSON: (Voiceover) I bit his hand.

SIMON: (Voiceover) It was front-page news in the province.  Mr.
Sinh and Mr.  Chop were local heroes.  And Captain Peterson?  He
was in the headlines, too.  Back in Florida, he had just joined the
ranks of the missing.

Mr.  MIKE PETERSON: It was on a day like today, on a Sunday, right
after coming back from church, a beautiful Sunday, and...

Ms.  PAULA PETERSON: We gathered around the table, and sat down to
eat, and the doorbell rang.  And, of course, it was the chaplain and
the men in blue.

Mr.  PETERSON: And you could tell by Mom's reaction that it wasn't
good news.

(Footage of Mike and Paula Peterson; vintage photos of Peterson)

SIMON: (Voiceover) Mike and Paula Peterson were seven and nine at
the time.  Their mother, Carlotta, saved everything: photos,
newspaper clippings, that first dark letter.

Amb.  PETERSON: `It's with deep regret that I officially inform
you that your husband, Captain Douglas B.  Peterson, has been missing
in action in North  Vietnam since 10, September, 1966.'

I always knew where I was, and I always knew where she was, but
she never knew where I was, nor how I was.

(Footage of  Hanoi Hilton; vintage photo of Peterson)

SIMON: (Voiceover) How was he?  He was checking into the  Hanoi
Hilton, the 131st American guest in that  Vietnamese hotel.

You could call the place `the  Hanoi Hilton' as part of your humor,
but it was not, in fact, a Hilton.

Amb.  PETERSON: (Voiceover) No, not hardly.  And there were a
lot of people; a lot of people and a great deal of pain there, a
great deal of pain.

SIMON: (Voiceover) Sometimes the pain came in
spurts--interrogations, torture.  Sometimes it lasted for weeks.

They kept you manacled to a board for weeks on end?

Amb.  PETERSON: A couple of weeks, and I think there are others
who are much longer than that.

SIMON: Without ever releasing you during these weeks?

Amb. PETERSON: Not really.  What they would do is they
allow--in a case where a friend of mine and I were tied up together,
on one meal, they'd untie the one to go over and feed the other.
And for bowel movements or whatever else, you just had to do on your
own. And so...

SIMON: While you're tied up?

Amb.  PETERSON: Right.

(Vintage photo of Petersons; excerpt from film)

SIMON: (Voiceover) And the family?  For three and a half years,
no news, no letters, nothing.  Then  Hanoi released a propaganda
film, POWs attending a Christmas Mass in 1969.

Announcer: (From excerpt) Pentagon intelligence experts say there
are 75 men pictured in this silent film, the largest group of war
prisoners ever shown in one place.

Ms.  PETERSON: I remember seeing him walking into church on a TV
program.

(Excerpt from film; vintage footage of POWs at  Vietnamese airport)

Ms.  PETERSON: (Voiceover) I knew it was my daddy instantly when I
saw him.  That was the first time I ever was sure that my daddy was
going to be coming home.

SIMON: (Voiceover) Paula may have been sure, but her father
wasn't.  It took three more years before Pete Peterson found himself
standing at attention at the  Hanoi airport, being formally turned
over from the  Vietnamese to the Americans.  And he still didn't
believe it then.

Amb.  PETERSON: It was only until after we got wheels in the
well, after we were airborne and the wheels of the aircraft came in,
that we went bonkers.

(Footage of aircraft; servicemen aboard plane)

Amb.  PETERSON: (Voiceover) I mean, the whole airplane just went
crash. Everybody's yelling, shouting.  The whole place is just
chaos, and we knew then, of course, that we had escaped.

(Excerpt of POW homecoming)

Unidentified Man: (From excerpt) Major Douglas R.  Peterson...

SIMON: (Voiceover) In a matter of hours, the transformation was
complete from prisoner to hero.  Pete Peterson received the
homecoming he'd been dreaming of since the moment he was captured.
But homecomings are rarely simple affairs.

You were Rip Van Winkle.

Amb.  PETERSON: Absolutely.

SIMON: Six and a half years.  You had no idea...

Amb.  PETERSON: Mm-hmm.

SIMON: ...music, clothes, language.

Amb.  PETERSON: We didn't know who the president was.  We didn't
know that there was a man on the moon.

(Vintage photo of Peterson and son)

SIMON: (Voiceover) That was history.  This was home--a young son,
Doug, whom he'd never met before.

Amb.  PETERSON: These are the kids growing up.  I...

SIMON: And these are--these are the kids you never saw.  You
never saw them like that.

Amb.  PETERSON: Oh, no.  No, I sure didn't.  I missed seven
years of their lives, and you only have one 10th birthday.  You
don't make that up.  And you only have one championship basketball
game, or whatever it is, that--you don't make that up.  You can
reflect, perhaps.  These are time scars.  That's what they are.
They're time scars.

(Vintage photo of  Hanoi prison)

SIMON: (Voiceover) And the wounds were made by the very same men
Peterson will be presenting his credentials to in  Hanoi.

Do you hate them now?

Amb.  PETERSON: No.  I've--I--I--I checked the hate at the door.
And I know that sounds trite, perhaps, and impossible, but I really
did.  I walked out and said, `No.  This--this is over.  I survived.
I made it.'

(Footage of capitol building; Peterson in Washington; vintage
photo of Sam Johnson)

SIMON: (Voiceover) And he made Congress take notice, standing up
for the renewal of relations with  Vietnam long before it became
fashionable.  And then, when he accepted President Clinton's offer
to become our man in  Hanoi, he took flak from fellow veterans, even
from members of his own squadron, like Texas Congressman Sam Johnson,
also a POW.

Representative SAM JOHNSON (Republican, Texas): The veterans don't
want us to go in there and--and--and restore diplomatic relations
until we know what happened to our guys.

SIMON: Peterson says, as you know, `The war is over.  It's time
to move on, time to restore relations.'

Rep.  JOHNSON: They haven't given us a full and complete
accounting of our POWs and I think that's the real question.

SIMON: And you don't think we should send an ambassador there
until they do all of that?

Rep.  JOHNSON: I don't think we should have diplomatic relations.

SIMON: Sam Johnson--how do you explain the fact that a guy who
went through such a similar experience as you did came out with
it--with such a different view?

Amb.  PETERSON: The difference is, perhaps, the lessons that we
think we have learned.  The Lord didn't save my life to come back
home to be angry and to get back.  I felt that the lesson that I had
out of that was that I was saved.  My life was--was preserved to do
something constructive.

(Vintage photo of Peterson and Talley; footage of Talley)

SIMON: (Voiceover) Remember Bunny Talley, Peterson's co-pilot?
His life was preserved, too.  And he thinks the best way to get the
fullest possible accounting of our missing men is to send the
toughest guy to  Hanoi.

What do you think his experience as a POW will add to his
performance as ambassador?

Mr.  TALLEY: Well, I think that one thing, he would be a great
poker player with them because I can guarantee you that they're not
going to be able to bluff Pete Peterson, because he has s--he has
seen them firsthand when they're trying to bluff him.

(Vintage footage of bombing mission)

SIMON: (Voiceover) But why would the  Vietnamese want Peterson at
the table?  After all, to them, Peterson is not a long-suffering
POW, but a man who dropped bombs on them during an unjust war of
aggression.

Your 67th mission you got shot down and led to six and a half very
unhappy years.  But in your first 66 missions, you were dropping
bombs. You were--probably did a lot of damage.

Amb.  PETERSON: I'm sure I did.

SIMON: Probably killed some people.

Amb.  PETERSON: I'm sure I did.

SIMON: Maybe some civilians.

Amb.  PETERSON: I'm s--fairly certain I did.

SIMON: How do you think the  Vietnamese will react to an ambassador
coming over who probably killed some of their folks?

Amb.  PETERSON: Well, I--as I s--would say to anyone, I was a
combat fighter pilot.  This is a--this was a war we're talking about
and there are going to be civilian losses in any war.

(Vintage footage of Doug Peterson, Carlotta Peterson; footage of
rice paddy)

SIMON: (Voiceover) There were losses, profound losses for
Peterson, too. That young son, Doug, he met for the first time when
he returned home, was killed in a car accident at the age of 16, and
Carlotta, the wife who never stopped working and praying for her
husband, died two years ago.

But when he revisits the village where he made his first landing,
he'll be pleasantly surprised.  He will not believe the way he'll be
greeted this time around.

If Peterson comes and visits your village and you meet him, what
will you say to him?

Mr. CHOP: (Through Translator) I would consider him a friend, and
I would welcome him.  I really don't know what else to say.

SIMON: Will you tell him you're sorry you took his boots off?

Mr.  CHOP: (Through Translator) No.  It was my duty.  There was
nothing heroic about it.

SIMON: Mr.  Sinh, is there anything you'd like to say to Peterson
if he comes here?  I'm sure he will come here.  What will you say
to him when he comes?

Mr.  SINH: (Through Translator) Comrade, if Peterson comes here
now and visits our families and our village, he will be welcomed like
a brother.

(Footage of Simon at  Hanoi Hilton)

SIMON: If you think Peterson's voyage from POW to ambassador is
remarkable,  Vietnam's been on a pretty good trip, too.  Take the 
Hanoi Hilton and everything it meant to Peterson and all the POWs.
The facade's still here, but right behind us, right where the cells
were, a new luxury high-rise is reaching towards the skies.  It'll
have a convention center, a shopping mall and a five-star hotel, room
service, sauna and massage--the kind of accommodations the  Vietnamese
might offer a man who'll be building bridges instead of bombing
them.

(Announcements)
Program Time: 7:11-8:11 PM
Nielson Rating 21310240