The Eye of the Veteran

"Don't be too adventurous," warned President Johnson. "Our wives must have something to do in their old age." But John Steinbeck seemed to be ignoring the counsel of his old friend as he made his first forays into Viet Nam. His fatigues soaked with sweat, the 64-year-old novelist tramped over rough terrain, interviewed G.I.s fresh from combat. He tried his hand at shooting a variety of weapons -- including an M-16 automatic rifle, an M-79 grenade launcher. When a fire fight broke out in a valley beneath him, he watched with the dispassion of a veteran as his companions ducked for cover.

Steinbeck plans to spend six months in Viet Nam and other parts of Southeast Asia. Once a week he will write a column under his "Letters to Alicia" headline for Long Island's Newsday.* "I would hate not to have a personal experience in the most important thing happening in our time," he explains. Initial Steinbeck impressions: he has found the war to be bigger than he suspected; he has been reassured by the caliber of the U.S. troops he has observed. "They are tougher and smarter than ever," he says.

In his first column from Viet Nam he displayed the novelist's eye for detail by describing holiday hilarities in Saigon. "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus even in this baroque Pearl of the Orient," he wrote. "The tiger lady who runs the Fanny Bar and Ladies Improvement Society appears nightly in white whiskers, and her faithful Saigon tea hustlers are wearing antlers and practicing their prancing."

Poet's Snafu. Steinbeck has not only thrown himself into the Viet Nam war, he also has his family along with him. His son John, 20, a Specialist Four with the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service, served as his guide during his first days in Saigon. "In six months, he's become a man," Steinbeck says, "and he's given me the best advice I've received in Viet Nam." The author's wife Elaine is living at Saigon's Caravelle Hotel. She leaves heroics to her husband. "Why should I pretend to be a good sport when I'm not," she told him. "If you think I'm going to ride in an open Jeep with my hair blowing or in a helicopter with the door open, you're nuts."

One person Steinbeck very much wanted to take along was Russian Poet Evgeny Evtushenko. In a pretrip column, Steinbeck suggested that the Russian go with him to Saigon; in return, the poet would take him to Hanoi. Evtushenko found the idea appealing. Unfortunately, said the poet, his planned trip to Hanoi had been cancelled at the last minute. So Steinbeck must try to get into Hanoi on his own.

For Steinbeck, covering a war is nothing new. For six months, he reported World War II for the New York Herald Tribune from England and the Mediterranean. And he still stands by impressions he noted in his book, Once There Was a War. "Although all war is a symptom of man's failure as a thinking animal," he wrote, "still there was in these memory-wars some gallantry, some bravery, some kindliness."

* Steinbeck last used the heading for a series. of columns from Europe and the Middle East in 1965-66. It is named after Alicia Patterson, Newsday's late publisher, wife of present Publisher Harry Guggenheim.

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