[DonQ]

The situation back around 1960, when the US first got involved in Vietnam, was somewhat similar. According to book, A Nation of Sheep, around the time the US first stepped into that quagmire there were, in the US, only about five people who could translate Vietnamese for us. Around that time some Congressional factfinding mission went to South Vietnam and was supplied by the South Vietnamese govt (I think it was the Diem regime) with an interpreter.

Someone eventually showed a Vietnamese student at UCLA a newsreel of one of the factfinding tours, and the student was laughing like hell. On the screen, the Congressional delegation had gone to some small village and was quizzing some bearded elder about the situation. You hear a Congressman ask "What is your opinion of the situation with North Vietnam?" and then the interpretation puts the question to the old man in his language, the old man gets a couple of sentences out, and the interpreter tell them "He says that everyone hates Ho Chi Minh and that President Diem is very good and everyone loves President Diem." But the student said that what the interpreter really said to the old man was "Look around for a few seconds, then count to twenty slowly out loud."

Explains quite a bit, doesn't it?

[Travis McGee]

what the interpreter really said to the old man was "Look around for a few seconds, then count to twenty slowly out loud."

Classic!

[harpseal]

Anyone who took a veitnamese traslator's word for what the local was saying was "Dinky dau." However it was wise to keep any knowledge of the language that would convict a translator for giving us the wrong info quiet so that said translator who was then shown to be enemy wuld provide good intel.