Today, Smithies--who says he grew to like Saigon very much, despite a "very rarefied atmosphere" that necessitated weekly trips to the provinces for a reminder that there was a war going on--is naturally less sanguine. "Whatever the merits of the cause. I'm deeply disturbed to see the U.S. forced into a position of unconditional surrender under any circumstances," he says. "And it's not clear to me that there is still a clear direction to foreign policy."
"I wouldn't have gone there unless I thought the objective of a free and independent South Vietnam was a worthwhile one," he continues, "and it's fairly obvious that we didn't pursue that role at all effectively." Nevertheless, Smithies stresses American advisers' accomplishments in such areas as improving rice strains--"whatever side you're on politically, this was a useful thing," he says--and the importance of combating "the impression that everyone connected with Vietnam was a scoundrel."
"I think the economic staff there was really doing a good job," he says. "In the economic and financial areas there were some very good Vietnamese and some very devoted and sincere Vietnamese--extremely able and also extremely patriotic. I can't say the same for some of the corps commanders--but in the welter of recriminations there's a tendency to forget what was good."
* * *
It took just a few days after the Provisional Revolutionary Government's victory last month for Smithies's acquaintances to stop asking him, as at least one had the first day, about "the end of those summers in Saigon." In the burgeoning New England spring, Saigon seemed very far away. It seemed more appropriate to remember smaller-scale settings for imperturbability in the face of exciting or famous or upsetting people or events--the Agassiz Cup celebration, say, or the Kirkland House dinner two years ago at which Smithies gave President Bok a long, pointed introduction, replete with references to "the days when the University was interested in education--before the present administration took office." ("These occasions can get very stolid if you don't liven 'em up a bit," Smithies explains now. "I think one ought to be mildly provocative--what do you think?")
At most, it seemed in keeping with the intoxicating spring weather to remember Smithies's 1969 visit to occupied University Hall--the only one by a master, possibly helping to inspire his belief that by playing a "civilizing role," "the House system vindicated itself in 1969 as I haven't seen it do before or since." Smithies says the visit was mostly a matter of bravado, "rather foolish. I suppose," but he still seems proud of it--he's supposed to have informed an occupier who called him an administration spy that he had "rather more right to be here than you do." The occupiers voted to expel Smithies, but they allowed him to speak first. "It was rather reassuring, in a way," he said, but the occupiers evidently weren't sympathetic--"all I remember just what he said, but the occupiers evidently weren't sympathetic--"all I remember is that it was philosophically weird," one of them said recently.
Meanwhile, Smithies continued to teach macroeconomic theory, scull on the Charles, lunch in the Kirkland dining hall, even be mildly provocative, if only because senior English majors in the House were taking general exams, on such moderately unlikely subjects as the poetry of T.S. Eliot '10. "My wife and I used to be very fond of Eliot--I think we still are," Smithies explained later, but at lunch, he didn't seem so sure.
"But is it poetry--the broad-backed hippopotamus?" he asked his companions, a little quizzically. Then he proceeded to rattle off three or four stanzas: The broad-backed hippopotamus Rests on his belly in the mud; Although he seems so firm to us He is merely flesh and blood...
"Is that poetry--or is it just a jingle?" he asked again. No one offered an immediate answer: things were back to normal.