This is the article which was featured in the Sunday Oregonian Newspaper, August 8, 1971.
Most Americans taken in:
Corruption in Vietnam tests honestySunday Oregonian August 8th, 1971
Jonathan N. "tiny" Boyce went to Vietnam in 1966, didn't like the corruption he saw, and tried to tell someone about it. Nobody listened until he talked to a congressional committee in 1971. "About anything being done about the purported corruption, that's like locking the barn door after the horse is out, laughs Boyce." Boyce filled various supervisory positions in Vietnam for a Seattle-based Alaska Barge and Transport Co. during 1966 and 1967 Now, sitting over a cup of coffee in a Northeast Portland cafe, he tells a story of corruption that runs into the tens of billions of dollars and from the lowest levels of American Military and civilian administration in Vietnam. Boyce, 48, works out of the cafe as heavy equipment dealer. He testified Wednesday before a house government operations committee, whose chairman William S. Moorehead, D-PA., praised Boyce for contributing to his investigation.
Dishonesty on the Rise
How widespread is corruption in Vietnam? Boyce believes probably 75% of the Americans who have gone to Vietnam were honest, that within a year or two after a given group of Americans has been in the country, the number of honest men drops to 10%. A Man goes out there and he sees other people making easy money, Big Money. Pretty soon he asks: How can I do it? So he tries a little scheme, then a bigger one. It's so easy. I'm talking about everybody clear up to the generals. It makes no difference what a mans category of authority is; says Boyce.U. S. Economy Hurt
According to Boyce, behind the shady monetary manipulation and fraudulent contracting that he says has become a daily part of the Vietnam War, lies a subtle economic war which has contributed to the devaluation of the dollar and the weakening of the American economy. Boyce alleges that behind that economic war stands the shadowy figure of the Soviet Union, but he says the process by which the economic war is waged is extremely complicated.
An American will trade dollars, perhaps money received from a fraudulent or padded contract, on the black market for piasters-the Vietnamese currency-at up to ten times the legal rate of exchange. The American, can through a Vietnamese intermediary, buy pure gold for the equivalent of $10.00 an ounce. Having made an enormous profit on his original dollar investment, that the American can sell his gold for between $85.00 and $150.00 an ounce in India or Persian gulf sheikdom. By that time, says Boyce, the American could have increased his investment by a hundred times and with the dollars obtained from the sale of the gold, he can begin the cycle again in Vietnam. Boyce believes most of the gold in Vietnamese markets originates in the soviet union, and that the continual resale of gold for higher and higher prices devalues the American dollar. It is exactly the same thing that was going on with the french in 1954, and Boyce says; his belief is corroborated by information in the hands of the house government operations committee. Monetary manipulation and other corruption take a myriad of forms in Vietnam, says Boyce, including out right theft of equipment and supplies which are then sold at fancy prices to the Vietnamese.
A more profitable form of corruption is fraudulent contracts, says Boyce. Dishonest contractors and purchasing agents with government contracts may subcontract jobs to friends at wildly inflated estimates or conspires with suppliers in the United States to buy equipment at prices way above the true cost. The purchasers and suppliers split the profits and pocket thousands of dollars.U.S. Loses
Many subcontractors are given to friend without the pretense of a bid, but, in any case, It is a direct loss to the people of the United States, says Boyce. Boyce speaks of his observations and experiences in an almost humorous tone, with the air of a man who's seen so much, he can be no longer shocked or even surprised. He thinks the government has done too little and acted too late in uncovering corruption in Vietnam. Although he is confident most of the corruption that went on during the war, will be uncovered,"that will be a moral victory only, and what good is that?"
About his stay in Vietnam, Boyce says, " liked it. I liked the country and I liked the people, but I think they're getting a raw deal." Beyond corruption, Boyce feels the true waste in the war may be that " The Government of Vietnam is receiving everything, but the people, they're receiving nothing".
