Years before full-scale U.S. involve ment in the war, and long before USAID-supported programs for civilian pacification got under way, some Americans were hard at work in South Viet Nam helping strife-ridden citizens. Few have worked harder against greater odds than Seattle-born Dr. Patricia Marie Smith, 40, who has been in the central highland province of Kontum since 1959, first helping in a leprosarium, then running her own makeshift clinic, now operating a 40-bed hospital.
What made Dr. Smith's work especially tough was the nature of the people she wanted to help....