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It's a very great pleasure for me to introduce Miss call Miss Caulfield Miss Genevieve Caulfield to the members of the Overseas Press Club and also to the audience of W N Y C Who will be listening to the remarks that are made here at the luncheon as they do each Wednesday Miss Caulfield especially with so many of her friends here present needs no introduction all of us. Remember that on the Fourth of July a year ago when President Kennedy decided that for the first time in American history the presidential gold medal of freedom should be given to a group of three women along with. A group of men that in this group of the first three women ever to win win the award was Miss Caulfield recognizing a story which already had been recognized by the RAM known makes a say award for international understanding which is called Some people call it the Nobel Prize of Asia that of what had been given to her nine hundred sixty one. In many ways sometimes through the pages of her own autobiography. Often in recognition from organizations the admiration and appreciation of the whole human race has been expressed to Ms Caulfield blind almost from infancy. A woman who converted this handicap into a blessing an unknown blessing for Southeast Asia for after going out to Japan for fifteen years to support herself by teaching making use of her Columbia teacher's college degree and by teaching English to high school boys in Japan she then went on to to Southeast Asia to help the blind in in that area very often working with people who had never before had been had been given any assistance it was called it was telling me just now with her typical delightful sense of Yuma that she always remembers those days of teaching English in Japan reporters are always saying that she was she was working with the blind during those fifteen years from one hundred twenty three to one hundred thirty nine confusing the latter part of her story with the first but she was not she was teaching English and she said that she'd always worked very well for two reasons one because of the great brilliance of those students that she found Japan and also because of a little speech she always gave on the first day of class which was that I know that it's fun to to deceive the teacher to play games with the teacher all of us rub to do that I like it too but really you mustn't do it in my case it would be too easy. She told me also of a one little boy who she was giving a pronunciation test one day and she said one little boy don't show up in that pencil now we don't need pencils at this point this is just an Oral Exercise and after class he came up and he said could you see me shopping that pencil. This is the a little help of the of the grantor of the guest we have the honor to have with us today. Luke. Mr President ladies and gentlemen. I've done many presumptious things in my life but I think this is about the limit of my presumption should dare to address the Overseas Press Club on a subject that they must know so much better than I do and that I am really overwhelmed with a sense of modesty which is not my usual. Fault. I couldn't be but it anyway perhaps I may be able to say a few things to you that you don't know about or perhaps you forgotten they happened so long ago I'm going to speak today principally about the. Very quick but the. Political and social aspects of Thailand and a little on the same subject of the now those are the countries in which I work and I am particularly interested. At this at this time about the social development in Thailand because recently we have heard about the death of the prime minister people in some ground. Now we've almost forgotten him because in the meantime before he died. And we have another prime minister but I can never forget people in some Graeme because when I went to Thailand in one nine hundred thirty nine. Some of you may know this but some of you don't there was any say with All in all truth that not one single thing was being done by the Thais for physically handicapped or orphans or any other kind of people the only word of this type that was being done by the tide themselves was Red Cross work and a few hospitals that's all the leper hospitals orphanages and other institutions of that kind were practically all conducted by missionaries and when I think now how Thailand has developed it is really amazing the before the war and after the war until after the war there was no training at all of any kind of social workers in Thailand nothing at all the first for the training of social workers was inaugurated a by attorney turned up the wife of of people in song. And I can tell you that that was an interesting thing he asked the United Nations representative missed him is Davidson if he would help with this school of social work which he an organ raided in the in the woman's cultural group or organization and I know that some of the people of the students who entered that school of social work thought they were going to learn dancing and other things like that they thought it was a school for social training. Quite a different time. This is true and when we think that now there are all sorts of activities in Thailand there is there are there's work for the blind there's work for the deaf work for the cripple for retarded children for underprivileged children for all sorts of things conducted by the tower themselves sometimes by the government sometimes private organisations with the members of the royal family very much interested in this matter it is simply amazing when I first went there to help the blind in Thailand I had been in Japan for quite a long time and I had heard that nothing was being done for the Blind in Thailand on the i ask some type people whom I met in Tokyo what are you doing for the Blind in Thailand or Siam as they called it then blah I know they're no blind and so I am not on nights for utopia I think I'll go there I'll reply and this is where oh they're not they're no children anyway you know in our school at present time we have one hundred forty five children. And in my where there's another school open they have nearly thirty children and they need a great many more opportunities for four blind children I wish I could go into it and tell you how hard we had to work how we had to do all sorts of things to convince the parents that it was worthwhile sending these children to school and how it was so difficult to convince even the members of our board we couldn't get any any donations for our school without forming a foundation I went there on my own entirely with a with the enormous sum of eight hundred dollars which wouldn't go very far towards starting a school unless we got donations of but we couldn't do that unless we found a foundation it took six months to get that sort of our nation started now the foundations are springing up all over the place all over Thailand but. After we got it started we worked for five years without any government help at all and the first government help we got came through the interest of Madam people and the prime minister and just think at that time you may be interested in this little episode that we were hoping that the government would give us something but we didn't know how it would be done one day and anyway we were going on with our schoolwork and doing the best we could and one day one of the members of our board came to me and said you know the prime minister's wife has a little group known as the women's culture group this is during the war we all had to wear hats and gloves but and hats and gloves in Thailand but we all did with the law we couldn't but we couldn't buy postage stamps unless we had a hat on. This is true in the country. I'm sure some of your correspondents who have been in Thailand know this story but in the country they had a family had in the in the morning the mother would wear it when she went out to market and otherwise she couldn't buy any food and then the father would wear it when he went to sell its products and the children would be playing with no clothes on when heads. It was really extraordinary this is a rule of the prime minister we don't even know yet why I made such a law press you tell us from heaven now why did but we don't know but anyway we all we knew we were going we had to go to this meeting the prime minister's wife said. She had this woman's cultural group and everybody wore hats and gloves and Secretary of our committee said to her don't you think it would be nice for the students from that school for the blind to come and give a play for you she had seen how we how our children how adept they were in giving plays the prime minister's wife said blind children good plays are you crazy said no I'm not crazy let them try so we all appeared one day in our hats and gloves and the hottest blazes it was you can imagine in. Bangkok so we all appeared and the blind children all dressed up and all ready to give their plays they gave to play one in English and one in Thai Of course for any poor little miserable so-called blind children to be able to speak English were simply incredible and they were these women were so impressed by that that the next day the prime minister invited all the pupils and teachers of the school for the blind to lunch. Such a thing had never been heard well I just tell you that to show how quick the Thai were to respond to this kind of thing and after five years through the people and we got a wonderful government grant it was wonderful at that time but at that time we had only twenty people now we have a hundred forty four so the Government Grant takes care of about one sixth of our budget it's a resident school but it's not only debt it's the fact that we have won the confidence of the people people are beginning to understand that these people who are studying our school are learning to work there when you are working as typists of telephone operators as must serve in hospitals as interpreters as musicians doing all sorts of things and as a result of that their whole concept is changing and now since the war we have two schools for the deaf and we also Away I say we because I'm interested in the whole thing anyway I started work for the cripple they have a beautiful organization before they rehabilitate of the cripple and all sorts of things have been developed now this shows that the political situation and the able them to work and they do this social work too even though. Thailand as you know it's never been a democracy they had in the time of people. Assembly but fifty percent of that assembly was elected by the people in the other fifty percent appointed by the government so the government with your to be on top anyway to put it but in spite of all that thing it's not a democracy now it's under martial law still Thailand lives but the people are not being browbeaten they are there are many difficulties but they are able to be interested in their underprivileged people there's all there's so much yet to be done Good gracious I don't mean that that great strides have been taken but I do mean that since nine hundred thirty nine the progress that Thailand has made is simply incredible when you think of all the Queen who is patron is of a great many organizations including our own that various members of the royal family that the prime minister's wife even the wife of serotonin Rock who is not particularly interested in social work she had to get interested in social work in order to to keep her name in order to get what else few other things she wanted but Marshall people INS wife was really interested I remember she tried it was she who organized women's volunteer organization and she took all she had forced all the women who were employed by whose husbands were employed by the government to join this organization and made many of them go as volunteers to work in hospitals to work in any kind of. Project that she had in mind she wasn't a trained social worker but she was she was dedicated to the interests of the people so these wives of the officials would work for. This kind of thing well I had I had in these peoples in Thailand I was working for the Blind as a volunteer and taught English to keep the wolf from the door and I remember I had one or two of these government officials wives one day I was arranging for their lessons I said Oh tomorrow you have to go to your volunteer group don't you should not volunteer forced labor. But no it's not forced labor anymore they understand it if they're not volunteers on something there and they're just not in it that's so it's a it's a question of status these days to be members of some organization or several organizations and they really put a lot into it there and they give a lot of money now our school for the blind we get only a six of our budget from the from the government and all the rest of the money come from. People in Thailand including Jim Thompson and Jim Thompson as you know started the improved Thai silk industry and he has given work to an enormous number of people and also his competitors have given a lot of work to any number of people Jim has the hopes which he has put into which he has put all sorts of Tire works of art and he opens his house twice a week to tourists for this for the privilege of going through this hours he charges a dollar and a quarter that dollar and a quarter goes to our school every bit of it and this kind of thing people are doing a lot of the Buddhists give us donations to get married Claire They believe that they can get married that way. Because they we they help us a lot and they help themselves at the same time and we have never been in bed with never had any trouble when in one thousand nine. Hundred separate I want to say that the object of this work as well as with the work of the deaf and other social activities is to enable these pupils of ours to become self respecting human beings we've sent nine already abroad to study they've gone back to help in the work for the blind and to work for themselves which is a great help because we want them to go out and do other things we have we're teaching them typing in our school we have one girl who is working as a dictaphone typist at the United Nations office in Bangkok on the McComb River project it's a pretty difficult project for a Thai girl especially a blind girl who has no dictionary to work on in English but that to show off the head of this this McComb River Project told me that she's the best type is the head which is a great help when I was in Thailand in December I met her and she's very pleased with herself You must go if you're going to stay for the conference aren't you I support conference she said what the McCormick river conference was for good gracious I couldn't care less. But this shows how interested she is but a nine hundred fifty six I was asked. By the. Me ambassador Vietnamese ambassador in Bangkok who is as if he was refugee from the north and he had been sent to Thailand to look after all these refugees you know who had come down during the French war I would not go into that but I have only twenty minutes so I can't but I wanted to give some lectures about Vietnam when I came to the United States and I knew I couldn't do it without going there and I didn't know a single living soul there and naturally what could I do wandering around Saigon in fifty six looking for lecture material so I went to the ambassador and asked him if he could help me get this material he said Oh yes I think I can but I can help them get some material to I want you to tell them something about the work that's been done here for the blind and other physically handicapped people so he arranged for me to meet President la the M.G.M. I met him the first day that I was in Saigon and I always remember what he said to me he said and he taught him wish usually He spoke French and somebody had to interpret but for some unknown reason. He spoke English with me and he said you know I have very little money and didn't one hundred fifty six I have very little money and you can imagine my problems are innumerable I knew that too it was a shambles nine hundred fifty six but he said I don't want the physically handicapped to be left out I want them to feel that even though it is a very small project that we can organize for them that they're having some share in the development of our country so can you do something small I said it couldn't be smaller I started in Thailand with one pupil. Is it and is nothing smaller than that so we were able to get elementary school started in a side gone under the government to organize. What is known as the Friends of the blind the Vietnam who are interested in. And the adults of course all this is on a very very small scale and then the brothers the Christian Brothers have recently consented to open a class of training for the blind to train a small group of boys so that they can go into the classes with the sighted boys and study in the in the secondary school so we're getting on with that very well indeed now this show in Vietnam I want to point out here because we hear so many horrors about Vietnam and I being interested in this type of work can see how eager the people are to do something along these lines and when I was there last August in the middle of the agitation and the troubles that everybody was having under the last administration the Minister of Education asked me if I would take the responsibility of forming a training class to teach or really train teachers to teach the blind or I said I'd love to do it I can't be very big he told me because they don't have much money but we can at least get a start so that we can have trained teachers to enable us to open more work more schools so then I came back to the United States to get the award that was mentioned and I came I was just going to start on. Prepared to stop in Vietnam on November first this award was postponed and postponed so I left on November first to get it. When I was a I had my about I take it all punched to go to stop in Saigon when on the first of November I heard about the coup d'etat I was to leave on the second and I thought probably my friends in Vietnam would prefer to see me at another time so I decided to cancel that I called up the tire Airways on the night of. November first thousand I'm going to cancel my trip to Saigon which is why. Why I said they're having a revolution there let's go. Well I just heard it on the radio you couldn't blame the tire ways but they didn't really know about it so I didn't get there until January but I was worried to death for fear that they could it our people would scrap my teacher's training because that had been proposed by the as a former minister of education so I got some great vine people working and found out that they were still very much interested in it that the minister under the First couldn't I was interested and they said we're waiting for you to come and the class had already been organized they were learning braille in preparing to get my instruction. So I went back in January and began the class under the First could attack then at the end of January we had second could a time I thought oh we're finished now not a bit the second prime minister minister of education was equally interested more so and for that first for that three months January February March I was able to get a grant and priests are was offered a grant from us I guess which I guess I call it here. Which I was able which I was very happy to accept it was the first and only grand I've ever received in all my life and it was like glad to get it but I got that and when I came left for this trip to the United States the Minister of Education said I hope you get another grant but if you don't I can get all the English pupils for you to teach that you need including myself. Are they glad to be have to get some help with English too he speaks explanation which by the way and so I'm going bed in October but I tell you this story to show you how interested people are in this kind of thing and how the Americans are working you people perhaps some of you realize but many don't who read just read the accounts of guerrillas how these doctors who are who have been sent over with the Army when they're not working with the soldiers they're done working in hospitals on physical therapy ophthalmology all sorts of things they're not just sitting around waiting for the patients to come from the American army they're really doing things there are people in aid who are who are in remote villages not safe places a toll working on hills education social work all sorts of things and I think that this concrete idea of the work for the blind will give you an example of how. Interested the Vietnamese are in improving their condition and this present government as far as I can see is is very much interested especially in improving the lot of the peasant the other the former government did a tremendous work my goodness when we think of the conditions in one thousand fifty six with nine hundred thousand refugees in camps and most of those people now several on their own land contributing to the country and in one way or another they were they were settled down pretty well by nine hundred fifty nine and their schools and all sorts of things there are not schools for the Viet Cong to burn a good many and enough teachers for them to take into captivity and all sorts of things and fortunately this government is continuing and perhaps intensifying this word among village people and we we mustn't feel that just because the preps the war needs to be pushed up a little which is certainly does need to be pushed up an awful lot we mustn't feel that we are just doing military work there we are absolutely necessary for for the people of Vietnam to help them to get there their society in order to help people to learn to be educated to sick people to be made will blind people to be made useful and prevention of all sorts of diseases and infirmities you don't realise I'm sure many of you how important that sort of thing is because after all if you know better than I do these are not the people way over there there are neighbors there are only eighteen hours away from San Francisco just think of it just the distance and it used to take to go from New York to Chicago. They there are people who are who with us there are no longer those oh those unknown aliens those Oriental The Oriental mind which nobody can understand lot of nonsense we can understand we can understand very well about oriental people because they feel as we do they want the same things that we do and we hope sincerely that you people who are so interested in tell in getting the truth to the public we hope that you will try to make people in America understand how important it is for us to really help these people not just hand out money but give them our spirit give them our work get them our love give them our understanding and give me your understanding and let me stop. I. Bill I'll ask our. Panel our regular question bird Iran. Well first question. I'm sure you are dying and you get into the. Knowledge that your house or this part of the country would really not too many of us know too well I'm going to as by asking or a personal question about a very dear colleague of mine father Yeager and perhaps you tell us a word or two about father were his call field. I first met Father Diego in Vietnam he had come there at the invitation of the president to try to straighten out the difficulties with the Chinese you know perhaps remember that when the Vietnamese gained independence they did some rather will. Indiscreet things about the Chinese as you know there's a Chinese population a big overseas Chinese population in most of the of Asian countries and in Vietnam under the French. The Chinese were left entirely to themselves. At the French tried in every way to disseminate their culture to the Vietnamese but they didn't try to disseminate their culture a tall man with Johnny and the Chinese lived in groups in segments of the town for instance in Saigon. And they many of the most of them didn't speak French and didn't speak Vietnamese Bocconi Chinese So when the time of independence the government announced in stentorian tones that all Chinese people had to be naturalized otherwise a good business will this of course cause riots and all kinds of things and it was soon discovered by the government that this is not been a very wise move so among other people father was who had spent a great many years in China he knew Chinese will spoken written and understood and he was invited by. He had known here in this country and in Belgium and Paris to come over and try to do something with the Chinese while he has been working ever since a remarkable person he opened the school to schools these two schools now are in charge of brothers from Taiwan one of them is a language school and the other is school a high school which prepares Chinese students to enter the universe. Steve Zygon so that they are trying to integrate these Chinese people into the life of Vietnam and I can assure you that during all the agitation last year the Chinese Oh they kept their head remarkably well now they're a little worried because they hear that from Hanoi Chinese are being specially trained to come over and infiltrate among them and subvert them as much as possible further do you also conduct a press service a new service.