Foreign Aid: Revolutionaries Wanted

Viet Nam, the ads make clear, is no Bali Ha’i. They emphasize that the job involves “long hours, difficult and possibly hazardous working conditions; minimum assignment: 18 months without dependents.” Nonetheless, more than 25,000 Americans have volunteered in the past year to join an expanding U.S. team of civilians in South Viet Nam to push forward a peaceful social revolution amid the ravages of war.

“They seem to regard a tour of duty in Viet Nam as the most challenging, most demanding and most satisfying experience that anyone can find in the world today,” says Sam Simpson, chief recruiter for the Agency for International Development’s Far East bureau. Indeed, after a tour in Viet Nam, 64% of old AID hands ask to be sent back—a higher percentage of veterans who want to stay on than in any of the 77 other countries with AID missions.

Kurd Hurdle. This month AID began the second year of its drive to enlist skilled workers for Viet Nam. In the New York City area, 5,210 applicants, of whom perhaps 200 will qualify, swamped recruiters. Last week in Omaha, 285 responded to AID’s campaign, and 23 qualified for serious consideration. The AID party then went on to Denver and Portland, Ore. By Christmas the agency needs 500 new agronomists, public administrators, teachers, economists, engineers, police specialists, auditors, nurses and secretaries.

David Werp, 28, a market researcher, drove 100 miles from Sioux City to Omaha in hopes of becoming an AID aide. “I’ve wanted to do something for my country since I was a kid,” said Werp, who has a physical disability that kept him out of military service. Volunteers must meet demanding professional requirements, pass stringent medical tests and undergo a security check. The toughest hurdle is a linguistic-aptitude test, aimed at gauging their ability to learn the six-tone Vietnamese tongue, that includes memorizing a string of Kurdish words. “Musicians do well on it,” says Simpson. (So do Kurds.)

Friendly Lizards. To reward its revolutionaries, AID tries to better an applicant’s stateside salary and then adds a 25% Viet Nam bonus; group-health, life-insurance and leave benefits are the same as for other foreign-service workers, and allowances are paid for families that must be left at home. Volunteers are warned that a job in the boondocks could be dangerous — nine AID men have been killed by the Viet Cong, eleven wounded and two kidnaped. Even so, commented one recruiter, “It’s probably safer working there than crossing Times Square.”

Living conditions are admittedly rugged: a shared hotel room, rats, no bath tub, and electric power for perhaps two hours out of 24 in the boonies. Applicants, worried about tropical insects, are reassured that bugs and scorpions are no special problem. What Viet Nam has in abundance, says Nurse Dorothy De Looff, just back from two years in Saigon, is lizards. “But you don’t have to worry about them,” she tells applicants. “They sing, they eat the insects and they’re very friendly. You’ll miss them when you come home.”