Carry On, Little Saigon Radio : Radio station undeterred by threats over interviews with Hanoi leaders

Southern California’s radio stations appeal to diverse audiences with programs ranging from talk shows to rock, in a host of languages. Most offerings do not prompt death threats.

But in Orange County, anonymous callers have vowed to kill employees of Little Saigon Radio and to bomb the station in Santa Ana. The menacing callers were upset with the station’s debut two months ago of British Broadcasting Corp. programs that include interviews with Vietnamese government officials.

The station’s managers and supporters have shown a welcome familiarity with the First Amendment of their adopted land, with free-speech provisions that protect their right to air the interviews they want and the right of their opponents to protest peacefully. Earlier this year, hundreds of Vietnamese-Americans in Little Saigon demonstrated against the establishment of U.S. trade relations with the communist government in Hanoi. They, too, wisely took steps to ensure the protest remained nonviolent.

Thus station officials are cautious but not overly concerned by the threats. The Times Poll recently found that more than half the refugees and immigrants from Vietnam supported full diplomatic relations between Hanoi and Washington. That is a remarkable turnabout from the virulent anti-Hanoi climate in the Vietnamese communities in Westminster, Garden Grove and Santa Ana a few years ago.

In 1987, a Vietnamese newspaper publisher died in a firebombing at his Garden Grove office after publishing advertisements for firms that some anti-communists considered fronts for the Hanoi government. Travel agencies offering trips to Vietnam were forced to scrap them.

Violence against those seeking better ties with the home country’s current regime has declined in recent years. But the anti-communists of Little Saigon need to continually remind their followers of U.S. laws and be sure they understand the protections given both to free speech and to peaceful protests.