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The quality of translations is limited by time, personnel, and budget. One cannot be certain of achieving ideal translations. One can, however, strive for a reasonable approximation of meaning by using the above suggestions within the given limitations.

When the respondents speak another language, the questions have to be translated. Translations should carry the precise meaning, yet often there is no one-to-one relationship of words in two languages. While the PSYOP officer may not find ideal conditions to solve these problems, a number of suggestions are offered to obtain reasonably accurate translations.

NOTES

1. Herbert P. Phillips, "Problems of Translation of Meaning in Field Work," Human Organization, XVIII, no. 4 (Winter 1959-60), pp. 184-192.

2 Eugene Jacobson, Hideya Kumata, and Jeanne E. Gullahern, “Cross-Cultural Contributions to Attitude Reasearch," Public Opinion Quarterly, XXIV (1960), pp. 205–223. 3. Phillips, "Problems of Translation."

Frederick W. Frey, "Surveying Peasant Attitudes in Turkey," Public Opinion Quarterly, XXVII, (Fall 1963), pp. 335-355.

5. Susan Ervin, and Robert T. Bower, “Translation Problems in International Surveys,” Public Opinion Quarterly, XVI (1952), pp. 595–604.

• Frey, "Surveying Peasant Attitudes."

7. Ervin and Bower, "Translation Problems."

TET IN VIET-NAM*

BY CHUONG DAC LONG

Time is an important determinant in the receptivity of audiences to media as well as to messages. Analyses such as this one facilitate message composition and media selection.

The custom of celebrating Tet goes back to remote antiquity. Like many other Vietnamese traditions it was imported from China.... One of the best preserved rites of Tet is the celebration of the feast of the Jinni of the Home, on the 23rd day of the 12th month. This feast gradually lost its original meaning, even in China, and when it was imported into VietNam, it underwent a profound change in the minds of the people and became simply a sentimental story.

The same may be said of nearly all the customs concerning Tet: originally they were imbued with lofty and precise philosophical significance, although usually disguised under a poetic parable. The incomprehension of later ages brought about profound transformation and alteration, and the customs became largely folk beliefs. They should be examined in this light, rather than rejected outright as beliefs of no value, unworthy of consideration. Nothing is more moving to Vietnamese than the permanence of these rites, they are like messages addressed to us by our ancestors from the distances of time.

*Excerpts from JUSPAO Field Memorandum, Number 31, November 28, 1966. JUSPAO, Planning Office, Saigon.

One of the most characteristic customs of Tet consists in buying a flowering peach-tree branch that is placed in a vase for the duration of Tet.... Many people imagine that these branches have no other purpose than to add a graceful decoration to Vietnamese homes, and today, in fact, they have no other significance. Originally, however, they had the same effect as the cay-neu (a tall decorated pole erected before the house during Tet) and were used like them, to protect oneself from the visit of demons.

According to the Chinese astrological calendar, time is circumscribed in revolutions of 60 years, divided into cycles of 12 years, each cycle containing 12 months, and the like. Years and months thus have the same names: there is the year thin (Dragon), just as there is the month thin; the year ty (Serpent), the month ty, the day ty, the hour ty, and the like.

A cycle of twelve years is placed under the sign of twelve supernatural powers (hanh-khien), some of whom are well-disposed and others hard and cruel. On the last night of the year, this power passes to the new power. The passing of service that is known as giao-thua.

In town and countryside, the head of each family; each mayor (lytruong), each mandarin governing a province, the Emperor in his capital and all the pagodas, would offer a token sacrifice at the same moment to thank the old power hanh-khien and to welcome the new. This ceremony of giao-thua is performed in homes at midnight, the moment when the hour of the Pig (gio hoi) changes to that of the Rat (gio ty). It is carried out with great solemnity. In the old days it used to be accompanied by noisy and interminable fireworks and the beating of drums. This has given rise to the expression “Trong keu ran nhu trong giao-thua” (“A rolling of drums comparable to those of the giao-thua").

It is the custom at giao-thua for everyone to stay awake till morning so as to be prepared to welcome in the New Year. It is often amusing to see parents, as soon as the drums of the pagoda announce the arrival of the New Year, rush to wake up all the sleepy children in the house, sitting them up by force if necessary and, in spite of their cries and grumblings, so they too will not tempt fate by failing to observe this custom.

It is strictly forbidden to sweep the house (after giaothua) during the first day of the Tet. During the days that follow, sweeping is allowed but it is absolutely forbidden to gather up rubbish and throw it away.

. . . It is forbidden to touch a broom on this Tet day. Vietnamese children recite the following riddle: “Trong nha co mot ba hay la liem," which means: "What person in the house scrounges all she wants?" The answer, of course is "The broom," it picks things up wherever it passes. The origin of the prohibition on removing household refuse is found in another Chinese legend. . .

... One of the customs concerning Tet has a curious resemblance to a practice taught by the Druids of ancient Gaul, who used to lead the people into the forest on the first day of the year seeking lucky branches of

mistletoe they would keep the following twelve months. The Chinese and Vietnamese are also expected to bring home from their first walk of the New Year a leafy branch, if possible covered with fruit and flowers (canh-loc). The heavier the branch, the greater will be the riches (loc) earned during the coming year. Today this belief has become a reason for people to go for walks in public gardens or the Vietnamese countryside.

... It is generally supposed that Tet in Viet-Nam begins on the first day of the first month of the lunar New Year. This is true in general, but there is an exception in certain provinces (Hadong, Son Tay and Thai Nguyen), where Tet is celebrated later, during the first month. This custom dates from the reign of the Emperor Tu-Duc and is thus 70 or 80 years old. We have heard of an explanation given by certain old men, survivors of this heroic period. Emperor Tu-Duc's reign was marked by numerous uprisings and especially by frequent raids by Chinese “black flag" pirates. These pirates knew that the Vietnamese, like the Chinese, were in the habit of holding sumptuous celebrations at Tet. This offered them a good occasion to loot, burn, rape and massacre the inhabitants of the coast. After several years of this treatment, the people got together and decided to adopt the practice of Tet cung, or "Delayed Tet." During the days when other Vietnamese were celebrating joyfully, these people would bury their valuables, leave their homes and hide in the woods and mountains. The arriving pirates, finding nothing of interest to them, would conclude that the region was so poor that its inhabitants could not even observe Tet. A few days later, the villagers would return and hold their feasts in peace, finding their pleasure even greater for the delay. They became so used to this "delayed Tet" that they continued the

custom.

PSYOP Intelligence Sources

The sources of intelligence for psychological operations are several and varied. As Phillip Katz has indicated,1 primary sources are (1) prisoners of war, (2) defectors and refugees, (3) the civilian population, and (4) broadcasts. Other sources, of different levels of importance, include (5) captured documents, (6) enemy propaganda, (7) intelligence reports, and (8) published and unpublished reports.

In this part of the chapter are articles dealing with or illustrating intelligence production from these sources. The methods used to derive useful information from the sources-to "exploit the sources”—are covered in the following subsection, "PSYOP Intelligence Methods."

The use of prisoners of war or defectors as intelligence resources hardly requires comment here. This practice is almost as old as the concept of warfare. Refined psychological techniques for extracting information from prisoners of war have been available for a number of years and are applied with varying degrees of success by all elements of the armed forces. Treatment of defectors does not generally pose the information extraction problems encountered when handling POWs. However the problem of overstatement or understatement by the defec

tor, for the explicit purpose of telling his new-found friends what he thinks they might want to hear, cannot be discounted.

Civilians-friendly, hostile, or neutral-are an important potential source of PSYOP intelligence, particularly when, as in insurgency situations, the civilian population may be the only group in constant contact with the insurgents on other than military terms. Interviewing and sampling, two major approaches to intelligence collection from the civilian populace, are discussed in the section of this chapter dealing with "PSYOP Intelligence Methods." Similarly, travellers from among the target audience can be an important source of information on audience attitudes (though the representativeness of their views may be suspect) as well as on socioeconomic and political intelligence.2

Radio broadcasts within target areas are also a primary source of information. Monitoring such broadcasts-a newer source than those time-honored ones, such as prisoners of war and refugees-provides not only timely intelligence, but supplements, as well, the surveying of local newspapers, periodicals, and books to provide a good idea of the information locally available which helps shape the opinions of the audience.

Documents are sometimes narrowly defined as captured enemy secrets. This definition is far too narrow for intelligence purposes. Documents also include enemy-issued, or enemy-sponsored, public media pronouncements and communications to other governments. With respect to U.S. psychological operations, the amount of relevant information available from this source has often been overwhelmingly large, and therefore somewhat misused or unused. Advances in information storage and retrieval, as well as in content analysis, suggest that captured documents. and public utterances of an enemy regime will be far more useful intelligence resources in future PSYOP campaign planning.

The use of original documentation as an intelligence assimilation method is historically one of the most successful techniques. It involves the careful analysis of written and verbal enemy messages. Capture of documents provides an analysis source that is usually too large in volume to process well. Major problems involve screening captured documents to select those which have the highest potential impact, reliability, and accuracy 3 and correlating analyses which might be based upon different and conflicting documents.

Propaganda can often appear in the form of enemy documents. In other cases, however, propaganda may take the form of rumors or other communications. (See Chapter VIII.) Enemy propaganda is one of the most fertile fields for PSYOP intelligence."

Additional data for the psyoperator are contained in intelligence reports produced by U.S. or friendly intelligence agencies. These are secondary resource materials (that is, they are derived from other sources, covert or overt).

Other published and unpublished studies, reports, and documents are the last major source of intelligence. These include reporting in news

papers, periodicals, and other media; books; theses; government or private studies or internal documents; and research findings. Like intelligence reports, these sources are usually secondary in nature (though they may incorporate primary research materials), and, again like intelligence documents, this may or may not include analysis. Inclusion of analytical comment in source material can be dangerous, since the analyses may be (1) directed toward an objective dissimilar from the one for which the document is later utilized, (2) outdated, or (3) inadequate as a result of time constraints exercised on the production of the document for its original purposes.

Sources of PSYOP intelligence often present one or two opposite problems: inadequacy or superfluity. The psyoperator may find that not enough of his material is relevant, that it is outdated, or that there is simply not enough for his needs. On the other hand, there may be so much relevant intelligence data that his primary problem is in ordering and analyzing the data in the time allowed. In either case, the information that he decides to use must be analyzed. The methodologies open to the psyoperator for analysis of his intelligence data are discussed in the following section.

NOTES

1. Phillip P. Katz, “A Survey of PSYOP Intelligence,” in the beginning of this chapter. 2. See, for example, Radio Free Europe, "East European Attitudes to the Vietnam Conflict: A Study in Radio Effectiveness" and "Identification with North or South Vietnam in Eastern Europe." both in Chapter IX of this casebook.

3. See U.S. Army, FM 30-5, Combat Intelligence.

See "Know Thine Enemy: Estimate of the Enemy Situation," Chapter V of Napoleon D. Valeriano and Charles T. R. Bohannan, Counter-Guerrilla Operations: The Philippine Experience (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Publishers, 1962).

Prisoners of War

PW AND CAPTURED DOCUMENT DOCTRINE*

BY JOHN A. HEMPHILL

Newly captured prisoners of war and documents are important sources of information. To maximize usefulness, particularly in stability operations, interrogation and document translation should begin as soon as possible after capture.

The problem of what to do with prisoners of war (PW's) has perplexed military commanders from the beginning of recorded history.... In modern times, steps have been taken to eliminate brutality and to standardize PW treatment. However, one part of the PW subject has not changed over the centuries-the PW continues to be a valuable source of information and an important link in the production of intelligence.

*Excerpts from "PW and Captured Document Doctrine," Military Review, XLIV, no. 11 (November 1969), pp. 65-71.

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