Re: IBM
- From: "tuna" <tuna2@xxxxxxxx>
- Date: 20 Dec 2005 09:41:25 -0800
QTTT
Tho+`i ddo' thi` no' cha^'m ba(`ng punch cards tho^i
Co`n ma^'y 2 ca'i ma'y o+? Danang (1968) cu?a Navy bi. VC pha'oki'ch,
va` ma^'y ca'i o+? Long Bi`nh dda^u ? :-)))
http://historynet.com/vn/blwhiteshirtsandties/index1.html
http://thehistorynet.com/vn/blwhiteshirtsandties/
Tha(`ng IBM tham gia chie^'n tranh Vietnam va` made money on service
business. Lie^.u DDa?ng ta co' cho la` pha' hoa.i ca'ch ma.ng, co^.ng
ta'c
va`o bo.n thu` ddi.ch cha(ng ??? :-)))
hehehehhe
tuna,
----
As the war escalated in the 19651968 years, more and more
data-processing equipment found its way to the growing Army, Marine and
Air Force bases around Saigon and at Long Binh, Bien Hoa, Cam Rahn Bay,
Nha Trang, Qui Nhon and Da Nang. IBM posted permanent personnel at all
those locations (as well as at several base locations in Thailand and
the Philippines), and also supported equipment at the more remote camps
and bases by driving or flying to required maintenance situations.
As the war became more complex and sophisticated, the number of unit
record machines and computers grew and grew until the war was being
managed to a large degree by information processing applications.
Examples of a few of the better-known installations or applications
were Air Force projects, including Seek Data II, PIACCS and Igloo
White; Command and Control at MACV's Data Management Agency; the Army's
Supply System; the Navy's Stock Points supply system; the Da Nang
Marine's Command and Control applications; the Information Data
Handling Systems for the Intelligence community; and the AUTODIN
communications requirements and government work at USAID (U.S. Agency
for International Development). By the early 1970s, the U.S. Armed
Services could claim to have some of the most sophisticated computer
applications in the world, but without the comparably few dedicated
IBMers who maintained it, much of the equipment could not have been
operated.
The IBM volunteers were all bachelors (a requirement of the
assignment), and the average age was probably under 30. There were
probably never more than 50 IBMers in Vietnam at any one time, but a
few men stayed for four years. Each man was selected on the basis of a
particular set of skills and had to have an adventurous and independent
spirit. Many of the men were what IBM chief executive officer Tom
Watson called "wild ducks," IBMers who perhaps did not fit the
classical corporate image. Most of the men adapted fairly well to the
unique environment of war-torn Vietnam. Each man held a Secret, Top
Secret or Special clearance, each carried a "noncombatant" card and
each held a GS-equivalency level depending on his particular
combination of education, skills and responsibilities.
The way that the GS levels were determined is an interesting story.
Sometime in early 1967, when the planned IBM presence in Vietnam was
being negotiated, the liaison between the Federal Marketing Unit in
Honolulu and CINCPAC HQ was through an Air Force Command and Control
office at Hickam Air Force Base. A protocol officer there initially
tried to establish the equivalency levels at GS-7, which meant that no
IBMer would have accepted an assignment in Southeast Asia (for
logistical support reasons). The protocol officer had obtained an IBM
corporate organization chart and equated CEO Tom Watson to the CINCPAC,
then worked downward from there to the GS-7 for branch office
personnel. IBM's federal senior marketing manager then gave the
protocol officer a chart showing CINCPAC at the 19 level, equal to
himself (since he was in charge of IBM's Vietnam operation), which
meant the managers in Vietnam would be GS-18s and so on. That, too, was
unacceptable. A compromise was established at GS-11 through GS-15 for
Vietnam technicians and managers. These levels provided the IBMers with
certain privileges of rank, mostly having to do with dining in any
military mess hall and aircraft travel orders; they were levels that
were never unnecessarily abused.
Headquarters for IBM's government office were at 115 Ming Mang, located
one block north of Cach Mang Street off Tran Tan Buu and about half way
between the Tan Son Nhut area bases and downtown Saigon. Most of the
Saigon-based IBMers lived in rented villas nearby. Saigon management
reported to an IBM federal office in Honolulu, which, in turn, reported
to National Federal Marketing in Bethesda, Md. MACV provided a
half-acre property for IBM's use that had previously served as a Red
Cross office. It consisted of an old French farmhouse surrounded by
high walls and protected by an iron gate and concertina wire. The house
was converted to maintenance, systems engineering, sales and
administrative office space and was occupied by the IBMers for more
than five years. A huge diesel generator ensured back-up power for the
building. Outbuildings stocked a full inventory of unit record machine
and computer spare parts designed to meet needs for and repair almost
any machine in-country.
Southeast Asia was a long way from any major IBM parts depot, so a
back-up spare parts warehouse was established on Okinawa. If "Oki"
couldn't provide a necessary part, it was either repaired on-site,
using creativity and pieces scavenged from less critical equipment, or
ordered from the United States with a 24- to 48-hour delivery time.
The heart of the IBM office compound, other than the people, was a
Collins SSB (single side band) radio transceiver and 75-foot antenna
capable of communicating with remote stations throughout Vietnam and
Thailand. The office had a very old Japanese-made switchboard system
(complete with operating instructions written in Japanese), but Saigon
telephones were notoriously bad, and PTT had a terrible mess on their
hands; consequently, the SSB radio system was made operational 24 hours
a day. It was used for machine outage reporting, reporting up-country
spare parts and supply requirements, planning preventive maintenance
schedules, and monitoring the movements and status of the IBMers in
residence up-country.
The IBM customer engineers were also on call 24 hours a day, seven days
a week, and the radio network often provided connectivity. The SSB
network was used more than once by Army or Air Force personnel when
their own telephones or communications systems failed. Each IBMer
carried a portable Collins "handy-talky" used to report his whereabouts
and parts requirements or, if necessary, to bash wayward cowboys intent
on stealing his wristwatch.
It was a standing company safety requirement for each IBMer to keep the
home base informed as to exactly where he was and where he planned to
go next--customer site, home, or bar. Each handy-talky was faithfully
kept in a bedside battery charger at night in the "on" position. The
Collins equipment worked flawlessly.
IBM's military business in Southeast Asia was conducted under the
guidelines of a yearly General Services Administration (GSA) contract.
It provided for expedited DO/DX rated equipment purchase orders to
ensure timely delivery of machines to Vietnam and Thailand. Most
machines were shipped by air out of McClellan or Travis Air Force
bases. The contract specified what machines had been approved for use
in Southeast Asia and provided sales, rental and maintenance prices for
all equipment and spare parts. The contract promised that IBM would
provide at least two-hour or better maintenance response time in the
event of a nonexpendable machine outage, although common sense had to
prevail if a location were under attack and the situation was
considered unsafe. The contract also provided for the logistical
welfare of the IBMers in the war zone with respect to post exchange,
medical, commissary, housing, recreation facilities and travel
privileges.
Each year the GSA contract became more comprehensive, more definitive
and more cumbersome, but as a general rule the contract was the
operative bible. Each year GSA renewed the contract months after the
previous fiscal year's contract had expired, with the net result that
the IBM bills could not be paid on time. It was said that our
government knew how to order, ship and operate the equipment, but did
not know how to pay for it. The IBM Corporation probably made money
during the war, and at one three-year stretch between 1969 and 1971,
the Saigon-based branch office could account for an estimated
$70,000,000 to $80,000,000 in machine-based revenue. However, IBM's
expenses were unique, unusually high, and the operation was clearly
risky and subject to criticism by the United States government.
IBM paid for employee housing, transportation, up-country 4-wheel-drive
vehicles and portakamps, meals, inflated hazardous duty salaries,
vacations, yearly R & Rs as well as the SSB communications equipment,
and probably too many long-distance upper-management trips from the
United States. Those millions in revenue also had to cover the federal
sales, technical and administrative support organizations throughout
the United States, the extra spare-parts system put in place across the
Pacific, and of course the initial manufacturing of all the machines
(and not all of them made it back to the States again) in use. IBM did
not want to be viewed as profiteering from the war, but it is doubtful
that they lost any money.
IBM World Trade Corporation also had a sizable Vietnam-licensed
business headquartered in downtown Saigon on Gia Long Street. The
personnel at that site were almost entirely Vietnamese, Chinese or
French citizens, with several American managers. This company sold and
serviced computers for Vietnamese businesses, banks, the Vietnamese
government and the VNAF (Vietnam Air Force [South]) and ARVN (Army of
the Republic of Vietnam) military installations. IBM Vietnam was
separate and distinct from this military support organization, with a
completely different reporting structure through Hong Kong. It is only
mentioned here to clarify the difference and to introduce what will be
told in a follow-on story written about the 130 IBM Vietnam employees
and their families who were trapped during the fall of Saigon in April
1975
.
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