Seeger

There were other nights in drab, but always fascinating, downtown Hanoi during that mission to get at the truth about the protracted peace negotiations going on between Kissinger and Nixon’s White House and the North Vietnamese. After the initial excitement of just being in the enemy’s capitol during a war, I grew restless at night when the interminable discussions and road trips ended. The hotel had been the product of French engineering and design some thirty or forty years before, but there was damned little in the way of new beds and bedding at night.

A couple of drinks at an otherwise empty bar never had all that allure, so I lay in bed and thought about going home and what effect, if any, we would have on bringing peace a step closer though the vehicle of a totally unsanctioned peace mission. I couldn’t sleep, decided to walk around the well-nigh empty old hotel, with its dim lighting and endless halls, when I heard the strains of a Cuban song about love of country and its beauty. I was totally confused for a moment and then a couple hundred voices, singing in Spanish, took up the lyric and I was amazed. These were real voices, not on tape or vinyl.

I searched in vain for the source of the music until it came to an exquisite end and a roar went up. I stood regretfully, wishing like hell I had found the singers and the guitarist who did such splendid work. To my delight it started again, and I listened to the gentle words as I sought, without result, the passage or door that would bring me closer to the singers. I went down endless steps and through a maze of corridors to no avail. Again the beautiful words and melody of “Guantanamara” drew to a close and I stood in a hallway, utterly frustrated. Lo, the music started again, Guantanamara” was getting the full treatment and I listened for a third time....then a fourth and fifth and finally, bemused, a twelfth time when the applause and shouting were thunderous.

I gave up and wondered if my companions were up and about but they apparently had all turned in and so did I. At breakfast the next morning, the ubiquitous bacon and eggs set before us once again, we were talking, when a familiar figure walked into the dining room. It was folk guitarist and peace activist, Pete Seeger, who waved as he passed by.

I got up, went to his table where he was sitting alone, introduced myself and my mission and he nodded and said it was a helluva good idea. Then I brought up the subject of a dozen renditions of Guantanamara” the night before and he began to laugh and shake his head.

“They have a contingent of Cuban ‘advisors’ in town and we got together last night for a songfest.” “Songfest,” I said, “man ,you must have played that tune a dozen times.” He laughed again, “Yeah, 13 actually. You see, the Cubans only have two decent national songs and that was the only one they knew the words to.”

He roared, I joined him, and the others in the restaurant turned to stare at the two Americans laughing their heads off on a rainy morning in downtown, wartime Hanoi.

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