The Third Force in the Vietnam War: The Elusive Search for Peace 1954–75 9781350989290, 9781786730664

Table of contents :
Cover
Author Bio
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
List of Figures
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1. The Vietnamese Response to Colonialism: Early Twentieth-Century Transformations
2. Giving Peace a Chance: First Efforts to Build a Neutralist Political Movement, 1954–64
3. Hanoi: Between Mao and Khrushchev, 1956–65
4. The Buddhists and the Urban Anti-War Movement, 1964–7
5. The Turning Point: The Tet Offensive
6. Vietnamization and Saigon’s Political Opposition
7. The End of the Republic of Vietnam and Reunification
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Back Cover

Citation preview

It was the conflict that shocked America and the world, but the struggle for peace is central to the history of the Vietnam War. Rejecting the idea that war between Hanoi and the US was inevitable, the author traces a series of communist programmes for a peaceful reunification of their nation from the 1954 Geneva negotiations up to the final collapse of the Saigon government in 1975. She also examines the ways that groups and personalities in South Vietnam responded by crafting their own peace proposals, in the hope that the Vietnamese people could solve their disagreements by engaging in talks without outside interference.

Cover design by Arianna Osti

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Sophie Quinn-Judge

S o p h ie Qu i nn -Ju dge received her PhD from SOAS, University of London and is the author of Ho Chi Minh: The Missing Years. She first visited Vietnam as a volunteer in 1973–5.

The Elusive Search for Peace 1954–75

While most of the writing on peacemaking during the Vietnam War concerns high-level international diplomacy, Sophie Quinn-Judge reminds us of the courageous efforts of southern Vietnamese, including Buddhists, Catholics, students and citizens, to escape the unprecedented destruction that the US war brought to their people. The author contends that US policymakers showed little regard for the attitudes of the South Vietnamese population when they took over the war effort in 1964 and sent in their own troops to fight it in 1965. A unique contribution of this study is the interweaving of developments in South Vietnamese politics with changes in the balance of power in Hanoi; both of the Vietnamese combatants are shown to evolve towards greater rigidity as the war progresses, while the US grows increasingly committed to President Thiê.u in Saigon, after the election of Richard Nixon. Not even the signing of the 1973 Paris Peace Agreement could blunt US support for Thiê.u and his obstruction of the peace process. The result was a difficult peace in 1975, achieved by military might rather than reconciliation, and a new realization of the limits of American foreign policy.

The Third Force in the Vietnam War

‘T

he most careful, thorough and persuasive analysis of the often heartbreaking efforts of non-aligned Vietnamese to help bring about peace. The crushing of those efforts is a largely untold story – until now. Quinn-Judge’s brilliant book transforms our understanding of South Vietnamese politics and thus of the war itself.’ M ar ily n B. You n g , P r ofes s or of Mo dern Histo ry, NY U

w w w. i bta u r i s . c o m

06/01/17 13:11

Sophie Quinn-Judge received her PhD from SOAS, University of London and is the author of Ho Chi Minh: The Missing Years. She has also been a contributor to the Far Eastern Economic Review in Bangkok and Moscow, and was Associate Professor of History at Temple University from 2004 to 2015, while also working in the Center for Vietnamese Philosophy, Culture and Society. She first visited Vietnam as a volunteer in 1973– 5.

‘Sophie Quinn-Judge’s The Third Force in the Vietnam War: The Elusive Search for Peace 1954– 75 is the most careful, thorough and persuasive analysis of the often heartbreaking efforts of non-aligned Vietnamese to help bring about peace. The crushing of those efforts is a largely untold story – until now. Quinn-Judge’s brilliant book transforms our understanding of South Vietnamese politics and thus of the war itself.’ Marilyn B. Young, Professor of Modern History, NYU

THE THIRD FORCE IN THE VIETNAM WAR The Elusive Search for Peace 1954–75

SOPHIE QUINN-JUDGE

The author would like to acknowledge the support of the British Academy and the American Council of Learned Societies in the writing of this book. A version of Chapter 2, ‘Giving Peace a Chance’, was published in the journal of the Peace History Society, Peace & Change, in October 2013, vol. 38, no. 4.

Published in 2017 by I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd London • New York www.ibtauris.com Copyright q 2017 Sophie Quinn-Judge The right of Sophie Quinn-Judge to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Every attempt has been made to gain permission for the use of the images in this book. Any omissions will be rectified in future editions. References to websites were correct at the time of writing. International Library of Twentieth Century History 98 ISBN: 978 1 78453 597 1 eISBN: 978 1 78672 066 5 ePDF: 978 1 78673 066 4 A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available Typeset in Garamond Three by OKS Prepress Services, Chennai, India Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

I would like to dedicate this book to all of the people of Vietnam, in the hope that they will enjoy peace for 10,000 years to come.

Viet-Nam, Oh Viet-Nam! Will you hear the last will Of someone who loves Viet-Nam? Who loves our revolutionary forefathers, Our new, young revolutionaries, Our orphans, our widows, Who loves the mountains and rivers, And every drop of blood, Both of the meek and the fierce. Viet-Nam, Oh Viet-Nam! Why do we bear grudges forever? How can we be happy with killing? In victory, who are the vanquished? Who bears both the honor and dishonor? Throw away labels and slogans, We are all children of Viet-Nam.

Nha´ˆ t Chı´ Mai, May 1967 translated by David Marr

CONTENTS

List of Figures List of Abbreviations Introduction 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

The Vietnamese Response to Colonialism: Early Twentieth-Century Transformations Giving Peace a Chance: First Efforts to Build a Neutralist Political Movement, 1954– 64 Hanoi: Between Mao and Khrushchev, 1956–65 The Buddhists and the Urban Anti-War Movement, 1964– 7 The Turning Point: The Te´ˆ t Offensive Vietnamization and Saigon’s Political Opposition The End of the Republic of Vietnam and Reunification

Notes Bibliography Index

viii x 1 7 31 61 79 105 135 165 193 215 223

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1 Leˆ Duẩn.

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Figure 2.2 Ngoˆ Ðı`nh Diệm.

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Figure 2.3 Dương Va˘n Minh.

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Figure 5.1 Martin Luther King and Thı´ch Nha´ˆ t Hanh at a ˙ press conference in June 1966.

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Figure 5.2 Author with Traˆ`n Bach Ða˘`ng, in 1968 responsible ˙ for the NLF’s Saigon– Gia Ðinh zone, in his home in ˙ Ho`ˆ Chı´ Minh City, 2004. He had recently had a stroke. Photographer unknown.

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Figure 5.3 A double amputee in the Quảng Nga˜i Physical Rehabilitation Center. Photo by Paul Quinn-Judge.

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Figure 6.1 Father Chaˆn Tı´n, at Ky Dong Church in Saigon, 1974. Photo by Paul Quinn-Judge.

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Figure 6.2 A demonstration with banner calling for Peace, Food and Clothing, Saigon, 1974. Photo by Paul Quinn-Judge.

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Figure 6.3 Father Nguyeˆ˜n Ngoc Lan at a demonstration in ˙ 1974. Photo by Paul Quinn-Judge.

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Figure 6.4 Huy`nh Lieˆn, leader of the ‘Begging Nuns’, and Mrs Ngoˆ Ba´ Tha`nh demonstrate against the Thiệu government, 1974. Photo by Paul Quinn-Judge.

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LIST OF FIGURES

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Figure 6.5 Deputy Ho`ˆ Ngoc Nhuậ n, on right in 1974. ˙ Photo by Paul Quinn-Judge.

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Figure 6.6 Mrs Ngoˆ Ba´ Tha`nh at her sentencing, being held by her husband. AFSC collection.

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Figure 7.1 Communist soldiers walking past the US Embassy in Saigon, after 30 April. Photo by Paul Quinn-Judge.

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Figure 7.2 Monk collecting discarded weapons of ARVN at Van Hanh University, 1 May 1975. Photo by Paul Quinn-Judge. 180 ˙ ˙ Figure 7.3 Buddhist nuns, with Amerasian children left with nuns by fearful mothers. Photo by Paul Quinn-Judge. 181 Figure 7.4 A student-turned-guerilla returning from the NLF zone on 1 May 1975. Photo by Sophie Quinn-Judge.

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Figure 7.5 A foot soldier from the NVA, chatting with boys in a Saigon park, May 1975. Photo by Paul Quinn-Judge.

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Figure 7.6 Man on motorcycle: Looting of US post exchange at Newport, outside Saigon, April 1975. Photo by Paul Quinn-Judge.

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Figure 7.7 Woman in Saigon (Ho`ˆ Chı´ Minh City) selling photos of Hoˆ` Chı´ Minh on the street, after 30 April 1975. Photo by Sophie Quinn-Judge.

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ARVN DRV FOR FRUS ICC ICP IVS LSNBKC MAE MRC NLF NXB PAVN PLAF PRC PRO PTT RVN USAID VWP

Army of the Republic of Vietnam Democratic Republic of Vietnam Fellowship of Reconciliation Foreign Relations of the United States International Control Commission Indochinese Communist Party International Voluntary Service Lich Sử Nam Bộ Kha´ng Chiến _ Ministe`re des Affaires e´trange`res Military Revolutionary Council National Liberation Front Nha` Xuất Bản [publishing house] People’s Army of Vietnam People’s Liberation Armed Forces People’s Republic of China Public Record Office Phủ Tổng Thống Republic of Vietnam United States Agency for International Development Vietnam Workers’ Party

INTRODUCTION

There was a real Third Force. It had everything – numbers, wisdom and courage – except a force. Jean Lacouture1 That the Vietnam War was a great tragedy, few people have any doubt. But that it was a completely avoidable tragedy is an idea that arouses more debate. Historian Fredrik Logevall has made a strong case that Lyndon Johnson embarked on a ‘war of choice’ in 1964 – 5, and other authors have written of the missed opportunities to make peace that punctuated the following years.2 This book explores the terrain of Vietnamese politics and society in a search for local forces that supported these moves toward peace; forces that could have built consensus rather than enmity, reconciliation rather than fear, had they been allowed to flourish. It will tell the story of those Vietnamese who believed that war was not inevitable, who believed that once it had begun, it did not need to continue. It will look at the moments when they had most hope of implementing their vision. It will also detail their failures. The related concepts of a ‘Third Way’ and ‘Third Force’, often used interchangeably, cover a great deal of territory and provoke strong reactions. I have opted to use ‘Third Way’ or ‘Third Solution’ as the terms to describe the middle ground during the Vietnam War, as they imply a peaceful approach to conflict resolution as opposed to an alternative military solution. In fact, within the context of the Vietnam Wars, the idea that an armed ‘Third Force’ might emerge disappeared fairly quickly.

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In general the term ‘Third Force’ is fraught with extreme, often negative, connotations. This is especially true in the case of Vietnam. Graham Greene’s telling of an early American adventure in nationbuilding, the effort to build up a splinter group of the army of a southern religious sect, the Cao Ða`i, into an anti-French, anticommunist force, leaves a strong impression of idealism run amok. The protagonist of The Quiet American, Alden Pyle, seems to be a composite of several US government employees who displayed a Yankee missionary zeal in their efforts to strengthen non-communist nationalism in Vietnam. Among those suggested as models for Greene’s character are Robert Blum, who went to Vietnam in 1950 to head the US Economic Cooperation Mission; his deputy Leo Hochstetter (both mentioned in Robert Shaplen’s The Lost Revolution) and Edward Lansdale, San Francisco advertising man turned OSS operative, and later a colonel in the US Air Force.3 Blum and Hochstetter had the difficult challenge of promoting ‘authentic nationalism’, at the same time as the USA furnished military aid to the French army.4 Edward Lansdale is far better known than the other two as the key factor in the successful elimination of communist insurgency in the Philippines in the days of Ramon Magsaysay; and later as the man who engineered Ngoˆ Ðı`nh Diệm’s victory over his rivals in the early days of his leadership. The Republic of Vietnam (RVN) was created in 1955, with a good deal of help from Lansdale and other ‘Quiet Americans’, as a Third Force of the type Greene so disparaged. It was designed to wage the battle against communism more effectively than the colonial French or the monarch Bảo Ðai, with the patriotic anti-communist Diệm at its ˙ helm. But it soon evolved into one of the two main combatants or forces. With US support, the Diệm government became a very much aligned outpost of what used to be called the Free World, in a South East Asia beset by ethnic and left-wing unrest. But this initial American attempt to build up the nationalist middle ground was only the first in a long series of attempts to find a ‘Third Way’ or a neutral solution for the section of Vietnam below the 17th parallel. From 1956 to 1973, this idea evolved into the concept of a ‘Third Segment’, as it was termed in the Paris Peace Agreement. By then the idea that the buffer group mediating between the two warring sides would be an armed force had long since been abandoned.

INTRODUCTION

3

Why Study the Third Way? What sort of choices were the people of South Vietnam offered during the Vietnam War? This is the question that forms the basis for this inquiry. Both sides in the conflict like to claim that ‘there was no other road to take’, that war was the only choice. Yet, given the number of efforts to negotiate peace, one can see that plenty of people thought that other options existed. In order to explore this issue thoroughly, one needs to examine the evolution of the interconnected concepts of a ‘Third Force’/‘Third Segment’ and a ‘neutral solution’ to the US – Vietnam conflict. There are now relatively few observers (historians, journalists, Vietnamese at home or living abroad) who believe that the victory of the communist forces in 1975 was the inevitable, culturally appropriate solution for a poor peasant state. (That was an underlying assumption of some of the histories of Vietnamese communism written in the 1970s.) With the vastly increased understanding of Asian communism that has developed in the 1980s and 1990s, historians of the Vietnam conflict are now examining counterfactuals and looking at some of the other actors – the losers, as well as the winners – the nationalist parties, the dissident writers and those who came out on the wrong side in communist party power struggles. There is also a growing movement to ‘decentre’ the way we look at the American war in Vietnam. Scholars are looking beyond the power centres of the Cold War – Washington, Moscow and Beijing – back to the heart of the conflict: Vietnam. Much of post-Cold War historical writing about the Vietnam conflict has actually been about the role and attitudes of the superpowers and China.5 Sometimes one got the impression that the Vietnamese were regarded as bit players in the drama of the Indochina Wars. (We all know that the Cambodians were part of the ‘sideshow’.) I believe that we need to look at the Vietnamese and their politics as something more complex than the story of communists versus nationalists; or American puppets versus pawns of the communist bloc. One old Vietnam hand, the BBC’s Judy Stowe, used to say that the Cold War history of Vietnam tends to treat the Vietnamese as ‘gooks’ – by this she meant, I believe, that we are prone to view the Vietnamese, North or South, as undifferentiated blocs of loyal followers, a people whose often arcane internal politics can be of no interest to the larger world. Yet it is impossible to analyse the fate of

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the various peace missions and ‘missed opportunities’ in Vietnam without understanding something more of Vietnamese politics, communist and non-communist, than many writers on this period have demonstrated. When one starts looking, it turns out that there are a surprising number of signs that many Vietnamese wanted to talk to their enemy rather than fight him. Although in recent years there has been considerable discussion of ‘missed opportunities’ to find peace during the Vietnam War (among them are the book by Robert McNamara and his co-authors, Argument without End, and the edited volume, The Search for Peace in Vietnam, 1964–1968 by Lloyd C. Gardiner and Ted Gittinger, as well as Marigold, by James Hershberg), there has been relatively little attention paid to the issue of how the Vietnamese themselves would have managed a peaceful resolution.6 Vietnamese actors began to put forward proposals for a neutral South Vietnam as early as 1955, but at that time their ideas were largely ignored by the international community. From 1962, however, when agreement was reached on a neutral government for Laos, until the signing of the Paris Peace Agreement on Vietnam in 1973, there was a fairly constant stream of suggestions from different quarters regarding a neutral or compromise solution to end hostilities in South Vietnam. Former State Department official Chester Cooper has said that within a short period in 1966 he handled offers of mediation from ‘Mrs. Gandhi, Tito, Nasser, Wilson, U Thant, Eden and a host of others’.7 These proposals would eventually have relied on neutral or Third Segment Vietnamese for their implementation. Most of these plans involved bringing respected, non-aligned personalities into a coalition government. By 1965 these potential compromise leaders were often Buddhists, as opposed to members of the Catholic minority to which President Diệm belonged. By the time of the Paris Peace Agreement in 1973, at least theoretically the concept of a ‘Third Segment’ as a buffer between the two opposing parties had become an important element in the architecture of peace. To honestly examine the chances for success of such proposals, one has to accept the premise that the communist side was an evolving entity, whose capabilities and goals changed over the years. Hanoi’s attitude towards a negotiated peace fluctuated over the course of the war, depending on the views of their allies and their own evaluation of their chances for rapid success. Thus one can posit that a war-weary DRV

INTRODUCTION

5

would not have intervened militarily in the South, if the communists there had been allowed access to a democratic political process after 1954. The same might be said of 1973 – had the political provisions of the Paris ‘Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam’ been implemented, the DRV might well have opted to put more resources into its crippled economy and reduce its military role in the South. Likewise, we need to recognize that it was the American military intervention that pulled the Soviets into the War, leading eventually to the creation of large and well-equipped armed forces in the DRV.8 (The communists did not have tanks or jet fighters when the war began.) Chinese scholars also point out that the aggressive US presence in South Vietnam strengthened Mao Zedong’s hand in his struggle with more moderate forces in China, which in turn reinforced the position of radicals in the Vietnamese party.9 US escalation was always met by escalation on the communist side, both militarily and ideologically. As the southern politician Trần Ngoc Chaˆu put it, in explaining the ˙ hard-line attitudes towards those (like himself) searching for a middle path in Vietnamese politics, ‘My effort would be opposed by both the North Vietnamese Communists and American-supported South Vietnamese military dictatorship, because those two opposing sides actually nurtured each other, despite being bitter enemies.’10 Rather than engaging in a counterfactual exercise, however, I would like to record as objectively as possible the dilemmas of the leaders in the middle ground. One of the basic tasks of this exercise is to distinguish the different ideas of a Third Force or Third Segment that existed in the minds of the French, the Americans and among the southern Vietnamese intelligentsia. For the purposes of this study, I am eliminating speculation about armed third forces. I am interested in non-violent political and social forces that attempted to play the role of intermediaries. There are several factors that complicate the definition of who was and who was not a member of a ‘Third Segment’. One of these, perhaps the most important, is the long-standing communist practice of ‘entryism’, otherwise known as ‘infiltration’, into non-communist political and social groups. Hồ Chı´ Minh cut his political teeth when this was the preferred tactic of colonial communist groups, during the united front in southern China from 1923 to 1927. It was still a favoured method of political organizing in South Vietnam in the 1970s, when any group, from the Girl Scouts to an amateur dance troupe, could be

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secretly influenced by young communist activists. At the same time, many non-communist Vietnamese were pushed into the arms of the communists and the National Liberation Front (NLF) by the polarization of southern politics in the 1960s. Thus you could find founding members of the NLF and communist-backed Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG), such as the Justice Minister Trương Như Tảng, who were non-communists, while a number of noncommunist southerners had opened a dialogue with the NLF by 1970. But some of the presumed Third Segment student leaders such as Huỳnh Tấn Mẫm were actually full members of the Vietnam Workers’ Party (Đảng Lao Động) by 1973. Mẫm himself, who played the role of a Third Segment student leader until 1975, joined the party in 1967. On the other hand, early proponents of neutralism such as Nguyễn Manh Ha`, ˙ accused of pro-communism by the Diệm government, simply believed that peace would bring about a convergence between the two parts of Vietnam, beyond partisan politics. It may in the end be more fruitful to look at Vietnamese politics as a continuum, with figures on both the left and right of the spectrum at times edging closer to the middle ground. One of the questions that this study will raise is whether some followers of the communists were actually closer in their ideological outlook to the Third Segment than to the Stalinist Maoism of the 1960s and 1970s. Thus I will cover the evolution of political attitudes and factions within the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) as part of this study, and try to show how changing constellations of power impinged on the search for peace. There is now little doubt in my mind that the nationwide communist infrastructure in Vietnam was often the source of peace initiatives that took shape in the RVN among opposition groups. But such initiatives depended on genuine members of a Third Segment to make them known to world opinion, as well as to the citizens of the Republic. These personalities were not pressured or blackmailed into playing this role – in most cases they genuinely believed that the continuation of the USsupported war would destroy their homeland. These intermittent peace campaigns were often crushed by the weight of official US opposition, but also at times by the disapproval of radical political forces in the DRV, backed by China, who saw a total military victory as the only way to make a revolution.

CHAPTER 1 THE VIETNAMESE RESPONSE TO COLONIALISM:EARLY TWENTIETH-CENTURY TRANSFORMATIONS

The Vietnamese are people of feeling, who possess a strong national pride, who are broad-minded, yet who still have a lot of complexes about white people, as a result of almost a century of French domination. Tin Sa´ng – 25 February 1964 Before 1965, the people of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN) were not clamouring for US military intervention in their civil war. The US leadership had to search hard for South Vietnamese leaders willing to wage the sort of war against the insurgents that they believed to be necessary, as the following chapters will show. Once the US troops had entered the conflict, however, making peace became a very complex proposition. But both before and after 1965 there were moments when the United States might have pulled back from its commitment to a military solution. If we could have foreseen the huge price that our Vietnamese allies would pay, not to mention the sacrifices of so many young Americans, the chances are that we would have examined options for peace more carefully. And had we stopped to consider the complicated attitudes of our allies, before pressuring the South Vietnamese government to accept the arrival of

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US combat troops on their soil in 1965, we might have proceeded differently. An August 1964 editorial from a weekly newspaper published by young Buddhist intellectuals in Huế gives some idea of how we misjudged the situation. The article compares the role of Chinese advisers in North Vietnam and the growing number of American advisers in South Vietnam. ‘We’ve just heard about another government decree, announcing that in addition to military advisers (now here in formations up to battalion strength) there will be more advisers: for culture, agriculture, industry, and especially for political administration . . . This is an unusual problem’, the writer says. This ‘is no different from Communist China establishing a regime of advisers in North Vietnam’.1 These young men were not voicing an extreme view within the political spectrum – both President Ngoˆ Ðı`nh Diệm and his immediate successor, General Dương Va˘n Minh, were leery of an excessive American presence in South Vietnam. This deep-rooted nationalism of the Vietnamese, both educated classes and the peasantry, was not sufficiently understood by Americans, who in their own narrative represented the friends of the oppressed and the antithesis of European colonialism. US government policymakers rejected any comparisons between the French and the US roles in Indochina. McGeorge Bundy, for example, wrote in June 1965 that ‘France in 1945 was a colonial power seeking to impose its overseas rule out of tune with Vietnamese nationalism . . . The US in 1965 is responding to the call of a people under Communist assault, a people undergoing a non-Communist revolution.’2 A close examination of South Vietnamese politics in 1963– 5 leads to the conclusion that this ‘call’ was largely imagined by US strategists, who had unilaterally chosen Vietnam as the place to hold the line against what they assumed was monolithic world communism. As Frances Fitzgerald put it, Vietnam ‘was still a very distant and foreign place, whose major interest to Americans lay in its location to the south of China’.3 The tendency of foreigners to see the Vietnamese as culturally backwards and childlike was a product of ignorance and self-delusion, but it made the American narrative more compelling. After a stint with the US marines as a young intelligence officer in the early 1960s, historian David Marr observed that the military leaders running the US counter-insurgency effort were ‘fundamentally bored by the political complexities of Vietnam’.4 They

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appeared to be content to accept cliche´d assumptions about the Vietnamese, as people who ‘found little meaning or value in political ideology, except perhaps some archaic Confucian maxims’, ‘with neither the desire nor capability for profound national identifications’.5 Yet Vietnamese culture had been in a rapid process of transformation from the early days of French rule. Had US policymakers been better informed on a few basic issues – the precolonial history of Vietnam, the responses of the Vietnamese to French rule, the history of the Vietnamese communist movement, as well as the sources of Vietnamese national feeling – they might have had more respect for Vietnamese public opinion. Traditional Vietnamese religious beliefs and the transformations that Vietnamese ideologies underwent in the twentieth century should have been part of the curriculum for would-be interventionists. But most of the information that existed on this distant country was in French or Vietnamese. By the late 1960s the United States would be on the way to developing a corps of outstanding scholars in Vietnamese studies (including David Marr), who produced some classic books on Vietnamese intellectual and political history.6 But their books mainly appeared just as the war was ending. Journalists also wrote excellent books on Vietnam, but given the siege mentality that developed within the Johnson and Nixon administrations, the more critical efforts (from David Halberstam to Frances Fitzgerald and Jonathan Schell) were looked on as the work of a whining elite, or worse, unpatriotic betrayals.7 The main thing that we needed to know might be summed up this way: the Vietnamese were not passive victims of a few aggressive communists trained in Moscow and Beijing – on the contrary, they were a sophisticated people who had lived in the global imperial world for over 80 years by the time we became involved in their defence. Since the end of the nineteenth century they had been examining their position as a French possession and debating when and how to rid themselves of their colonial masters. They had been seeking answers around the world, in both the East and the West. They had arrived at a variety of opinions on these questions, and these were debated at many different levels of society. Moreover, Vietnamese nationalists knew quite a bit about the United States: they had experienced two previous disappointments with our nation, at moments when they had had high hopes that the USA would

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intervene with the French on their behalf. These moments came at the close of the two World Wars, during which two different US presidents, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, had given explicit promises to colonized peoples that they would receive the freedom to determine their own fates, once the USA and their allies triumphed. But both times in the past, in 1919 and 1945, Vietnam’s case for self-determination had been ignored when the moment of truth came. The disappointment in 1919 had pushed many Vietnamese anti-colonialists to look to the communist world for support. In 1945 the coalition government under Hồ Chı´ Minh never succeeded in winning the support of the United States, although they had hoped that a brief alliance with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), precursor of the CIA, would lead to American backing for their independence.8 Given the amount of thought and energy the Vietnamese had devoted to the issue of their future, it is clear that in 1954 and 1965 we should have paid more attention to their political complexities, as opposed to the categories that we imposed on them. (As the editorial noted above indicates, in South Vietnam the intelligentsia made their opinions clear in their lively and contentious press.) Had we looked a little bit more deeply, we might have had more faith in the Vietnamese capacity to settle their affairs.

The French Colonial Transformations In the following pages I will review briefly some of the transformations that occurred in Vietnam, after it fell under French domination in the 1880s, at the close of a 20-year period of piecemeal conquest. Change came from every direction in those years around the turn of the twentieth century, much of it unsought and unwanted. The early revolts against French power, led by members of both the scholarly class and the ranks of charismatic religious figures, made this rejection clear. Logically, one might expect that direct French transmission of Western ways and thinking would have been the immediate cause of Vietnam’s cultural transformation; indeed, the elite resistance to French power is sometimes portrayed as a resistance to modernization, as a struggle between conservative nativists and the forces of change. But the process of change was not so straightforward. It was complicated by French ambivalence towards the people of their colony

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and protectorates. The French drew back from initial thoughts of assimilating the Vietnamese population, of turning them into French men and women. For a start, a large outlay of funds would have been needed to build the sort of educational system that assimilation would have required. At the same time, the French quickly discovered that the Vietnamese who became familiar with their society expected French political ideals to be applied in the colony, something they were not prepared to allow. So the colonial civil servants who constructed the infrastructure of government opted for ‘association’ as the model of their relationship with their subjects. This promised less, as it did not require that the French provide universal education in the French language. It also quelled ‘premature’ ideas about Vietnamese self-government. The system of association was justified by the idea that the Vietnamese needed to go through a period of tutelage before they would be ready to fully partake of French civilization. It meant that separate legal systems and restricted educational opportunities for the native Vietnamese remained in place until 1945. Vietnam’s traditional link with Chinese culture was broken by the introduction of primary education in the Vietnamese language, transcribed in the romanized script invented by early missionaries: quo´ˆ c ngữ. Yet secondary and higher education in French were available only to the select few. The sort of education offered to the Vietnamese elite was designed to make them useful to the French as interpreters, clerks and managers. The views of a French doctor on the training of medical personnel gives an idea of this approach: writing in 1895 on the ‘Diffusion of European medicine in Cochinchina’, he advised against sending students to Europe to complete medical training, as the Dutch were doing in Indonesia. A three-year course in Saigon, followed by practical training in a French hospital in Indochina would be sufficient for them to earn a ‘certificate’. A long stay in Paris would cost the French too much, he reasoned, and besides, ‘the holders of [French] diplomas would return with immense pride and impossible pretensions’, he wrote.9 But by 1904 the Vietnamese were no longer just passive recipients of what passed for the French gift of civilization. They were discovering their own sources of information and making demands for reforms based on their independent search for knowledge. Before the advent of French power the Nguyễn rulers placed their faith in adherence to the

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Confucian ideals of government that they had absorbed from China. And it would be via their links to the Chinese cultural world that inquiring scholars would first come into contact with Western philosophical ideas, after the turn of the century.10 The Vietnamese intelligentsia was forced initially to go around French channels of information in their attempts to make an independent judgment on the usefulness of Western culture for their development. This was made possible by the burgeoning civil society in Japan during the cultural revolution of the Meiji era. The energizing of civil society in East Asian states can be directly linked to the challenge from the West. Throughout the nineteenth century the threat of Western domination, both political and economic, grew into an inescapable reality. The nations in this region, China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam, were all bureaucratic states modelled on the Chinese ideal of government by a just ruler. But by the end of the century the educated elite in each country could see that their model would require adjustments. The Japanese reacted most speedily to the demonstration of their military inferiority to the West, sending missions to Europe and the United States after Commander Perry forced the opening of their commerce to American merchants. During the Meiji Restoration the search for Western knowledge expanded into two-year study tours to examine the industrial, scientific and social achievements of Europe and North America. While the Japanese built new government institutions and created a new constitution, they also adopted new models of education, including universities providing liberal arts and science curricula. In its turn, by 1898 Japan would become a place of pilgrimage for other Asians seeking knowledge and the means to free themselves from Western control, or in the case of China, their own decaying empire. A 1906 visit to a Japanese school modelled on Harvard, the Keio Gijuku, inspired the Vietnamese reformer, Phan Chaˆu Trinh, to create similar schools in Vietnam. For Phan Chaˆu Trinh and other Vietnamese educated in the classical Chinese style, the main conduit for information about Western political theory was the writing of a Chinese reformer based in Japan, Liang Qichao (Luong Khai Sieu). Even before Trinh and his fellow scholar Phan Bội Chaˆu had made their trip to Yokohama and Tokyo, Liang’s writings had begun to stimulate discussion among Vietnam’s scholarly elite. Some of them decided to join him in Japan. Phan Bội Chaˆu formed a secret society in 1904 to raise money to send

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students to Japan for study and military training. In 1905 a trickle of students started to join him in Yokohama, the start of what became known as the ‘Ðoˆng du’ or Eastern Travel movement. By 1908 there were roughly 300 Vietnamese students in Japan. Phan Chaˆu Trinh, his fellow reformer, had become disillusioned with armed revolt. He had been a young witness to the failed military uprising that broke out in Central Vietnam in 1885, when the Nguyễn emperor Ha`m Nghi was persuaded to flee to the mountains by a group of court mandarins. Trinh’s father was a military commander in their native province of Quảng Nam and had taken his son with him to the hills, to help defend a local fort. After his father’s death and the revolt’s collapse, Trinh came down from the mountains in 1887, to find that his family home and possessions had been burned to the ground by the French army. An older brother supported his studies for the mandarinate, and in 1901 he passed his exams at the metropolitan level, as a second-rank doctor ( pho´-bảng) – in the same year and with the same results that Hồ Chı´ Minh’s father achieved. This enabled him to take up a prestigious, but by then largely ceremonial, post in the Huế bureaucracy, which the French had emasculated by taking over many of the emperor’s powers. In 1904 Trinh was starting his second year in the Ministry of Rites, a typical entry post in the bureaucracy for new examination laureates, when he withdrew from the mandarinate. This is when he made what David Marr calls ‘a declaration of lifelong warfare’ with the Nguyễn dynastic system.11 His basic complaint was that the French partnership with the mandarinate tolerated corruption and abuse of power. He began to advocate the wearing of Western dress and haircutting. In addition to practical education in science and agriculture, he advocated the development of Vietnamese manufacturing and locally owned businesses. One of his early hopes was that the French could be persuaded to aid the Vietnamese in bringing a more open and just government to their nation, based on the ideals of the French Revolution. Marr and other biographers have surmised that Trinh was influenced by Liang Qichao’s writings, in particular his newspaper, Xinmin Congbao (Renewing the People), published from 1902 – 5 in Yokohama. A memoir by Trinh’s contemporary, Huỳnh Thu´c Kha´ng, confirms that by 1904 this periodical was being read by scholars in Huế.12 It was an outgrowth of Liang’s rejection of Confucian tradition and morality as a compass for reform; its articles reflected his eclectic

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reading and passion for free thought.13 On first encountering these ideas coming from Japan, ‘Phan Chaˆu Trinh got so excited about the new books that he couldn’t sleep, he forgot to eat – from this point, he had a complete change in his thinking.’14 As far as we know, all of Trinh’s knowledge of Western political and philosophical ideas, from Rousseau to Herbert Spencer, came from reading translations or summaries in Chinese. Trinh invited two more recent graduates, Huỳnh Thu´c Kha´ng and Trần Quy´ Ca´p, to join him in a southern tour in order to popularize their newfound opposition to the Chinese examination system. The three posed as candidates at the regional exams in Bı`nh Ðinh and composed ˙ satirical examination poetry that became well known to many scholars. When Trinh came down with a serious illness in Phan Thiết, his two companions returned to their homes and he remained behind for a fourmonth convalescence. He stayed in the home of a local scholar, Nguyễn Trong Lội, where he held discussions with a group of reform-minded ˙ local men. Nguyễn Trong Lội became the founder of the Duc Thanh ˙ ˙ School, and of the Lieˆn Tha`nh company, which produced fish sauce, a staple of the Vietnamese diet. Duc Thanh started as a youth association for ˙ physical training before it became a fully fledged modernist school.15 With the encouragement of the French Governor General, by late 1905 and early 1906 modernist schools were being formed in Quảng Nam province, two of them organized by Phan Chaˆu Trinh’s relatives. A cousin on his mother’s side, Leˆ Cơ, was instrumental in starting a school in Phu´ Laˆm, a village in Tieˆn Phước district, where pupils could learn quo´ˆc ngữ and French. It was the first modern school in Quảng Nam to admit girls; Trinh’s daughter Leˆ Ấm was among them. Leˆ Cơ, an activist village head, also started a cinnamon cooperative, to plant the trees and market the spice, and introduced other innovations such as a village forge and a village watch to protect against thieves.16 His outof-the-way village was often visited by Vietnamese interested in the reforms being undertaken in Quảng Nam. By the time the school was dismantled by the French in 1908, it had over 100 pupils. After the antitax disturbances of 1908, Leˆ Cơ would be arrested and imprisoned for three years. The school’s female teacher Leˆ Thi Mười, another maternal ˙ cousin of Trinh’s, was also arrested but released in the province capital.17 In Cochinchina a similar reform movement grew up around 1906, the Minh Taˆn or New Light society. Gilbert Chieˆu (Trần Cha´nh Chiếu),

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a successful businessman well established in colonial society, picked up the thread of modernist reform and began publishing a newspaper known as Noˆng Cổ Minh Ða`m (Tribune of Old Agricultural People), which encouraged the creation of businesses, as part of a national renaissance. He built two hotels and a soap-making factory as a way of freeing himself from financial dependence on Chinese and Indian moneylenders. He also used his businesses to raise money to send young men to study in Japan.18 Phan Chaˆu Trinh travelled to Japan to meet Phan Bội Chaˆu in 1906, where the two leaders conferred on strategies for winning independence. They agreed to follow their separate paths, Phan Bội Chaˆu settling for the creation of an illegal force to work towards a military uprising. Phan Chaˆu Trinh was unconvinced of the wisdom of the violent approach, and remained committed to educational and cultural change as the foundation for political independence. But he was in no sense a blind follower of France – he would spend the rest of his life trying to convince the French (and failing) to offer the Vietnamese a real partnership for change. The two Phans visited Fukuzawa Yukichi’s famed Keio Gijuku school together, a visit that strengthened Trinh’s interest in Westernizing reforms within Vietnam. On his return to Vietnam he was instrumental in the formation of the Ðoˆng Kinh Nghı˜a Thuc, a private, non-tuition academy that welcomed students of both ˙ sexes and a variety of ages. In the narrow sense, David Marr explains, this was a private school in Hanoi for four hundred to five hundred students. But in the broadest sense it was ‘a popular educational and cultural movement of real significance to subsequent Vietnamese history’.19 The school quickly became a forum for discussion of political issues, as well as a place where young men could be recruited for studies in Japan. By January 1908 the French had forced it to close. In the spring of 1908, widespread demonstrations in Central Vietnam against high taxes and the extreme demands of corve´e labour caused the French to seek out culprits among the modernist scholars. Their earlier encouragement of the reformists turned to fear when they saw the peasants marching to demand their rights. Trần Quy´ Ca´p, one of the most gifted and beloved scholars in Central Vietnam, was beheaded on the beach in Nhatrang. In Quảng Nam province both business cooperatives and the modern schools were closed down, while the principals and teachers were hauled off to jail. In Trinh’s native village a French commander marched the local militia into the school grounds,

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where he beat the two teachers as the pupils scattered.20 In the imperial capital of Huế, the French fired on unarmed demonstrators marching on the compound of their proconsul, the re´sident supe´rieur. Hồ Chı´ Minh, later to become the best-known leader of Vietnam’s anti-colonial movement, witnessed these shootings as a young man and would often refer to them in later years. The spring of 1908 was a politicizing moment for a generation of Vietnamese – Phan Chaˆu Trinh was arrested and packed off to the prison island of Poulo Condor (Coˆn Đảo) to serve an indefinite sentence at hard labour, along with a group of other scholars from the central Vietnamese provinces. Leaders of the Ðoˆng Kinh Nghı˜a Thuc suffered a similar fate, joining those Central Vietnamese who had ˙ been sentenced to hard labour. The French had come to regard all brands of activism, whether aimed at peaceful development or military revolt, as part of one antigovernment movement. While the re´sident supe´rieur in Central Vietnam, M. Leveˆque, knew that the reformists had been teaching the peasants the need for study, hard work and self-improvement, he feared that the scholars’ real aim was to ‘sow . . . the seeds of revolt in the people’s minds’.21 Essentially, this French view was correct. One of the things that made the reformists dangerous was their direct contact with the people and the reach of their propaganda. All of these scholars were involved in a movement to retrieve the honour and autonomy of Vietnam. Phan Chaˆu Trinh would be amnestied in 1911, with the help of the French Socialist party, but he recalled the French crack-down of 1908 as a moment ‘that forces the students and scholars to flee the country’.22 The other scholars on Coˆn Đảo Island remained there until the end of World War I, in spite of Phan Chaˆu Trinh’s efforts to publicize the injustice of their sentences.

World War I and After From the time of these arrests until World War I, there was a pause in the movement for modernization. Phan Bội Chaˆu’s partisans were forced to leave Japan in 1908– 9, and many eventually settled in southern China, where they took advantage of the coming war to organize plots and uprisings against the French. These put the French on their guard, and resulted in more arrests for the anti-colonial forces. A number of Vietnamese sailed to Europe to study and learn about the West in the

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pre-war period, including, in 1911, Phan Chaˆu Trinh, and the son of one of his fellow mandarins, Nguyễn Tất Tha`nh. This young man in his late teens would take the pseudonym ‘Nguyễn A´i Quốc’ (Nguyễn the Patriot) in Paris, and would be known after 1943 as ‘Hồ Chı´ Minh’. Later, as the Vietnamese e´migre´s, students and draftees in France returned home, their political experience in Paris was transplanted to Saigon, where by 1925 a Vietnamese public sphere, if not a completely open civil society, began to take shape. Expectations and energy were high on the Vietnamese side in those years at the close of World War I. Around 100,000 Vietnamese had volunteered or been drafted to serve France during the war, in occupations ranging from the production of munitions to hospital orderlies and drivers on the battlefield. Nineteen thousand of these workers remained in France in mid-1920, as they waited to be repatriated. They had been led to expect that they would be rewarded for their loyal service once the war was over. The French promotion of the idea of ‘Pha´p –Việt Đề Huề’ (French –Vietnamese Fraternity) during the war was part of the reason that the Vietnamese were awaiting changes in their relationship with France. Governor-General Albert Sarraut had made emotional speeches promising self-rule at some time in the future, and more immediately, greater access to education. Moreover, the American President Woodrow Wilson had explicitly made freedom and self-determination for subject peoples one of his country’s war aims. But as we know, Wilson’s promises did not apply to Asian peoples and Sarraut’s grand words faded away once France’s post-war financial realities became evident. Perhaps it was these disappointed expectations that injected energy into Vietnamese public life after the war. Certainly the events of 1918–19 mobilized the Vietnamese activists living in Paris. The remaining workers and soldiers became the target of propaganda from an organization calling itself the Group of Vietnamese Patriots. The leading members of this organization were Phan Chaˆu Trinh, the French-educated lawyer Phan Va˘n Trường and the young man known as Nguyễn A´i Quốc. The failure of the Western powers to take note of Vietnamese desires in 1919 at the Paris Peace Conference is a well-known story, thanks to the presence of Hồ Chı´ Minh on the fringes of the conference. The Koreans, Chinese and Indians were all in the same boat when it came to unfulfilled hopes for freedom. One could say that the global civil society of resistance to imperialism that had flourished in

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Japan at the turn of the century came back to life in Paris during the Peace Conference. Following the French repression of 1908, Hồ Chı´ Minh had left Vietnam in 1911 and worked his way around Europe and North America, where he made contact with a variety of Asians, Caribbean and African blacks, as well as Europeans, who had grievances with the imperialist powers. Along with the other members of the Group of Patriots, he became part of an unofficial lobby at the post-World War I Peace Conference. As we know from one Korean source and the archives of the French secret police, these anti-colonial activists shared ideas and techniques to bring their messages to the world community.23 The Vietnamese petition to the Peace Conference was submitted a little less than a month after the Koreans made a petition for freedom from Japanese rule. The list of Vietnamese demands submitted to the conference by the ‘Group of Vietnamese Patriots’ was more than a diplomatic de´marche – it was also a public statement printed in the socialist press and passed out as a tract or leaflet at political meetings. In this way the e´migre´s in Paris kept their campaign for freedom alive after the Versailles Treaty had been signed. After 1919, Hồ and his compatriots looked for new ways to publicize the injustices of French rule in Indochina. They joined organizations such as the Freemasons, took their complaints to the Ligue des Droits de l’Homme (League for Human Rights) and attended Socialist Party meetings. Eventually Hồ and two of his companions aligned themselves with the radical socialists who joined the Communist International in 1920. Their options had been drastically narrowed by their failure to gain attention at the peace conference, and this was one organization that promised aid to Europe’s colonies for the fight against imperialism. The Vietnamese expatriates also joined a group of Francophone anticolonialists to form the Intercolonial Union. For a time, Hồ Chı´ Minh edited their newspaper, Le Paria, and ran their office. This association included men from Madagascar, Martinique and Dahomey, as well as the members of the Group of Vietnamese Patriots. Hồ’s existence as a lowpaid political activist sounds familiar to anyone who has worked for social-change organizations. He was a typical subsistence-level worker for a cause and his cause was self-government for Vietnam. But he also became an internationalist in Paris and adopted the cause of the other French colonies as his own. The French had a low tolerance, however, for

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political activists from their colonies. They kept a close watch on Hồ and his circle, using informers to report on his meetings and interests. Once they had figured out the true identity of Nguyễn A´i Quốc, the French police refused to issue him a passport for his return home, unless he admitted his real name. This he refused to do, so when he made up his mind to return to the East, he travelled in secret via Berlin and Moscow. By 1923 it was becoming clear to the expatriates in Paris that they needed to return home with the political and journalistic experience they had acquired in France. Nguyễn An Ninh, a law graduate of the Sorbonne, returned to Saigon, where he began publishing La Cloche Feˆle´e (The Cracked Bell) in 1923. He was joined by Phan Va˘n Trường, another lawyer and close associate of Hồ Chı´ Minh, a bit later. Both were well educated in French and knew that they could take advantage of the less stringent press censorship for French-language publications available in the colony of Cochinchina, as compared to the protectorates of Annam and Tonkin. La Cloche Feˆle´e covered a broad range of cultural topics: it criticized government economic and educational policy, as well as introducing its readers to modern European writers from Tolstoy to Andre´ Gide. By 1925 it also began to discuss the thinking of communist philosophers and even printed The Communist Manifesto. But while a French-language paper could reach a circulation of around 3,500, newspapers in romanized Vietnamese (quo´ˆ c ngữ) could reach many more readers, in some cases selling as many as 15,000 copies. So eventually these intellectuals would concentrate their efforts on publishing in Vietnamese. They were not without competition in the growing public sphere of colonial Saigon. The French colonial authorities by the late nineteenth century were coming to the conclusion that they must curtail Chinese influences within Vietnam. They had observed the powerful influence of Chinese journalism on the Confucian scholars in 1904 – 8, so they decided that the best way to neutralize the traditional elite was to isolate Vietnam from its Chinese heritage.24 They opted to concentrate on the teaching of quoˆ´c ngữ as the vehicle for indigenous education and indoctrination. What grew out of this choice surprised them, however. They did not foresee that radical Vietnamese Francophones would join in the late 1920s with students emerging from the Franco-Vietnamese schools, to seize the initiative in quo´ˆ c ngữ development and turn it toward different, often revolutionary objectives.25

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The translator and neo-Confucian polemicist Pham Quỳnh was ˙ selected by the French to steer quoˆ´c ngữ publishing in a ‘healthy’ direction. The French goal was to turn the Vietnamese into willing colonial subjects in a ‘moral conquest’ of the country. Pham Quỳnh embodied the ˙ dependent relationship between French and Vietnamese, exhorting his fellow compatriots to maintain their traditions of obedience to superiors and filial piety. He promoted the opinions of French conservatives such as Charles Maurras, echoing his criticisms of Rousseau and Victor Hugo.26 His French-sponsored journal Nam Phong (Southern Wind/Southern Ethos) was continuously published from 1917 to 1934. This journal provided a service by translating a large number of books into Vietnamese, but often these were escapist adventure stories or romances. By 1923, however, Nam Phong was no longer able to monopolize the market for new writing and literature in quoˆ´c ngữ. The political content of Nguyễn An Ninh and Phan Va˘n Trường’s paper was more exciting to many readers. Phan Va˘n Trường’s approach to the spread of quo´ˆc ngữ was the opposite of the French and Pham Quỳnh. He believed ˙ that it was necessary to ‘translate to quo´ˆc ngữ and to publish writings on every conceivable subject, so that “all of our people are able to study”’. He wanted to make the Vietnamese national soul ‘more alert, more intelligent and more courageous’.27 He encouraged a group of younger journalists to start their own papers and between 1923 and 1929 this led to a flood of publishing in the Vietnamese language, such as the newspapers Ðoˆng Pha´p Thời Ba´o (The Indochina Times) and Trung Lập Ba´o (The Neutral Paper). The fact that the Vietnamese intelligentsia had already begun to find ways to organize their own civil society before World War I gave them the tools to refuse to accept the limited intellectual offerings of the French. After World War I, the newspapers started by French-educated individuals such as Phan Va˘n Trường, and Nguyễn An Ninh grew out of an independent strain of debate and inquiry. These men may have made use of French forms of communication and politics, but they infused them with their own passions. They refused to be deflected from their main interest, which was the creation of a modern, independent Vietnam. Even the periodic closing of newspapers and the jailing of journalists, which became a serious obstacle by 1928, had little effect on the popular desire for independence, an idea that these men helped to explain and popularize.

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Modernization and Buddhism Confucian scholars were the ruling elite in precolonial Vietnam and they had the most to lose when the French made themselves masters of Indochina. So it is not surprising that they were among the first to question their own assumptions regarding the state, and to begin a search for broader knowledge after the French conquest. The other religious traditions of Vietnam, Buddhism and Taoism were less directly impacted by colonialism, yet their practitioners were also drawn into resistance movements, sometimes galvanizing peasant unrest with their millenarian promises of salvation. While Taoism was a decentralized religion of hermits and forest retreats, Buddhism, from the early days of Vietnamese independence from China, was identified as a national religion. Thus it is not surprising that sooner or later twentieth-century Vietnamese nationalists would start to think of ways to modernize and harness Buddhism as a force for change. The Taoist philosophy of harmony with nature, inaction and yin– yang balance is interwoven with Confucian and Buddhist practices in a way that at times makes the traditional ‘three religions’ of Vietnam impossible to separate. But in the eleventh to fourteenth centuries, Zen Buddhism played a distinct philosophical and political role. Under the Ly´ and the Trần dynasties, well-educated Zen Buddhist monks participated in state formation as advisers to the rulers. With the rise of the Leˆ dynasty in the fifteenth century, however, Confucianism replaced Buddhism as the state ideology and Zen Buddhism never regained its place as the principal system of belief in the land. Yet during the conquest and settling of the southern part of Vietnam, Buddhism would once again play an important part in the creation of a Vietnamese state. During the years from 1558 to 1789, when Vietnam was governed by two competing families ruling in the name of the weakened Leˆ, the Nguyễn lords invited Zen monks to settle in the south. By constructing temples in newly acquired territory around Saigon and in trading communities in the Mekong Delta, the monks brought permanence and the comfort of a familiar religion to new settlers in the formerly Cambodian lands. The political nature of the monks’ role is evident from the history of their relationship with the Nguyễn rulers, in the period before they established their own dynasty.

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The Zen sect of Tru´c Laˆm, closely associated with the Trần dynasty, was re-established in the southern marches of Vietnam, known as Ða`ng Trong or ‘the Inner Region’ under the Nguyễn lords. But between 1680 and 1682 their leader Minh Chaˆu was arrested on the suspicion that he was collaborating with the Trinh lords in the northern part of the country, what was then known as Ða`ng Ngoa`i (the Outer Region). Because there was no real evidence of the monk’s betrayal, he was released, but ordered to move farther south to Quảng Nam, to continue his religious practice. But after Minh Chaˆu and around fifty disciples fled by sea to the north in 1682, his sect was banned in Ða`ng Trong. All monks of the Tru´c Laˆm sect were obliged to join the Laˆm Tế sect of Zen (Lin ji in Chinese), while Lord Nguyễn Phu´c Tra˘n had to ask the Laˆm Tế leader, Hoa` Thượng Nguyeˆn Thiều, to travel to China to find monks from his sect willing to move to Ða`ng Trong.28 In 1695 the court of Lord Nguyễn Phu´c Chu made a mass conversion to the Laˆm Tế school of Zen.29 These events occurred as the Nguyễn were encouraging Ming loyalists from southern China to take refuge from the Manchu conquest in Ða`ng Trong. A number of Chinese refugees sailed to Danang in 1679 and from there were sent south to settle near the Đồng Nai River, while others moved farther south to Mỹ Tho in the Mekong Delta. We can see that early Vietnamese-controlled settlements around Saigon and areas in the Delta had a strong Chinese component; we can also assume that a disproportionate number of the literate population was of Chinese origin. The Buddhism that was implanted into southern Vietnam also possessed a strong Chinese parentage and later would be strongly influenced by Chinese trends in Buddhism, especially in the early years of the Chinese republican revolution. One of the oldest pagodas in Gia Ðinh province, now in Hồ Chı´ Minh ˙ City, was the Gia´c Laˆm temple. It was established in 1744 by Ly´ Thuy Long, from a mixed Vietnamese –Chinese village. In 1772 a monk was˙ sent for from China – this brought Thı´ch Vieˆn Quang to Gia´c Laˆm pagoda, which he turned into a centre for Buddhist learning. In these years all of the Buddhist holy books came from China and were written in Chinese. Gia´c Laˆm temple was severely damaged during the late eighteenth-century uprising led by the Taˆy Sơn brothers, which was marked by anti-Chinese pogroms in the south.30 In 1968, however, the restored Gia´c Laˆm would play a role in the Tết Offensive, providing shelter and meeting places for communist organizers.

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After the unification of Vietnam by Nguyễn Anh (Gia Long) in 1802, Buddhism lapsed into a ceremonial religion, decentralized and divorced from government power. The monks received little formal training and often served as something closer to shamans and traditional healers than spiritual mentors. But Buddhism remained a strong force among the ordinary people, in the frontier world of southern Vietnam, where Confucianism had a less organized presence than in the north and centre. Relatively few southerners bothered to prepare for the arduous Confucian exams to join the bureaucracy in Huế. When the French arrived on the scene, their scholars found little to impress them in the practice of Buddhism in Cochinchina. A French admirer of Khmer culture wrote in 1895 that even the educated classes of Annam did not have a clear idea of Buddhist philosophy. ‘At this time in their evolution, the high ideas of Buddhism would not seem to fit their childlike characters, incapable of any lasting or valuable achievement’, he concluded.31 Of course, this critic fails to appreciate that he is talking about a hybrid, frontier culture on the periphery of the old centre of Vietnamese culture in the Red River Delta. Where he saw a childlike culture, scholars now perceive a cultural crossroads, a place where traditions of Cham religion, of Khmer Theravada Buddhism and Vietnamese– Chinese Mahayana and Zen Buddhism intermingled; which ‘opened itself more rapidly and intensely to exchanges during the colonial period, to the point where it moved into the avant-garde of modernity, be it western or Asian’.32 The growth of republicanism in China, and the first stirrings of a movement to renovate the practice of Buddhism there, quickly spilled over into Vietnam. A monk from the Mekong Delta province of Bến Tre, Kha´nh Hoa`, was in 1907 the first in Vietnam to establish a school to teach what would become known as ‘Restored Buddhism’, or ‘Renewed Buddhism’ (cha´ˆ n hưng phaˆt gia´o). In 1923 he created an association of ˙ monks (Hội Luc Hoa` Lieˆn Hieˆp) to promote the establishment of a ˙ ˙ unified Buddhist Association for all of Vietnam, one that could serve as a foundation for the work of renewing Buddhist knowledge and practice throughout the country.33 Part of this task was to study the authentic Buddhist scriptures and holy books being printed in China and to translate them into quoˆ´c ngữ. The other task faced by the Buddhist renewal movement was to figure out what role it should play in society. The Mahayana version of Buddhism requires believers to look beyond

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the problem of individual salvation to the welfare of the greater community. A number of nationalist Buddhists concluded that their belief required them to take action on behalf of their countrymen, suffering the ill effects of French colonialism. Discussions on the relationship between Buddhist renovation and the nation were carried on in several editions of the newspaper Ðoˆng Pha´p Thời Ba´o, first published in 1923, and edited by a young man who would become a top communist leader in 1945, Trần Huy Liệu. The young Western-educated monk Thiện Chiếu, recruited into the renewal movement by Kha´nh Hoa`, founded a Buddhist literary society in 1928 at Linh Sơn Pagoda in Saigon, and persuaded the Buddhist community in Tra` Vinh to purchase a large set of sacred books from China for the library. This was followed by the first publication of a Buddhist journal in quoˆ´c ngữ, at a pagoda in Mỹ Tho in August 1929. ˙ By this time, new radical political currents were sweeping through East Asia, as armed uprisings led by the communist party were erupting in China and were on the point of spreading to Vietnam. The political unrest in Vietnam during 1930– 1 was mostly unarmed, provoked by bad harvests and punishing taxes. But it dramatically announced the surfacing of a local communist party, with links to both Moscow and Shanghai, capable of organizing coordinated province-wide demonstrations in central Vietnam. In the following years the French became far more cautious with regard to new societies and newspapers that they did not control. The quo´ˆc ngữ journal Pha´p Aˆm was closed after one edition in 1929; in 1931– 2 attempts to start a South Vietnamese Association to Research Buddhist Studies at a pagoda in Chợ Lớn were hampered by the presence of laypeople in the governing committee who did not agree with the aims of the reformist monks. They invited the French Governor of Cochinchina to be the honorary chairman of the association, with the French Mayor of Saigon as his deputy.34 French involvement discredited the reformist movement in the eyes of many intellectuals, and some critics began to refer to it sarcastically as ‘Buddhism of the administrative vehicle’.35

The Cao Ða`i: Religion and Nationalism The Cao Ða`i religious sect was another manifestation of changing times in colonial Vietnam. Many experts speculate that this movement grew as

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rapidly as it did due to the weakness of mainstream Buddhism after the French conquest. It developed into a temporal force that offered protection and community for peasants in a period of rapid economic change and political instability. A curious synthesis of Taoist, Buddhist and Confucian elements, with a leadership hierarchy patterned on the Catholic Church, Caodaism appealed to a broad cross-section of the southern population. Started in 1925 by a civil servant who engaged in Taoist divination and communication with spirits, by the outbreak of World War II the Cao Ða`i had become a major temporal power in the western part of Cochinchina. Five hundred thousand to one million South Vietnamese are said to have converted by 1930, and by the time the Japanese were defeated this number had increased. The rapid growth of this religion in the late 1920s is a puzzling phenomenon. The sect’s main deity is the Sino –Vietnamese supreme being, often referred to as Cao Ða`i or ‘the High Palace’. Cao Ða`i and other spirits worshipped by the cult, including Buddha, Lao Tzu, Confucius, Jesus Christ and Victor Hugo, reveal their message to believers through the intervention of mediums. Thus the religion appears on one level to be little more than a vehicle for mystical and superstitious practices popular among the common people. Yet it attracted members from the urban intelligentsia as well as the hardpressed peasants, in particular three leaders of the reformist Constitutionalist Party, Bu`i Quang Chieˆu, Nguyẽn Phan Long and Dương Va˘n Giao. One of the aspects of the religion that seems to have attracted these three was its claim to universalism, as a force that could unite East and West, Christianity and the philosophical wisdom of the Orient. ‘Devotees were told that Caodaism had come on earth to unite the world’s races, save humanity and regenerate mankind’, as Jayne Werner explains.36 In the 1920s ideas linked to theosophy and its concepts of a mystical union of East and West cropped up from England to Russia and Japan. Western experiments with se´ances to call up the spirits of the deceased were transmitted to Asia by practitioners such as the transplanted Irish Fabian and Congress Party activist, Annie Besant. Gandhi himself was influenced by the universalist appeal of theosophical thinking. Another sign of Western influence, the Cao Ða`i symbol of their supreme deity, the all-seeing eye surrounded by the rays of the sun, resembles the motif of the Masons, a group which, after World War I, became influential

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among anti-clerical French liberals. Thus, although at first glance Cao Ða`iism appears to be an obscurantist religion, on closer examination it begins to look like a product of the modern utopian, peace-oriented socialist movement. There was without doubt a something-for-everyone appeal to early Cao Ða`i beliefs. Another aspect that contributed to the Cao Ða`i popular base was their links to religious millenarianism, the main source of resistance to French power in the south of Vietnam. Their full name, Ðai ˙ Ðao Tam kỳ Phổ Độ (Third Great Universal Amnesty of God), expresses ˙ the conviction that the revelations granted to the Cao Ða`i founders will bring about a new age of love and truth. This belief in the coming of a new age was present in Buddhist sects such as the Bửu Sơn Kỳ Hương (Strange Scent from the Perfumed Mountain) and the Thieˆn Ðia Hội ˙ (The Heaven and Earth Society), an association linked to the Chinese Triads. The new era would witness the restoration of a good king, which might have been linked in the popular imagination with the restoration of power to the ‘rightful’ Nguyễn monarch, and the end of French power. Interestingly, in 1911 the Thieˆn Ðia Hội broke its links with the ˙ Triads and merged with the Quang Phuc Hội (Restoration Association) ˙ of Phan Bội Chaˆu.37 Since 1904 Phan Bội Chaˆu had been supporting the restoration of a rival to the ruling branch of the Nguyễn clan, the exiled Prince Cường Để, who was a direct descendant of the first Nguyễn ruler. As World War II approached, the Cao Ða`i became more openly supportive of Cường Để, leading to increasing French suspicion. The year after the Cao Ða`i faith was established, 1926, saw a proliferation of political parties within Vietnam. It was also a time when southern China was being transformed by the United Front between Chiang Kaishek’s National Party (Guomindang) and the Chinese Communist Party. This was the context for Hồ Chı´ Minh’s arrival in Canton, where he travelled late in 1924 from Moscow to begin training Vietnamese e´migre´s in the techniques and ideology of communist revolution. At this stage he and his colleagues were still collaborating with Phan Bội Chaˆu’s group, as well as Cường Để. Hồ’s aim was to build a united nationalist movement to rid Vietnam of the French, a movement that would have a secret inner corps of communists. It is fairly clear that the upsurge in political activity within Vietnam at this time was influenced by the political ferment in Guangzhou. In 1926 the arrest and repatriation to Vietnam of Phan Bội Chaˆu, followed by a

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public trial, brought the news of Vietnamese activism in China directly to the Vietnamese public. To summarize, although the spiritual message on which Cao Ða`iism is based may not appear to be a modernizing one, the involvement of the Constitutionalist leaders in promoting the Cao Ða`i faith and helping to turn it into a mass movement makes the political nature of this phenomenon clear. The fact that Cao Ða`iism spread far more rapidly than communism in the early years is a testament to the strong cultural roots of the movement. During the first peasant demonstrations marking the appearance of an organized communist party in Vietnam, in the Mekong Delta town of Cao La˜nh in 1930, Cao Ða`i believers were visible participants. The ambiguous and overlapping nature of political and religious influences would reappear in southern Vietnam during the presidency of Ngoˆ Ðı`nh Diệm. During World War II, however, the Cao Ða`i were unambiguously in the Japanese camp. From 1941 to 1945 they placed themselves under the protection of the Japanese, who they believed would bring back Cường Để to rule a free Vietnam. The Hoa` Hảo Buddhists, a reformist movement founded in the Mekong Delta in 1939, also had strong links with the Japanese occupiers until 1945.

The Popular Front and World War II When in 1936 the Popular Front government was established in France, legal political activities once again began to flourish in Vietnam. For communist activists, this was the moment when they could re-establish their networks throughout the country, as party members imprisoned in 1930– 1 were amnestied. Demands for workers’ rights and the formation of unions were looked on favourably by the radicalized French coalition government in Paris. Left-wing newspapers popped up like mushrooms after the rain, while electoral politics became a focus of political organizing. Trotskyists and communists linked to Moscow both won seats on the Saigon City Council. Overall, Vietnamese civil society in the late 1930s was marked by a strong leftist presence, encouraged by the participation of both socialists and communists in the French government until 1938. This period exposed intellectuals to a style of political life that may have been a model for some in the days of the Republic of Vietnam, after 1954.

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The political atmosphere seems to have influenced the monk Thiện Chiếu to take more aggressive action in support of his conceptions of ‘renewed Buddhism’. According to the Buddhist historian Nguyễn Lang, he reacted against the passivity of the Buddhist community after 1932 by establishing a ‘truly progressive’ Buddhist organization in 1937. This was the association Phật Hoc Kieˆm Tế (The Buddhist ˙ Studies and Aid Society), which found a home in Tam Bảo pagoda in Rach Gia´. In 1938 this group started its own newspaper, Tiến Hoa´, ˙ which could be translated as Evolution or Development. The idea behind the new association was not just to study Buddhism but to study ways to ‘govern the state and aid humanity’, as the Vietnamese phrase has it (kinh bang te´ˆ the´ˆ). This temple claimed to be the first in Vietnam to establish a Western-style orphanage. It also took on the responsibility of feeding flood victims in 1938, after a violent storm.38 This is an early sign of the ‘engaged Buddhism’ that the monk Thı´ch Nhất Hanh would develop in ˙ the 1960s. The writing in Tie´ˆn Hoa´, however, began to take on an overtly leftist character. The paper announced that it would publicize not just Buddhist ideas, but any effective doctrine for promoting popular wellbeing and happiness. In fact, any doctrine that taught ‘compassion and altruism’ could be accepted as Buddhist, the writer claimed.39 This sort of broad interpretation of religion was not uncommon within modernizing movements, but it usually aroused suspicion among religious conservatives. When Tie´ˆn Hoa´ began to advocate violence as a way of transforming society, the authorities started to suspect that it was controlled by Marxist –Leninists. By 1939 the paper was encouraging Buddhist monks and laypeople to join the resistance to Japan, a fact that seems to demonstrate close ties to the Chinese community, for whom Japan had become an occupying power. After the collapse of the French Popular Front, Tam Bảo pagoda was closed down and some of the monks were arrested. The reforming monk Thiện Chiếu escaped to Saigon, where he left the monkhood and joined the anti-French resistance. He eventually regrouped to North Vietnam in 1954.40 From the French –Việt Minh War through the 1960s Buddhist-led revolts in the South, some groups of Buddhists would maintain links to the revolutionary movement. Overall, international politics was to have a divisive influence on Vietnam’s independence movement, from the collapse of the Popular

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Front to the final year of World War II. Like nationalists in other South East Asian colonies, many Vietnamese viewed Japan as their potential liberator. This group included the Cao Ða`i, the Hoa´ Hảo, the Trotskyists and the Constitutionalists. In Vietnam the attraction of the Japanese Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, offering ethnic unity against the European imperialists, was somewhat tarnished by Japanese willingness to cooperate with a French regime loyal to the pro-Nazi Vichy government. But still, Japanese aid had a major influence on the fortunes of the sects who supported them, encouraging a rapid growth of their membership. Japanese military training was also available to volunteers willing to join their militia and police force, including a number of Trotskyists. For the Vietnamese communists who remained loyal to Moscow’s leadership, the choice of alliance with the Allied powers brought them a degree of support from the Chinese nationalists, including military training in southern China for members of the Việt Minh alliance formed in 1941. The Việt Minh was formed to unite communist and non-communist nationalists, although it was controlled by the communist faction. The rise of a Free French government under General de Gaulle after 1943, however, did not change their opposition to French power in Indochina. While they refused cooperation with the Free French, the Việt Minh front did seek a partnership with the Americans stationed in China, as well as elements of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE). The highpoint of this wartime alliance for Hồ Chı´ Minh and his small band of fighters was their work with the Organization of Strategic Services, the OSS, the precursor of the CIA. For the Việt Minh communists, this partnership ended all too quickly, after the August 1945 Japanese surrender. Hồ Chı´ Minh’s 2 September Declaration of Independence in Hanoi took place with the OSS present, and apparently offering their full support. Hồ made a point of borrowing some of the wording of the American Declaration of Independence, to underline the legitimacy of the Vietnamese break with France. But the post-war relationship of the new Vietnamese government with the United States quickly deteriorated when the French made clear their intention to reclaim their colony. The communist backbone of the Việt Minh front was one of the things that made the USA reluctant to offer full support; but their main motivation at this point was to promote a stable France in Europe,

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where communist strength was also growing. The importance of the Indochinese economy to a France devastated by war, compounded by de Gaulle’s determination to restore the glory of his nation, in the end outweighed the US interest in rewarding nationalists who had opposed the Japanese. The frustration and disappointment of those Vietnamese leaders who had chosen to fight for national independence on the side of the Allies, delaying their communist-inspired programmes to attack capitalism in Vietnam, became palpable in the months that led to the outbreak of the French– Việt Minh War in December 1946.

Conclusion From the French conquest to the period leading up to the Việt Minh’s Declaration of Independence, the Vietnamese had been drinking in fresh ideas and modern education; creating new organizations while searching for allies and military support in their quest for independence. The spread of literacy and new roles for women facilitated the transformation. This was a wide-ranging search provoked by foreign interference in their society, curtailment of their basic rights and theft of their resources. Communism became an important part of this quest for change, but it was part of a much broader transformational process, which included fresh interpretations of religion and identity. Modern Vietnamese nationalism grew out of this time of upheaval.

CHAPTER 2 GIVING PEACE A CHANCE: FIRST EFFORTS TO BUILD A NEUTRALIST POLITICAL MOVEMENT, 1954—64

Diệm Family Rule The French attempt to reconquer their former colony ended with their loss at the Battle of Điện Bieˆn Phủ in 1954. The peace conference convened in Geneva that spring came at a moment of worldwide exhaustion with war and superpower tensions. The 1954 Geneva Agreements that formally concluded the French– Việt Minh War reflected the desire for peace. They provided for the neutralization of both parts of Vietnam. They stipulated that there were to be no foreign military bases in either section of the temporarily divided country, while the acquisition of arms from outside sources was to be limited to replacement of existing armaments on a piece-by-piece basis. A nationwide election in 1956 was due to decide the form of a unified government. The formation of a separate state in southern Vietnam was thus a technical violation of the arrangements worked out in Geneva. Any modicum of legitimacy that this state enjoyed derived from the backing of the United States, which failed to add its signature or guarantee to the peace agreements. In contrast to the drafters of the Final Declaration, the United States in 1954 viewed Geneva ‘as a disaster for the Free World’, an event which increased Beijing’s prestige at the expense of Washington.1

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The southern government of which Ngoˆ Đı`nh Diệm became prime minister in June 1954 followed the Americans in its refusal to sign the agreements, but he nevertheless attempted to define a guiding ideology for his new state that would underline its distance from the capitalist United States. Diệm’s attempts to develop an Asian version of the philosophy of ‘communitarian personalism’ identified with the Frenchman Emmanuel Mounier were a classic effort to define a ‘Third Way’ for Vietnam – an ideology based on human dignity, wedded to either Christian or Confucian values, was how the Ngoˆ brothers envisioned their doctrine. In the early 1950s there was still a lively personalist movement in Europe centred on the journal Esprit, which in fact influenced US Christian activists such as Dorothy Day and Martin Luther King, when he was a PhD student at Boston College. Mounier himself was a progressive Catholic who joined the French resistance during World War II and was imprisoned by the Vichy regime. His ideas influenced a group of Vietnamese Catholic intellectuals who studied at the University of Louvain in Belgium in the early 1950s, as well as Diệm’s intellectual brother and adviser, Ngoˆ Đı`nh Nhu. But Diệm and Nhu used these ideas as a screen for their own authoritarianism and took a grand, impersonal approach to social justice, which they couched in terms of their anti-communist projects. The Western conception of personalism emphasizes both the moral foundation of human existence and individual engagement in the community, but the latter was seemingly beneath the remote and status-conscious Ngoˆ brothers. They could not escape their Confucian upbringing, which emphasized loyalty to the ruler and duties before rights. Their major obstacle to finding a ‘third path’ for their state was, however, their complete reliance on the United States. As French ambassador Roger Lalouette pointed out in a report to Paris early in 1960, the Diệm government’s dependence on foreign aid meant that it could not escape identification with the West and America.2 In the fiscal year of 1955, US economic aid paid almost all government salaries, as well as the Diệm government’s other operating expenses, a total of $320 million. The military equipment supplied by the USA averaged $85 million annually, until a major increase in military assistance began in 1962.3 From 1954 until 1975, US money and military support is what kept the southern government afloat. In 1962 Diệm and Nhu balked at the numbers of US advisers sent to work with their government, but the

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reality was that, barring major political compromise with their opponents, they could not survive without this support. Moreover, the zeal with which the Ngoˆ family, Diệm and his brothers Nhu and Cẩn, organized an authoritarian political structure to combat communism left very little room for legal opposition. The human dignity associated with personalism was only weakly reflected in the 1956 constitution, which made South Vietnam a presidential republic. Although this constitution affirmed the separation of powers within the government, it also granted the president the right to ‘harmonize the legislative, executive and judicial functions’. The President was given the right to rule by decree and to declare an emergency when he deemed it necessary (Articles 41 and 44). He also had significant latitude to temporarily suspend civil liberties, including freedom of movement, residence, opinion and the press (Article 98).4 One former opponent has established a list of 12 newspapers that had their permission to publish cancelled by the government, for the expression of opinions displeasing to the president. Occasionally the police organized gangs to attack the offices of papers out of favour, a practice that was explained as ‘an expression of the workers’ indignation’.5 The cadre party developed by Ngoˆ Đı`nh Nhu, the Personalist Labour Revolutionary Party (Cần Lao Nhaˆn vi Ca´ch Mang Ðảng), had agents at ˙ ˙ all levels of society who helped to ferret out disloyalty to the clan. Anyone who wanted to acquire influence within the Diệm government was expected to join this organization, which had many similarities to the communist party. The Cần Lao controlled the secret police, the backbone of campaigns to ‘Denounce Communists’ and harass the families of those who had regrouped to the North in 1954– 5. The first of these denunciation (Tố Cộng) campaigns began as soon as the 300-day period for free movement between North and South, stipulated by the Geneva Agreements, had elapsed. Ordinance No. 6 passed in January 1956 gave local officials the authority to arrest anyone considered a danger to the security of the state and public order. This ordinance authorized the creation of detention camps, where the opposition could be legally detained.6 Another aspect of the Ngoˆ family’s rule, which caused widespread alienation, was their close identification with the Catholic Church. Buddhist civil servants resented the obligatory training sessions at the Vı˜nh Long ‘Personalist Philosophy Centre’, where most of the teaching

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and training staff were priests and bishops. The Buddhists also chafed at the fact that they were denied official recognition as a religious group. Decree 10 passed in 1950 by the Bảo Đai government had made ˙ Christianity the only officially recognized religion in Vietnam, and the Diệm government did nothing to reverse this decision. Documents sent to the UN from the Overseas Buddhist Association in 1963 noted cases of Buddhists being forced to take religious instruction in Catholicism, as well as cases of forced conversions.7 In Bı`nh Đinh province, for example, ˙ Buddhists who had been active in Việt Minh political organizations were forced to migrate to unsettled areas, or alternatively, to join the Catholic Church.8 Some Buddhists feared that the Catholic Church saw Vietnam as a potential Philippines, ripe for ‘total conversion’. Another complaint was that Buddhist monks were often drafted for military service and given the most dangerous assignments. Even the final secondary school exam, the Baccalaureate, was modified to include an option on Christianity and Personalism in the Diệm years.9 The government suspicion of Buddhism was, of course, not without foundation. During the French Indochina War the Buddhists had shown considerable support for the Việt Minh, and the resistance in North Vietnam often used pagodas as a key part of their underground infrastructure. In Central Vietnam Buddhist pagodas were one place that communist party members could take shelter from the campaigns to denounce communists. In the South, as we shall see, some Buddhist temples in Saigon such as Gia´c Laˆm pagoda became the meeting places for urban communist cells throughout the American War. But none of these facts could justify the attitude of condescension shown towards Buddhism by the Diệm government, which viewed it as a second-rank religious force in Vietnamese life.

The Roots of Neutralism Had they been less Confucian, less sure of their rectitude and more in touch with ordinary Vietnamese, the Ngoˆ brothers might have found support from another political current that was attracting Asian leaders in the 1950s. This was the idea of neutralism, which embodied a concept of Third World spiritual exceptionalism that came into bloom during the 1955 Bandung Conference in Indonesia. The neutralist solution was not necessarily a utopian dream in these years. In 1954 and beyond,

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neutralism was backed by the DRV’s communist sponsors, the departing French, and British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, as well as major Asian states, including India, Burma and Indonesia. For opponents of Diệm, including the Việt Minh infrastructure remaining in the South, the creation of a neutral government appeared to be a promising way to start the political process mandated by the closing statement of the Geneva Conference. Such a government could have maintained relations with the communist state in the North, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), while the French and the International Control Commission (ICC) oversaw the nationwide elections due in 1956. Hanoi became interested in some sort of national unity government for the South, as it became clear that the country would be divided. As the Geneva conference moved into its final phase, Hanoi’s lead negotiator Pham Va˘n Đồng met a number of southern ˙ Vietnamese figures who had had links with the Bảo Đai government. ˙ These included Pham Coˆng Tắc, the senior spiritual leader (Hộ Pha´p) of ˙ the Cao Đa`i religion, and Trần Va˘n Hữu, a former Prime Minister in the Bảo Đai government. In a cable sent on 7 July 1954, Pham Va˘n Đồng ˙ ˙ wrote to Hanoi that his meeting with Pham Coˆng Tắc ˙ was undertaken with the approval of and under the guidance of the French delegation, and it is possible that Bảo Đai agreed to this ˙ meeting as well. With the approval of the French, after a ceasefire agreement is reached these people want to form a government in the temporary occupied area, a government that would allow them to have contact with us . . . This demonstrates that the French are now preparing for a peace settlement with us, and that is why they are placing pro-French henchmen in positions of power and why they are agreeing to hold free general elections leading to the unification of Vietnam . . . In this situation, we want to take the initiative to win the sympathy of this government . . .10 Hanoi prepared the Party’s Central Committee for the concessions that would be required by the final Geneva Agreement at its Sixth Plenum, held 15 –17 July. In his report to the plenum, Hồ Chı´ Minh laid out the new policies and tasks that would prevail after the Geneva Agreement was signed. He explained that as US policy now was to ‘broaden and internationalize’ the fighting in Indochina’, the DRV’s policy must be to

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‘fight for peace, unity, independence and democracy.’ This policy would require concessions to France that had been unthinkable just a few months earlier. Before, we confiscated the property of French imperialists; now that we are negotiating, we can follow a policy of equality; each side should gain some economic benefits . . . we have to make concessions to each other at an appropriate level. Previously, we didn’t take into account the French Union, now we have agreed to discuss participation on an equal and voluntary basis . . . Previously, we called for the extermination of the puppet forces in order to achieve unification; now we are using a policy of generosity [khoan dung] and the method of nationwide general election to achieve unity.11 We can see that Hồ Chı´ Minh was depending on an understanding with a sympathetic French government to counteract American policy in the South. He must have also felt some confidence in the potential of the Vietnamese neutralists allied with France. He may have been hoping that the French role would decrease the DRV’s dependence on Chinese advisers. The DRV leadership did not foresee how quickly the USA would replace France as the sponsor of the South Vietnamese government. They would be disappointed by Prime Minister Pierre Mende`s-France’s unwillingness to stand up to Washington when it came to French relations with Hanoi.12 By 1955, neutralism was becoming a well-articulated policy option for newly independent states in Asia and it is not surprising that different groups of Vietnamese saw advantages in this path. From the time of the Geneva Conference and the emergence of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on the world diplomatic stage, peacemaking was in the air. Asian religious traditions, and their modern expressions such as Gandhism and Buddhist socialism, were certainly key influences. India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, grappled with the idea of non-alignment and neutralism from the early 1950s, when he called for the admission of the PRC into the United Nations. He saw neutralism as a realist response to international politics and as a way for the Asian countries to avoid being drawn into the Cold War arms race. As he told the Indian parliament in 1953, ‘It would be absurd for certain Asian

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countries to want to join together and call themselves a third force or third power in a military sense . . . One can speak of a third zone, a zone which first in a negative sense opposes war, and then which works in a positive way for peace and cooperation.’13 Interestingly, when the term ‘Third World’ was first used in the 1950s, it was often applied in this sense, to mean an area where a higher, more moral kind of civilization would emerge, beyond the Cold War system of power relationships.14 In 1955 at Bandung, it was Nehru and Indonesia’s President Sukarno who played the most visible roles as spokesmen for the neutralist idea, with Zhou Enlai representing a benign China, willing to promise non-interference in its smaller neighbours’ affairs. Sukarno spoke passionately of the need for non-alignment: ‘Perhaps now more than at any other moment in the history of the world, society, government and statesmanship need to be based upon the highest code of morality and ethics. And in political terms, what is the highest code of morality? It is the subordination of everything to the well-being of mankind.’15 The Asian and African countries assembled at Bandung did not succeed in defining a common attitude towards the two superpower blocs and were aware that this was a difficult challenge for those nations that had just regained their independence, or were in the process of doing so. On the part of Vietnamese neutralists, there was a hope that analysis and reflexion would lead to the discovery of a solid foundation for the neutralist group, ‘as an effective solution to the contradictions of the contemporary world’.16 Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia was an early convert to the idea of neutralism and non-alignment, which given Cambodia’s history was not a surprising choice. In February 1956, he was invited to China, where he made a public endorsement of neutralism as the guiding ideology of his state.17 This stance turned Cambodia into a refuge for political opponents of Ngoˆ Đı`nh Diệm while at the same time Sihanouk refused full diplomatic recognition to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN). The Diệm government’s representatives in Paris and Phnom Penh used both political and financial pressure to persuade Sihanouk to reduce his support for their opponents. They viewed any kind of opposition as either rebellion or part of a communist plot. They apparently did not consider opening any political avenues for consultation at this stage in the development of their state. On the contrary, in 1956 Diệm was preoccupied with holding a South Vietnamese election to make himself

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head of a presidential republic and with obstructing communist pressure for the nationwide elections promised at Geneva. One of the first Vietnamese opposition figures to appear in Phnom Penh was Nguyễn Manh Ha`, a Catholic who had briefly served as a ˙ minister in Hồ Chı´ Minh’s 1946 Provisional Government. He was a non-communist who happened to be the son-in-law of a French communist deputy, Georges Marrane, someone who had known Hồ since the 1920s. As Secretary for the Economy, Ha` often met Hồ Chı´ Minh, Vo˜ Nguyeˆn Gia´p and Pham Va˘n Đồng in early 1946. Hồ Chı´ Minh thought ˙ of him so highly that he invited him to take part in the Fontainebleau negotiations in the summer of that year. After the French– Việt Minh war broke out at the end of 1946, Ha` stayed on in French-controlled Hanoi, often being called on to act as an intermediary to the Việt Minh. But in 1951, while he was helping to draw up the statutes for a Vietnamese national assembly, he was expelled from Vietnam by General de Lattre de Tassigny and sent into exile in France.18 Back in Paris, Nguyễn Manh Ha` developed contacts with left-wing ˙ French Catholics who had been leading figures in the Resistance. These contacts may have eventually enabled Ha` to influence the views of Charles de Gaulle, after 1962. At the time of the Geneva peace conference in 1954, Ngoˆ Đı`nh Diệm sought him out, to try to persuade him to join an anti-communist government. Ha` refused, being committed to reconciliation with Hồ Chı´ Minh’s government. Instead of joining forces with Diệm and the Americans, Ha` aligned himself with a former Prime Minister of the Bảo Đai government, Trần Va˘n Hữu, in ˙ exile in France. The two would have first crossed paths while Ha` was working for this French-sponsored government in 1951. He persuaded Hữu, a wealthy southerner, to take the leadership of a group advocating the implementation of the Geneva Agreements, in particular the holding of nationwide elections to reunify Vietnam. At the close of 1955 Ha` returned to Hanoi, at Hồ Chı´ Minh’s invitation, to discuss the issue of reunification. He departed with a promise from Hồ, Pham Va˘ng Đồng ˙ and Vo˜ Nguyeˆn Gia´p, that they would support his efforts to work for a ‘long-term, peaceful reunification’ of Vietnam.19 In the autumn of 1956, with the communist world in turmoil, ` Ha travelled to Phnom Penh on a French passport. He became one of the two lead writers of a French-language newspaper, La Tribune, which first appeared in October 1956. The goal of this paper was to promote

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neutralist policies for Vietnam and Cambodia. The first issue published a long article entitled, ‘Ou va le neutralisme? Origine et e´volution’, with a large portrait of Nehru. The second part of this series appeared in the second issue. A later issue on 13 November carried a long ‘Open Letter to President Ngoˆ Đı`nh Diệm’, published as a supplement to the paper. Five issues appeared between 26 October and 14 November, when the South Vietnamese began to pressure Sihanouk to close it down. Diệm’s representative in Phnom Penh reported the activities of Nguyễn Manh Ha` to Saigon, with the conviction that this was a ˙ communist-backed enterprise. He claimed that the other writer for La Tribune, Trần Thoˆng, was a high-level communist cadre from the northern province of Ninh Bı`nh, who was posing as a French teacher. Some of the money to publish the paper came from France, he said, but the bulk of its funding came from the communists, via the Polish delegation to the ICC, whose representatives travelled between Phnom Penh and Hanoi at least twice a month. To add insult to injury, copies of the paper were being smuggled into Saigon in cars and vans belonging to the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces.20 However, a French scholar with family ties to the Catholic group behind La Tribune, Claire Trần Thi ˙ Lieˆn, asserts that Trần Thoˆng was never a ‘high-ranking communist cadre’, but rather a ‘brilliant seminary student’ who was sent to study at the University of Louvain, where he became fascinated by Mounier’s ideas and joined the group around the journal Esprit.21 Trần Thoˆng was one of the theoreticians of the neutral idea; he admittedly did believe that Christians should attempt to live with the communists, if necessary.22 The funding for La Tribune came mainly from the personal fortune of Pham Va˘n Nam, another northern Catholic, who worked as ˙ the paper’s graphic artist and photo editor.23 In fact, the paper survived with very limited means and thanks to a Vietnamese printer in Phnom Penh who refused payment for his services. The activities of Trần Va˘n Hữu promised more than they delivered. Although he was happy to be put forward as an alternative prime minister to Diệm in 1954, his support of Nguyễn Manh Ha`’s diplomatic ˙ efforts did not materialize in 1956. The South Vietnamese embassy in Paris discovered via an article in the French press that Nguyễn Manh Ha` ˙ had made contacts in India to arrange a meeting of Trần Va˘n Hữu and Nehru for early 1956. The ex-prime minister was then due to continue on to Phnom Penh, where he would take part in a congress of the South

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Vietnamese opposition. According to the news report in France Observateur, this congress was due to confer on him the mandate to negotiate with the DRV.24 Hữu apparently felt that he did not have enough international support to undertake this mission, so in the end he did not travel to India or Cambodia. The French Embassy in Phnom Penh may have played a part in cutting short Hữu’s mission, as by 1956 they could see that Diệm was firmly established with American backing. But Hữu himself remained committed to the neutralist idea and by 1962–3 he would once again be cast in the role of a third-way leader. A third figure who was promoting neutralism in 1956 was the leader or ‘Superior’ of the Cao Đa`i religious sect, Pham Coˆng Tắc, the most ˙ important remaining originator of the sect’s doctrine. He had spent World War II in forced exile in Madagascar, due to his proJapanese sympathies. In an effort to centralize state control, the Diệm government managed to break the temporal power of the Cao Đa`i in 1955–6, by taking over their mountainous headquarters near the Cambodian border, known for more than a decade as an impregnable base. From the time of the South Vietnamese army’s offensive to occupy the Cao Đa`i Holy See in Taˆy Ninh, Pham Coˆng Tắc, alienated by the ˙ central government’s victory, had taken refuge in Phnom Penh. By the end of April 1956, he had developed a programme (cương lı˜nh) promoting the peaceful reunification of Vietnam. According to reports received by Diệm’s secretariat, Tắc had sent his peace programme to the UN and both governments of Vietnam. It raised the possibility of neutralization, along the lines followed in India and Burma, which he referred to as ‘peaceful co-existence’ (hoa` bı`nh so´ˆng chung). Tắc advocated supervision by the United Nations of any Vietnamese peace settlement. He sent one of his lieutenants, Nhi-Lang, to Saigon to call on the Cao ˙ Đa`i dignitaries to join him in Phnom Penh. At the same time, Cao Đa`i activists in the Central Highlands and central coastal provinces were promoting Pham Coˆng Tắc’s movement of ‘Peaceful Co-existence with ˙ the Việt Cộng’. Some of these cadres had been arrested in Đồng Nai province. Even though the Cambodian government claimed that they were not supporting the Cao Đa`i, Tắc and his followers were able to establish a temple 4 km outside of Phnom Penh, on the road to Saigon.25 Initially these peace initiatives received French support and were promoted by go-betweens such as Jean Sainteny, de Gaulle’s representative in Hanoi in 1945– 6, and once again the French envoy

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in 1954. The French had given only lukewarm backing to the Diệm government in 1954– 5 and almost succeeded in convincing the USA to drop him in 1955, before his army tamed the sects. The French did not appreciate the way their power in South Vietnam had been undercut by the Americans in 1954 –6, in part because it meant a loss of economic influence, but also because it decreased their international influence by preventing them from playing the diplomatic role outlined in the Geneva Agreements. France had pledged at Geneva to ‘guarantee allVietnam elections in 1956, guarantee execution of the armistice agreement, and guarantee Vietnamese sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity’, as well as to maintain their Expeditionary Corps in place until Vietnam requested its removal.26 The DRV, or at least Hồ Chı´ Minh and his closest collaborators, had trusted that France would fulfil its role and encouraged any moves towards reconciliation that would decrease their own international isolation. Instead, due to their dependence on American funds, the French were obliged to agree to withdraw their forces, which had decreased to around 5,000 by the end of March 1956. This weakening of the French role, and their eventual rapprochement with Diệm, left the Vietnamese proponents of a neutral solution without a Western sponsor. The Republic of Vietnam took a jaundiced view of the activities of such neutralists as Nguyễn Manh Ha`. Their representative in Phnom ˙ Penh considered that the neutralist project was the work of the communists and he outlined what he believed were its five major goals: 1. To make the number of those who fear communism diminish; to reduce the number of enemies of the communist side; 2. To pull these people away from the influence of South Vietnam; 3. To reduce the prestige of President Diệm; 4. To grab the reputation of the side calling for negotiations and unity, to create a bloc of intellectuals and the uncommitted, of the religious sects who have lost power to the president, in order to oppose the government of freedom; 5. In Phnom Penh, to join with Ea-Sichau, the former Issarak leader; with the Cambodian youth; with the Khmer in Vietnam; and with the support of India and Poland, to establish a government of unity with the groups of Hữu and Hinh;27 and to unify Vietnam under the leadership of North Vietnam.28

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This critique was reasonably accurate; however, it could be said that by failing to discuss the issue of negotiations and national reunification, the Diệm government itself did much to undermine its prestige among its own people.

The Southern Communists and Neutralism The part of this puzzle that is most difficult to put together is the role of the southern communists. Were the southern Việt Minh linked to or responsible in any way for the appearance of these neutralist programmes in 1956? If so, what role did they play in their implementation? The southerners are usually portrayed, convincingly, as being hostile to the Geneva division of Vietnam, yet there is evidence that they were prepared to take part in a peaceful competition for power, at least in the months immediately following the peace settlement. Their major challenge was to maintain their armed force, as the Việt Minh were forbidden by the Geneva Agreement from keeping any troops south of the 17th parallel. The role of Politburo member Leˆ Duẩn in the postGeneva period demonstrates that they were making contingency plans for both peace and war. Leˆ Duẩn was a native of Quảng Tri province, just ˙ south of the demilitarized zone, but he had been active in Saigon and the far south since the late 1930s. According to the diary of Vo˜ Va˘n Kiệt, a future prime minister who worked closely with Leˆ Duẩn in 1954, Immediately after the ceasefire, Anh Ba [Leˆ Duẩn] sent anyone who had connections with the Bı`nh Xuyeˆn and the religious sects to join them. He directed the Regional Committee to go to Hậu Giang to lead the people in their support of the dissident forces of the Hoa` Hảo, Cao Đa`i and Bı`nh Xuyeˆn in opposing the family dictatorship of Diệm. He directed the military propaganda group to get control of an enemy unit, so that when the conditions presented themselves, they could separate from the army as Republican forces who opposed the family dictatorship of Diệm. At the same time, he sent the youth forces and guerrillas, whose identity had not been given away, to join the [Diệm] government self-defense forces and Republican guards, so they could defend our units and the revolutionary masses, especially in the old base areas.29

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Leˆ Duẩn also took charge of developing a programme for future action under the auspices of the nationwide Fatherland Front. South Vietnamese (RVN) intelligence picked up indications that by the summer of 1956 the communists were trying to revive their activities south of the 17th parallel and that they were finding ways to benefit from Diệm’s crackdown on the sects. The authors of the Pentagon Papers concurred with this intelligence, noting that Diệm’s triumph over the sects in 1955–6 was more illusory or fleeting than was acknowledged at the time. As they admitted, Diệm’s policy ‘invited a Viet Cong-sect alliance against him’, which would lead to Việt Cộng victories against the ARVN in 1959 and 1960.30 Southern intelligence captured a long communist report or Directive (Chỉ-thi) ‘On the situation of the Cao Đa`i from Tết to the present’, dated ˙ 16 April 1956. The author of this document expresses the belief that the movement to oppose the Americans and Diệm is growing stronger by the day among the Cao Đa`i believers, thanks to both the invasion of the Holy See and the ‘light’ shed by the programme of the Fatherland Front. The policy of ‘armed repression, and coercion’ of the Cao Đa`i has had no results (for Diệm), because it is seen as unjust by the believers, the document explains.31 This directive may reflect the views of Leˆ Duẩn – the South Vietnamese had also picked up reports that he had been delegated by the Central Office for South Vietnam to travel to different localities to ‘officially enrol’ new branches of the Fatherland Front (Mặt Trận Tổ Quốc) established by various parties and blocs.32 An official history of the Resistance in Saigon – Chợ Lớn– Gia Ðinh (1945–75) ˙ confirms that Leˆ Duẩn prepared his ‘Theses on the Path of Revolution in South Vietnam’ (‘Đề cương dường lối ca´ch mang miền nam’) in 1956, as ˙ he travelled around the South, and that they were discussed by a meeting of the Southern Regional Committee held in Phnom Penh in December 1956. This programme was in full accord with the Hanoi Politburo directive of June 1956, which maintained that the struggle in South Vietnam must remain essentially political, with the use of violence restricted to self-defence.33 By 1958 the southern communists were becoming impatient with Hanoi’s willingness to follow Soviet and Chinese advice, to continue to pursue unification by peaceful means. (It would not be until January 1959 that the Politburo would change course, when the 15th party plenum in Hanoi accepted a revised policy for the South.)34

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Figure 2.1

Leˆ Duẩn.

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But according to the Theses on the Path of Revolution, in 1956 the southern leadership still believed that the world situation and the strength of opposition to the Diệm government made it possible to limit their struggle to political means. Both the version of this document captured in South Vietnam’s Long An province in 1957 and the copy printed in Va˘n Kieˆn Ðảng (Documents of Party History) in 2002 are unequivocal on ˙ this point.35 The Theses drawn up by Leˆ Duẩn reflect the spirit of the Bandung Conference and awareness of the policies enunciated by the Soviet Union’s Twentieth Party Congress. ‘The forces of peace and democracy in the world have tipped the balance toward the camp of peace and democracy’, the Theses state. ‘Based on the above world situation, the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union produced two important judgments: 1) All conflicts in the world at present can be resolved by means of peaceful negotiations; 2) The revolutionary movement in many countries at present can develop peacefully.’ This second point is strongly qualified, however: ‘Naturally in the countries in which the ruling class has a powerful military-police

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apparatus and is using fascist policies to repress the movement, the revolution in those countries must look clearly at their concrete situation to have the appropriate methods of struggle’ (Porter, p. 27). ‘In order to resist the US – Diệm regime, the Southern people have only one way to save the country and themselves, and that is the Revolutionary path’, his Theses stated (p. 25). The struggle could remain peaceful, so long as ‘Those who lead the revolutionary movement are determined to mingle with the masses, to protect and serve the interests of the masses and to pursue correctly the mass line. Between the masses and the Communists there is no distinction any more’ (p. 29). The Theses take on a biblical tone when the author states, ‘Using love and righteousness to triumph over force is a tradition of the Vietnamese nation. The aspiration for peace is an aspiration of the world’s people in general and in our own country, including the people of the South, so our struggle line cannot be apart from the peaceful line’ (p. 29). To implement this policy of peaceful revolution, from the start of 1957 student activists and labour unions led by the Fatherland Front organized meetings and demonstrations in a number of places, but mainly in the Saigon – Chợ Lớn urban area. They demanded improvements in the educational system, ranging from higher salaries for teachers to lower fees for students and the expansion of teaching of the Vietnamese language.36 The workers at the Saigon port went on strike to demand higher wages, paralysing the port until they received a 15 per cent increase. At Tết (the Vietnamese New Year) the residents of Saigon– Chợ Lớn, including northern refugees, flooded the post office with greeting cards to send to the North. During the May First Labour Day demonstration, over 200,000 people marched to demand democracy and peaceful reunification of the nation; other demonstrations, large and small, continued into July and August. But in November 1957 the government went on the attack: it disbanded thirty labour unions, to rid them of communists.37 For the opposition it became more dangerous to engage in open political activity as the Diệm government intensified its search for hidden communists. The passage of Diệm’s 1959 anti-communist law finally pushed the Workers’ Party Secretariat to pass a resolution permitting the southerners to kill ‘cruel enemy elements’, as well as to begin organizing base areas and armed forces.38

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Growth of Opposition to Ngoˆ Đı`nh Diệm Two strands of opposition to the Diệm government began to take shape in 1960, both of which were nationalist. One of these looked to the Americans, in the hope that they would distance themselves from Diệm, as they had from the South Korean regime of Syngman Rhee. The creation of a ‘Committee for Progress and Liberty’ in April 1960 by 18 Saigon intellectuals reflected the belief that the State Department might be ready to revise its relationships with ‘friendly’ Asian states in favour of less repressive regimes. This was an anticommunist opposition that was calling for more effective democratic institutions. At a press conference in June 1960 a leader of this movement, Trần Va˘n Đo, denounced the regime’s illegal arrests, harsh treatment of prisoners and ‘concentration camps’. He also called for freedom of the press and opinion.39 A November coup attempt organized by two colonels from the Saigon Military Academy and a civilian critic of Diệm’s rural policies, Dr Phan Quang Đa´n, was widely believed (probably inaccurately) to have received some American backing. The coup’s failure resulted in a hardening of Diệm’s attitude towards the liberal opposition, however. In a statement that could describe many later political crises in South Vietnam, the French ambassador wrote that ‘the repressive measures taken against the nationalist opposition have resulted in the elimination of elements which provided a screen between the regime and communism’.40 The other formal opposition that surfaced in September 1960 was the National Liberation Front (NLF) of South Vietnam. Its ten-point programme called for the replacement of the Saigon government by a ‘broad national democratic coalition administration’ and the election of a national assembly. This development was of course the outgrowth of a decision of the Vietnam Workers’ Party’s Third Congress held in September 1960; its programme was a typical example of a communist programme for bourgeois democratic revolution. But many of the southern Vietnamese who signed on with this force may have viewed the Front’s programme as an end in itself, not as a pause on the way to communism. At this stage the NLF apparently had little more substance than a loose political organization; it included many non-communist members. Yet it also absorbed all the activists who in the 1950s

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Figure 2.2

47

Ngoˆ Ðı`nh Diệm.

organized under the umbrella of the national Fatherland Front, including an experienced student movement. The strength of the NLF was the appeal of its programme to the large numbers of South Vietnamese who feared an escalation of the American role in the South and who were disturbed by the failure of the international community to enforce the Geneva Agreement. The NLF programme undoubtedly influenced the strategies of other groups, in particular the Buddhists, who later militated for a negotiated end to the war and the opening of negotiations with the DRV. By the end of 1961, following Kennedy’s inauguration, there was still enough of an opposition to Diệm’s government to merit an extensive analysis in one of Ambassador Lalouette’s cables to Paris. He now divided the southern opposition groups into two main streams: the neutralist tendency and the liberal, anti-communist tendency. In the former group he included Trần Va˘n Hữu, still the leader of a neutralist group in Paris. In the latter group he placed members of the Đai Việt party, adherents of the Hoa´ Hảo and Cao Đa`i religious sects, and ˙ the majority of the 800,000 Catholic refugees from the North. But as he explained, ‘the programmes of the two factions coincide on the following

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points: 1) negotiations with the North; 2) political disengagement vis-a`vis the Americans; 3) re-establishment of friendly relations with Cambodia and Laos; and 4) the strengthening of political, economic and cultural ties with the countries of South East Asia’.41 The need for any southern state to distance itself from the Americans in order to attain legitimacy was thus becoming widely recognized (and may have been somewhat gleefully pounced on by the former colonial masters, the French).

A Diplomatic Brush with Neutralization Kennedy’s Under Secretary of State for East Asia, Averell Harriman, was not ignorant of this situation. In November 1961, along with Chester Bowles, another State Department official, he put his weight behind the idea of a ‘negotiated solution via a “strengthened and modernized” version of the Geneva Accords of 1954’.42 Bowles became a backer of the neutralization of all South East Asia (minus North Vietnam), as an extension of the neutralization of Laos.43 John Kenneth Galbraith, Kennedy’s ambassador to New Delhi, also wrote a memo backing a nonmilitary solution to the conflict, urging the establishment of a UN role in South Vietnam.44 Hanoi did not remain unresponsive to this climate, and may have been doing much to promote these ideas via contacts in Paris and Saigon. In early 1962 the Hanoi Politburo instructed its cadres in the South to ‘win the sympathy of neutralist and “progressive forces” in the RVN, so that they could be relied upon to adopt a sympathetic attitude in case a negotiated settlement resulted in the formation of a coalition government’.45 This tactic was both a repetition of Hanoi’s efforts to encourage a neutralist government in the South in 1954 and an early sign of how the communists would approach the idea of a ‘Third Segment’ in the years to come. Trần Va˘n Hữu, now the leader of a group for ‘Peace and Renovation’, was approached by the DRV in Geneva in August 1962, and asked if he would lead the neutralist group in a coalition government, taking on the role played by Souvanna Phouma in Laos. He was given assurances that the issue of reunification could wait ‘fifteen or twenty years’.46 Mr Hữu appears to have endorsed the approach of the NLF at this point, as his group was present at a meeting in Paris in January 1963, when the Vietnam–France Association repeated the call for an international

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conference to neutralize South Vietnam, on the pattern of Laos. At the time, the RVN ambassador in Paris characterized Hữu’s programme as ‘taking a stance that was almost the same as that of the NLF’. In his dispatch the ambassador described the people who attended this meeting as ‘close to the communists’ and ‘leftist intellectuals’.47 The second Geneva conference announced an accord on the neutralization of Laos in July 1962, which the DRV immediately published in its party newspaper, Nhaˆn Daˆn. US negotiator Averell Harriman agreed to a Burmese proposal to meet the North Vietnamese Foreign Minister Ung Va˘n Khieˆm on 23 July, as the conference on Laos was winding up. However, the record of this conversation depicts the two negotiators as each clinging to their public accusations of the other side. The US participants viewed the problem of South Vietnam as a case of North Vietnamese aggression and apparently had little interest in Hanoi’s view of the illegality of the Diệm government.48 (The USA at that point would have found it difficult to believe that within a few months Foreign Minister Khieˆm would undergo harsh criticism for preparing a communique´ between Hồ Chı´ Minh and Czech President Antonin Novotny expressing support for ‘peaceful co-existence’.) In Geneva Khieˆm’s failure to raise the issue of neutralization for South Vietnam was read by Harriman’s aides as a rebuff. Yet as someone who was possibly already being accused of ‘revisionism’, he was undoubtedly playing it safe and waiting for a cue from Hanoi. By mid-1962, the political climate in the DRV was growing less receptive to Khrushchev’s support of peaceful co-existence, and those supporting such policies came under increasing pressure, as the following chapter will explain. Harriman, too, had to watch his back, as his advocacy of the settlement for Laos was seen as dangerously naı¨ve by most of the US military and political advisers to Diệm. In any case, the State Department was not trying terribly hard to find a solution if they made no subsequent effort to communicate with Hanoi. In fact, the documentary record shows that the Pentagon believed that the communist insurgency in South Vietnam was being brought under control in 1962 and that they were not feeling much pressure to find a political solution to the Vietnam crisis.49 Soon after the declarations at Geneva, differences among the Soviets, Chinese and Vietnamese on policy towards war and negotiation in Indochina began to surface. But the Vietnamese party favouring negotiations was still strong enough to continue floating suggestions

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about a neutral solution. The NLF made a 14-point proposal, announced in Nhaˆn Daˆn on 19 August 1962, the anniversary of the 1945 August Revolution, which advocated an independent and neutral South Vietnam. They declared themselves ready to meet with all patriotic forces in South Vietnam to exchange opinions on issues of peace and neutrality. Their proposal stated that a southern peace government would accept foreign aid from any nation, so long as no political conditions were attached. The late Hanoi diplomat Lưu Đoa`n Huynh believed that the major initiative for this policy came from Leˆ Duẩn, now the First Secretary of the Workers’ Party and the man who in 1959 had taken the initiative to push Hanoi towards a more combative policy in the South.50 It is clear, however, that the Vietnamese leadership was not optimistic or perhaps not united regarding the potential of neutralization. By 23 August, just four days later, Nhaˆn Daˆn carried an article stating that, ‘the US is plotting to destroy the Geneva Agreement on Laos’. The USA also fairly quickly became disillusioned by Hanoi’s lack of compliance with the neutralization pact on Laos. On either side of this Cold War divide, those willing to wager on peace were overruled by more hawkish decision-makers. Moreover, each side had a different image of what could be achieved via the neutralization process. For the Vietnamese communists the neutralization of Laos would only work if it were rapidly extended to South Vietnam. That would have made access to Laos less important to their strategy for reunification. For the Americans, the neutralization of Laos was seen as a way to protect an independent, anti-communist South Vietnam, which they were determined to defend.

The Buddhist Spring of 1963 In the spring of 1963 a new force in southern Vietnamese politics made itself heard. The Buddhists, although they composed the dominant religious group in South Vietnam, had until then not wielded enough power to influence the political scene. They did not control a geographic fiefdom as did the newer religious sects, the Cao Đa`i and the Hoa´ Hảo; nor did they possess an army. Since the founding of the Nguyễn dynasty in 1802 they had settled into a pattern of decentralization, with each temple taking care of its own management. During the years of the

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Buddhist Renovation movement in the 1930s, their efforts to create a modern religious organization had not come to fruition. Yet as they discovered in 1963, they had the power to mobilize a latent popular force that had been waiting for leadership. The number of practising Buddhists may have been around nine out of twenty million people in the South, but if one takes into account the cultural reach of the intertwined ‘three religions’ (Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism) within Vietnamese society, one can conclude that most non-Christians, around 80 per cent of the population, would have had strong affinities and sympathies with Buddhism.51 From 1951 a national congress held at Huế began the work of unifying Buddhist groups from north to south into a Tổng Hội Phật Gia´o (General Association of Buddhists). The association received government recognition in 1953. One of the movers behind this centralization was the monk Thı´ch Trı´ Quang, a Buddhist scholar born in 1923 in the north-central province of Quảng Bı`nh, the home province of both General Vo˜ Nguyeˆn Gia´p and Ngoˆ Đı`nh Diệm. At the age of 16 he began his studies to enter the monkhood, moving to the Buddhist Studies Institute in Huế in 1937. After Hồ Chı´ Minh’s 1945 declaration of Vietnamese independence, he journeyed to Hanoi with his religious master, Thı´ch Trı´ Độ, to help establish a Buddhist Studies Centre. Thı´ch Trı´ Độ stayed on in Hanoi for the rest of his life, while Trı´ Quang returned to Quảng Bı`nh to join the resistance. But within a few months he had to return home to care for his ailing mother, as his older brothers were far away, all with the anti-French resistance. In 1949 he first went to Saigon, where he became involved in efforts to form an all-Vietnam Buddhist organization; in 1955 he was named head of the Buddhist Studies Association, which established its headquarters there. He soon gave up this position to return to Huế, but resumed his role in 1963.52 In the meantime, in 1957 he had established a Buddhist Association of Central Vietnam based at Từ Đa`m Pagoda in Huế. The regulations of this association stated that this was a religious organization that did not participate in politics.53 Indeed, as one French diplomat noted in August 1961, ‘the reformed Buddhists refuse any engagement with the established power’.54 This aloofness could not help but attract government disapproval. The birth of the Buddhist movement against Diệm is usually linked to the government decree which forbade them to fly their

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Buddhist flag for the celebration of their major religious holiday, Buddha’s Birthday, which in 1963 fell on 7 May. In Huế, the centre of Vietnamese Buddhism, the festivities were usually marked by the hanging of flags along the main highway. In retrospect, Thı´ch Trı´ Quang believed that Diệm’s brother Ngoˆ Đı`nh Thuc, the Archbishop ˙ of Huế, was envious of the Buddhists’ power in his archbishopric, where there were comparatively few Catholics. (Just a week earlier Huế had been decorated with Vatican flags to mark the anniversary of Thuc’s consecration as a Bishop.) For the Buddhists, however, this ˙ prohibition was not the start of their unhappiness; it was the last straw. As soon as the decree was announced, Trı´ Quang sent a dispatch to the UN General Secretary, detailing the violations of the Buddhists’ human rights and the religious discrimination practised by the government of Ngoˆ Đı`nh Diệm.55 This was the start of a crisis that would grow steadily until the day Diệm was overthrown. On 8 May, thousands of Buddhists gathered outside the radio station in Huế to hear a broadcast of a speech by Thı´ch Trı´ Quang. As the crowd gathered, the government sent a sound truck to the station, announcing that a Việt Cộng attack was expected for that night and asking the people to disperse. When the crowd refused, a fire truck started to spray them with water; then armoured cars arrived and began firing into the crowd. Nine people were killed, some crushed by the tracks of the armoured vehicles; another 14 were wounded.56 Diệm was loath to admit any responsibility for this tragedy, even though there were hundreds of witnesses. It took the arm-twisting of the US Embassy to convince him to offer compensation to the families of the dead and wounded. The Buddhists drew up a five-point list of demands for the government, including the end of arbitrary arrests and full equality for Buddhism with Catholicism. At this point they were not contesting the government’s policy on war and peace. But in spite of some promising talks between the two sides, the government never accepted the fact that they had been guilty of religious discrimination. They also made no effort to halt the public accusations of Nhu’s powerful wife, Mme Nhu or Trần Leˆ Xuaˆn, that the Buddhists were controlled by the communists. The Buddhists continued to demonstrate in massive numbers in Saigon and Huế. The 11 June immolation of the 73-year-old monk Thı´ch Quảng Đức became the image of this summer of crisis that seared its way into the

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consciousness of the West. After this shocking spectacle, carried out at a busy crossroads in Saigon, the Americans began to increase their pressure on the Ngoˆ family to bring about democratic reforms. The American Ambassador, Frederick Nolting, considered too sympathetic to Diệm, was withdrawn from Saigon, to be replaced by Henry Cabot Lodge. Lodge maintained distant relations with President Diệm as he saw no sign that the president was getting the message about American unhappiness with his regime, in particular the demand that ‘the Councillor’, Ngoˆ Đı`nh Nhu, be removed from his position of power. Nhu’s visibility, if anything, had increased in the last years of the Diệm government. One thing that burnished his reputation with Western backers was his enthusiasm for the Strategic Hamlet Programme, developed in imitation of the successful British counter-insurgency policy in Malaya, which grouped farmers into defended settlements.57 Under Nhu’s direction the RVN had constructed 5,000 of these settlements by April 1964, with 2,000 more under construction.58 These were viewed as the solution to the growing communist insurgency – optimism regarding their success was one reason that US experts believed in 1963 that they were on the verge of ending the NLF threat. Nhu, meanwhile, continued to present himself as the theoretician of government policy: in a threehour impromptu discourse to university lecturers from Huế, attending an obligatory government retreat in mid-1963, Nhu emphasized the philosophical basis of the Strategic Hamlets. The foundation of this programme was the philosophy of personalism, he declared.59 Among the moral changes that the construction of the defensive hamlets was meant to inculcate in the peasantry was a ‘spirit of self-sufficiency’.60 Most of the peasants failed to find anything that was humanitarian or useful in these settlements, however. They resented the order to leave their own rice fields and gardens, and the fact that they had to construct these hastily organized hamlets (which they called concentration camps) with their own labour. Instead of yielding to US pressure to withdraw from his high-profile role, if only temporarily, Nhu organized simultaneous raids on pagodas in Saigon and Huế on the night of 18 August, sending the secret police to force their way through the pagoda gates. At Xa´ Lợi pagoda, Trı´ Quang’s headquarters in Saigon, the police used automatic weapons and grenades to terrorize the monks and nuns. An unknown number of monks was wounded or arrested. At dawn the next morning, Diệm

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declared martial law and a curfew from 9.00 p.m. to 5.00 a.m., making it illegal to be on the streets during those hours. Trı´ Quang himself was hauled off to a detention centre, but as the police failed to identify him, the next morning his fellow monks helped him to slip out. Later he took a taxi to the US Embassy, where he was given protection from the police. This was the moment when even members of Diệm’s own administration began to move away from him. The Buddhist Foreign Minister, Vu˜ Va˘n Mẫu, asked for leave and flew off to India with his family. But Diệm and Nhu were readying another tactic to maintain their freedom of action. They opted to join the movement towards a negotiated solution in their late bid to hang on to power. Their government had by the summer become estranged from the Kennedy administration over its treatment of the Buddhist population; in May 1963 Nhu had already announced that he wanted half of the 12,000 US military personnel to leave the country.61 In August the Ngoˆs agreed to the French Ambassador’s plan to set up a channel for negotiations with the North, using the International Control Commission’s representative, the Polish professor Mieczyslaw Maneli, as their gobetween. A first meeting between Nhu and Maneli took place on 25 August. Then on 29 August, French president Charles de Gaulle arranged an announcement that France was ready to help in creating a Vietnam that would be ‘independent . . . from the outside, in internal peace and unity and in harmony with [its] neighbors’.62 It is not clear whether de Gaulle’s action was coordinated with the initiative taken by Roger Lalouette – the general may have been asked to become involved by Bửu Hội, Diệm’s science attache´ in Paris, as well as his ambassador to several African states. Although a member of the royal family and considered to be close to Nhu, Bửu Hội was alarmed by the treatment of the Buddhists, as his own mother had become a Buddhist nun, with ties to the Ấn Quang Pagoda. She had at one point threatened to immolate herself, following the example of Thı´ch Quảng Đức and several other monks who had copied his suicide.63 Bửu Hội was given the task of organizing a fact-finding UN mission to report on the Buddhist situation in Vietnam. Before any face-to-face negotiations could take place between representatives of North and South (which were allegedly being planned for New Delhi), Diệm and Nhu were both dead.64

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Evaluations of the seriousness of the Ngoˆ Đı`nh Nhu – DRV negotiations differ. To anyone aware of the popular bitterness of the southern population towards the Ngoˆ brothers, it seems doubtful that they would have trusted their chances of survival without American protection. South Vietnamese who opposed Diệm tend to view this as a case of Nhu blackmailing the USA into easing their pressure for his departure from the southern government. They note that Nhu was quite public about the fact that he was negotiating with the northern government, assuring that the Americans would hear about this gambit.65 He even spoke directly to Ambassador Lodge about his contacts with the NLF, according to the report of this conversation that Cabot Lodge gave to his colleague, Roger Lalouette. But Lalouette’s description of this contact makes it clear that Nhu’s aim was not peaceful reconciliation with the communists, but rather to buy time for the elimination of the communist threat. ‘Cabot Lodge told me that during their conversation, M. Nhu told him briefly about his contacts with certain elements of the Liberation Front and of his hope that, thanks to the Strategic Hamlet Programme, he would succeed in pacifying the guerrillas bit by bit, in a relatively short time period (three months).’66 At this moment in early September, Ambassador Lodge seemed willing to countenance renewed cooperation with Nhu, if he and his wife would agree to leave the country for a number of months, enough time to allow US public opinion to cool down. The Frenchbacked talks would have been a way to avoid a further build-up of US forces in Vietnam, according to Lalouette’s account; but the goal was to restore the pre-1960 situation in South Vietnam, ‘leaving the way open to political, economic and social development’ and ‘without attacking American prestige’.67 On the other hand, when the question of negotiations with the Diệm government is raised in Hanoi, government spokesmen, official and unofficial, will aver that there were negotiations going on even before 1963. One of these moments is said to have occurred in April 1961, when Hồ Chı´ Minh sent the head of the Foreign Trade department, Hoa`ng Manh Thu, to meet Diệm’s representative in Hong Kong.68 ˙ Another source even claims that Nhu sent his own children to Hanoi to open negotiations in 1960, but that southern mistakes cut short the exchange.69 Maneli claimed that the Vietnamese liaison to the ICC, Ha` Va˘n Laˆu, strongly encouraged his role as a go-between in 1963.

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Whatever the goal of such contacts, it is difficult to imagine that any agreement involving the Ngoˆ family would have led to a stable or longlasting peace.

The Dương Va˘n Minh Interregnum The military junta that took power in November 1963, headed by General Dương Va˘n Minh, was greeted with vast optimism in Saigon. The more articulate opponents of Diệm were calling for a ‘social revolution’ in the South, which would attack the root causes of the communist insurgency – poverty, indebtedness and peasant alienation from the autocratic bureaucracy. General Minh, known to the Americans as ‘Big Minh’ for his unusual height, inspired confidence, thanks to his lack of interest in personal power. A French-trained military man, he had stood by Diệm in his 1955 battle against the sects. But he was not a hard-liner – a Buddhist from the southern province of Mỹ Tho, he had fought with the Việt Minh briefly during the French Indochina War and had a younger brother who regrouped to the North with the Việt Minh army in 1954. The challenges he faced were almost insurmountable, and he would be given only three months to begin the social changes that the southern intellectuals and students were demanding. At the same time, the Americans were expecting him to take a firm role in curbing the growing insurgency in the countryside. After President de Gaulle’s endorsement of a neutralist South Vietnam, General Minh had to take care not to arouse US suspicion that he might encourage such a course. Diệm’s former vice-president, Nguyễn Ngoc Thơ, was entrusted with ˙ executive power as the prime minister of the civilian cabinet. One of his tasks was to oversee a purge of Cần Lao party members serving in the government. However, a report of a cabinet meeting of 10 December 1963 shows that the ministries were resisting this effort – by that point some ministries had failed to suggest anyone to be removed or had let it be known that they did not know of any civil servants in their ranks who deserved to be removed from their posts.70 An investigation into the affairs of ‘the secret financial organization of the Ngoˆ Đ`ınh Diệm family’ was also underway.71 George Kahin suggests that some military men who were the objects of corruption investigations became early enemies of the military group led by Minh.72 But overall this period was marked by political stalemate.

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Figure 2.3

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Dương Va˘n Minh.

An editorial in the Buddhist student paper Laˆp Truờng (Standpoint) ˙ described the situation as ‘“middle-of-the-road [oˆn-hoa` ] revolution” – a true contradiction’. The government of Nguyễn Ngoc Thơ had had to ˙ work with some people from the old system, ‘who were afraid to do or say anything . . . or to propose anything at all’, their editorial said.73 In November Minh had made clear his exasperation with the highly charged political situation: he sent an urgent request to Prime Minister Thơ to issue a declaration that ‘extremist banners’ be forbidden. He singled out slogans such as ‘Chop off the heads of the Vietnamese traitors and Communists’. Minh requested that all posters and slogans praising Mr Ngoˆ Đı`nh Diệm and Mr Ngoˆ Đı`nh Nhu be removed. He also wanted to limit demonstrations supporting the new Revolutionary Military Council. Minh asked that the bureaucratic style of government pronouncements be transformed by the use of a more ‘revolutionary’ vocabulary, but wanted to ensure that all communications would demonstrate propriety and politeness. His final request was to instruct

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the ministries and civil servants to change their way of approaching the people, to show a ‘truly revolutionary spirit’ by adopting a polite attitude.74 Minh’s attempts to create better relations with ordinary Vietnamese created a problem with his US advisers – the General made clear his government’s desire that the USA play a less obtrusive role in advising the RVN. At a meeting on 10 January 1964 with Ambassador Lodge, the Military Council leaders asked that the Americans refrain from working at the district and village level, as that would play into the hands of the communists. Minh pointed out that the Vietnamese teams working for the Americans were ‘considered the same as the Vietnamese who worked for the Japanese’.75 Minh’s request that no advisers work below the regimental level in the military was seen as ‘an unacceptable rearward step’ by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.76 The Minh government had its own ideas about rural development, however – for one thing, they were prepared to let the unpopular strategic hamlet programme die. George Kahin’s interviews with both General Minh and Nguyễn Ngoc Thơ show that they hoped ‘to shift ˙ the contest for power from the military to the political level’, by attracting those non-communist elements who had been alienated by Diệm, including the Hoa´ Hảo and Cao Đa`i sects.77 The other cause for American disappointment with the new leadership was their attitude towards the bombing of North Vietnam. General Minh objected to US proposals for bombing on two counts: first, he believed that it would cause more harm to innocent civilians than to the military; and two, he believed that this aggression would take away ‘the just cause’ from the South, which until then had claimed to be fighting a defensive war.78 By late January, Minh was being suspected of favouring a negotiated settlement to the conflict instead of a tougher military response. On 29 January rival General Nguyễn Kha´nh complained to a US adviser that Minh and other generals were discussing a ‘pro-neutralist coup’ with the French.79 The truth of this accusation has never been proven or confirmed by any witness. Rumours about Minh’s brother on ‘the other side’ have floated around for years, but only in 2009 has the communist government begun to talk about his role in influencing Minh’s policies. In late 1960, it is now claimed, the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN) mobilized Colonel Dương Thanh Nhựt,

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under the nom de guerre Mười Ty, to make contact with his brother. It was not until the late summer of 1962 that Mười Ty was able to contact members of his family, including the youngest brother, ARVN military officer Dương Thanh Sơn. After the coup against Diệm, he spent ten days in the home of younger brother Sơn and was able to meet Minh himself many times. According to one account, he managed to convince Minh that the USA was an invading force, but Minh remained a believer in the need for US assistance. However, he did agree to dismantle the strategic hamlets, so that peasants could return to their gardens and ancestral tombs.80 This account credits Minh for his ‘progressive’ policies without actually claiming that these were the result of contacts with his brother. In addition to allowing the strategic hamlets to disappear, Minh refused to approve the bombing of North Vietnam or the beginning of what became known as Oplan 34A – raids and spy missions against the DRV. The General also expressed willingness to hold talks with the NLF on the issue of free elections, to create a coalition or reconciliation government. There is no mention of a French role in this version of events.81 If General Minh was thinking in terms of a political solution to the war, he was thinking of an independent South Vietnam, with its own army. At this point we have no hard evidence that Minh actually started negotiations with the NLF; in the later stages of his political career, when he became an open exponent of the Third Segment, his indirect links with the NLF would become clear. Certainly, in late 1963 moves towards negotiations were being made on several fronts. Just one week after coming to power, General Minh’s Military Revolutionary Council received a manifesto from the NLF, which called for free general elections to form a coalition government and reunification on a step-by-step basis.82 From Cambodia, Prince Sihanouk was calling on the chairmen of the Geneva Conference to take steps to guarantee Cambodia’s neutrality, as well as floating the idea that a neutralized South Vietnam could join Cambodia in a free-trade confederation.83 On the US side Senator Mike Mansfield, originally a strong backer of Diệm, voiced support for moves towards a neutral solution. In a December memo to President Johnson, he wrote that ‘there may be a truce that could be won now in Vietnam alone and eventually a peace which might be won throughout South East Asia at a price commensurate with American interests’. Peace in South Vietnam

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‘would involve an astute diplomatic offensive which would seek to enlist France, Britain, India and, perhaps, even Russia and all other sources of potential use in a bona fide effort to bring about an end to the North–South Vietnamese conflict’. He added, ‘A settlement might be on terms which reduced our influence (and costs) provided it also inhibited Chinese political domination. France is the key country.’84 But President Johnson and his advisers were by this time convinced that it was too late to negotiate: the Republic of Vietnam was too weak to do anything but accept the NLF’s terms, they believed. Ambassador Lodge in Saigon requested that President Johnson ask de Gaulle to retract his proposal for a neutral South Vietnam. ‘How can so-called “neutralization” be attained if the aggressor is determined not to be neutralized, as is obviously the case as regards North Vietnam?’ he asked.85 But clearly there were many South Vietnamese, including the Buddhist leadership, who were attracted by the NLF programme: they felt confident that if the Vietnamese from the different sides could get together, they could eventually find solutions to the confrontation. This was, after all, the basic formula outlined for the political settlement at Geneva in 1954. As the next chapters will show, many southern Vietnamese were becoming increasingly aware that this was a conflict being thrust upon them by outside forces and that it would not serve their own interests.

Conclusion Following the cataclysms of 1963 – the deaths of the Ngoˆ brothers, then President Kennedy – the pressure for war in South Vietnam increased. The succession of southern leaderships proved powerless when it came to curbing the communist insurgency or to changing the American view of the need for head-on military confrontation. When, on 30 January 1964, General Nguyễn Kha´nh replaced General Minh as head of the Saigon Military Council in another coup, he claimed that this was a ‘necessary step to halt the movement toward neutralism that General Minh had been unable to control’.86 But as we shall see, the wellspring of support for neutralism would not run dry.

CHAPTER 3 HANOI:BETWEEN MAO AND KHRUSHCHEV, 1956—65

Although the Hanoi leadership had hoped since 1954 that the reunification of Vietnam could take place by mainly peaceful means, this began to appear more and more unlikely. By January 1959, at the Fifteenth Plenum, a resolution was drawn up that defined the future path of the revolution in South Vietnam as ‘that of violent struggle’.1 But it was ‘only with reluctance’, as William Duiker says, that Hanoi was forced to accept this change of strategy.2 The Hanoi leaders were restrained by their patrons in the communist bloc, who did not encourage the idea of a military crusade to reunify Vietnam. The Chinese and Soviet leaderships were not eager for another land war in Asia, as they were just emerging from the devastation of the 1940s and the costs of the Korean War. The Soviet Union of Nikita Khrushchev was trying to move beyond the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 by opening a dialogue with the United States. For their part, until 1962 the Chinese continued to advise their Vietnamese allies against provoking a full-scale war with the USA. But by the middle of that year the PRC attitude had changed, leading to a more aggressive DRV stance to the simmering conflict in South Vietnam. At that point Mao Zedong began to re-establish his primacy, which had been weakened by the famine caused by the Great Leap Forward. In line with the change in Beijing, and in response to increasing US involvement in the southern struggle, Hanoi’s attitude also became more focused on war. In late 1963, Hanoi made a strong lurch to the left.

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This change in the complexion of the political establishment in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), made official at the Ninth Plenum in December, occurred just as Dương Va˘n Minh was attempting to establish a more conciliatory state in the South. The timing was unfortunate for those in the new southern ruling council who were intent on finding a political solution to the war. The Ninth Plenum amounted to a denunciation of ideas that had been popular in Asia in 1954–8, including peaceful co-existence between the two blocs of East and West. Hanoi’s political shift was strongly influenced by the growing strength of radicalism in China and resulted in months of strained relations between the DRV and the Soviet bloc, most of whose ruling parties were classified by Beijing as ‘revisionist’. Not until the overthrow of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in late 1964 did relations between Hanoi and Moscow begin to improve once again. By then the decisions leading to war had already been made in Washington. Starting from a position of careful neutrality in the growing polemics dividing the Soviet Union and China, the DRV over the course of 1963 took an increasingly public stance against the revisionist policies of Nikita Khrushchev. We do now know that this change in the political climate involved more than an acceleration of preparations for war in the South – descriptions of the tension surrounding the Ninth Plenum in December 1963 have appeared in several Vietnamese memoirs, while documents from the archives of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) provide ample evidence of the far-reaching impact of the decisions taken that month.3 The evidence that Hồ Chı´ Minh was one of the losers in an internal power struggle has become clearer, with the revelation from the Soviet Foreign Ministry archives that he retired from day-to-day political affairs at the end of the year.4 German scholar Martin Grossheim has found extensive documentation that shows how ‘pro-Soviet elements’ in the Vietnam Workers’ (Lao Động) Party were ‘systematically isolated’ as early as August 1963.5 One explanation for the ideological change in Hanoi is provided by the rise to power of Party First Secretary Leˆ Duẩn, who after moving from the South to join the Hanoi leadership in 1957, was officially confirmed as the Workers’ Party First Secretary in 1960 at the Third Party Congress. Leˆ Duẩn, from the central province of Quảng Tri just ˙ below the 17th parallel, became known as the voice of the southern revolution within the Hanoi Politburo. His move to the North is usually

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viewed as the opportunity for him to apply more pressure on the political establishment there to give active support to the guerrillas fighting the Diệm government. Yet in 1962 he had followed a nuanced line, calling for mixed political and military struggle that would lead to a negotiated settlement and a US withdrawal.6 The need to defend the gains made by the communist-backed revolutionaries during their ‘uprisings’ in 1959– 60 could well have been the motivation for Leˆ Duẩn to join a new, far-left majority within the Vietnamese Politburo. He would continue to advocate political struggle within the urban areas, but by 1963 he could have few illusions about American intentions to eliminate the communist insurgency in the South. The Soviet Union would stand aside from the Vietnam conflict until 1965, following Khrushchev’s overthrow. But the Chinese took the build-up of American forces in South Vietnam under President Kennedy as a threat to their own security – in the summer of 1962, the Chinese had decided to send Hanoi enough weapons for 230 infantry battalions, with no repayment required.7 High-level exchanges with Chinese leaders continued in early 1963, with a visit by PLA Chief of Staff Luo Ruiqing to Hanoi in March, followed by President Liu Shaoqi in May. But the discussions held by Liu Shaoqi in Hanoi involved more than promises of military hardware. The final communique´ from this visit ‘denounced “revisionism” and “rightist opportunism” as the main threat to the international communist movement and emphasized that the DRV should mainly rely on its own strength when building up socialism and carrying out the revolution in South Vietnam’.8 By this point, it was becoming clear that the price for gaining Chinese military aid was to be Hanoi’s open support for the PRC in the Sino– Soviet split. The end of Vietnam’s neutrality in these debates was not absolute or unchanging, as it turned out. But these months in 1963 when the pro-Chinese line was gaining political momentum caused long-term frictions within the DRV leadership to become more bitter and open. These frictions preceded Leˆ Duẩn’s move to Hanoi and his assumption of the Party’s leading role in 1960. According to the philosopher Hoa`ng Minh Chı´nh, one of the protagonists and losers in the DRV’s ideological warfare, the debates over ideology started in the mid-1950s and continued long after the Vietnam War ended.9 For this reason, we need to look more closely at how the debates over Soviet ‘revisionism’ began in order to fully appreciate the factional strife in Hanoi.

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The Background to the Ninth Plenum From the Second Party Congress, held in the resistance zone of the Việt Bắc in 1951, until 1956, the Vietnamese communists put themselves under the tutelage of their Chinese comrades. (It was at this congress that the Indochinese Communist Party was dissolved, and the Vietnamese communists took the name ‘The Workers’ Party’.) This was an arrangement that Stalin had approved, as he felt that the Chinese experience of building communism would be more appropriate for the Vietnamese than Soviet advice. The Land Reform, which began in earnest in 1953, was carried out with Chinese advisers, while the financial system and cultural life in the Resistance Zone of the DRV were constructed with Chinese support. Defining aspects of the Land Reform, including the use of quotas to decide how many peasants should be classified as large landowners, and even how many would need to be executed as enemies of the Revolution, were rigidly copied from the Chinese model. In tandem with the Land Reform, a ‘rectification’ or purge of communist party organizations was carried out by a small group in the leadership. This campaign to verify the loyalty of party members and leaders of Việt Minh committees, at the local, district and province levels, turned into a witch hunt for enemies of the people by 1956. Old organizations became suspect, so that in Bắc Ninh province near Hanoi, for example, only 26 out of 76 hamlets were able to retain any veteran members on their party executive committees.10 As General Vo˜ Nguyễn Gia´p stated in his apology for the excesses of the Land Reform, we often slighted or denied accomplishments in the Resistance and only attached importance, in a distorted fashion, to accomplishments in the anti-landlord struggle . . . the deeper our attacks on the enemy went, the more they were misdirected; when we attacked the landlord despots and saboteurs, we attacked within our own ranks at the same time . . . The errors in the rectification of organizations were the most serious errors in the whole Land Reform.11 The leaders of the Land Reform and Rectification campaigns were the Party General Secretary, Trường Chinh, and veteran leader and ex-political prisoner, Leˆ Va˘n Lương. Trường Chinh’s biography in the party paper Nhaˆn Daˆn billed him as ‘the builder and commander of the revolution’ in

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1951, when the communist party resurfaced from the underground, at the Second Party Congress.12 Leˆ Va˘n Lương seems to have been one of the party’s e´minences grises – from 1949 to 1956 the first head of the Institute of Marxism–Leninism, Secretariat member and head of the Party’s Organization Committee, as well as Deputy Minister of the Interior. Both of these men were demoted in October 1956, after the Land Reform apparatus finally was stripped of its power and those who had been unjustly accused of crimes began to be released from prison. Trường Chinh had to resign the post of party General Secretary, but was able to remain a full member of the Politburo. Leˆ Va˘n Lương was removed from his posts and demoted to candidate member of the Central Committee. The third major leader demoted was Hồ Viết Thắng, the immediate leader of the Land Reform committee, who was made an ordinary party member. At the same time, the power of Hồ Chı´ Minh and Vo˜ Nguyễn ´ Giap, the man who was perhaps Hồ’s most trusted lieutenant dating from the World War II years in exile, was augmented when they both joined the Secretariat in October 1956.13 Hồ Chı´ Minh acquired Trường Chinh’s title of General Secretary, and retained the more honorific title of Party Chairman. This added power enabled Hồ Chı´ Minh to carry out a reasonably thorough correction of errors, by restoring the civil rights of those who had been unjustly accused of crimes against the people and by changing the inaccurate classifications of middle and rich peasants. Of course, it was too late to help the estimated 7,000 to 15,000 peasants who had been executed, following rapid show trials by people’s tribunals. Many Western analysts assumed over the years that the demotions within the leadership were merely cosmetic and that the Vietnamese communists were simply responding to the general discontent and instability within the communist world when they carried out these personnel changes. The Hungarian uprising was well underway as the Tenth Plenum carried out its extended deliberations that launched the ‘correction of errors’; the Soviet invasion of Hungary in November would be followed by an end to Hanoi’s experiments in artistic freedom that had flourished briefly in 1956. The view that these personnel changes were cosmetic could be justified by the rapid return to power and influence of both Trường Chinh and Leˆ Va˘n Lương. Trường Chinh retained a strong influence on ideology, as the Head of the Party’s Institute of Marxism –Leninism, and also became the Chairman of the

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National Assembly’s Standing Committee in 1960. Leˆ Va˘n Lương returned to the Party Secretariat – his role is a puzzle that is rarely discussed by students of Vietnamese communism. But by 1963 he was signing many important decrees on Party policy, between Party plenums, as the printed Documents of Party History demonstrate. However, the signs that the ‘correction of errors’ and the Tenth Plenum personnel changes in October 1956 were more than cosmetic would accumulate with time, as the large issues that divided the leadership became clearer. The first of these was the question of class struggle and the role that class warfare should play within Vietnam’s revolution. In his 1956 speech of apology to the Vietnamese people, General Gia´p emphasized that one of the greatest errors made during the Land Reform and Party Rectification was the importance accorded to class background. He took exception to the fact that when the Việt Minh committees were examined for ‘enemies of the people’, even Việt Minh veterans of good standing in the Party were held to be unreliable elements if they came from the wrong class background. In 1953 the leadership of the Party Rectification began to replace these committees with members with the correct class origins, regardless of whether they had served the French or proved their patriotism by joining up with the Việt Minh. If this policy had been allowed to continue, it would have become a wedge that could have destroyed the DRV altogether. Another question is whether one faction within the Party was aiming this purge of the Việt Minh at Hồ Chı´ Minh and General Gia´p, the two leaders who along with Prime Minister Pham Va˘n Đồng were most ˙ closely identified with the Việt Minh coalition, as opposed to the old ICP hierarchy. The elimination of their lower-ranking supporters would have been one way of restricting their power. (Hồ and Gia´p would be targeted again by the policies adopted at the Ninth Plenum of the Third Party Congress, in December 1963.) The self-destructive nature of these campaigns of the early 1950s might eventually have led them to burn themselves out. But the thaw in the communist world brought about by Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin’s crimes in February 1956, at the Twentieth Party Congress of the Soviet CP, clearly played a role in the turn-around. While the Vietnamese are diffident about drawing a link between the two events, it is clear that the themes raised by Khrushchev gradually became known among the Vietnamese intelligentsia and party rank and file. When the

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Chinese party removed references to ‘Mao Zedong Thought’ from its constitution in September 1956 at its Eighth Party Congress, this must have sent strong signals to the Vietnamese that the trend away from Stalinist cults was real.14 One of the issues arising from the Twentieth Congress was ‘socialist legality’, which Khrushchev called on his party to reinstate, after the years of terror and abuse of power under Stalin. A respected non-Party lawyer and professor, Nguyễn Manh ˙ Tường, led the call in the Vietnamese National Assembly for an end to sentencing by decree.15 Another of Khrushchev’s policies was ‘peaceful co-existence’, one to which the Chinese had subscribed in 1954 and 1955, demonstrating their capacity for peacemaking to the world at conferences in Geneva and Bandung. But in late 1962 Mao would reject the idea of making peace with the capitalist world. In 1961, another innovation in Marxist theory sponsored by Khrushchev particularly annoyed the Chinese and probably those Vietnamese in their sphere of influence: this was the announcement that the Soviet party had become a ‘party of the whole people’ as opposed to the party of the working class. This change was based on the premise that there were no longer any class contradictions among the people of the USSR, since capitalism had been eliminated. This was, in Mao’s view, a sign that the Soviet Union was denying the principle of class struggle and that it could no longer represent the ‘revolutionary interest of the proletarian class’.16 These ideas condoning peaceful co-existence with the capitalist West and an end to class struggle became known under the label of ‘revisionism’. In Vietnam in 1956, these revisionist ideas brought about a badly needed respite from political campaigns that were destroying the popular unity created by the Việt Minh front. But Mao Zedong viewed ‘revisionism’ as a severe threat to his revolution. His Vietnamese acolytes would come to agree with him by 1963. Revisionism came to be seen as the Trojan horse of the West in the communist bastion. Although the DRV had backed away from extreme class conflict in 1956, the example of China continued to be a potent force. As Mao led China into the Great Leap Forward in 1958, word filtered to Vietnam of the amazing results that Chinese peasants were claiming on their super-sized communes. ‘Leˆ Duẩn and other national leaders marvelled at the extraordinary high yields collectivized peasants in China had reportedly achieved.’17 By the end of 1959, the VWP was itself

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discussing a campaign to form cooperative farms. Significantly, Party history shows that in November 1958 three new members were added to the Secretariat: Pham Hu`ng, a southern leader known for his radical ˙ views; Tố Hữu, a poet and leader of the crackdown on artistic freedom; and Hoa`ng Anh, a less easily pigeonholed leader who may have been close to Leˆ Duẩn. Hoa`ng Minh Chı´nh, who was in the first DRV group sent to Moscow to study Marxism – Leninism, confirmed in an interview that the Chinese model had made him a convinced Maoist, until the truth about the actual state of the communes became known to him in 1960. He claimed that a group of military leaders, including Vo˜ Nguyễn Gia´p, stopped in China to visit the communes on their way to Moscow for a study tour. ‘We heard about the difficulties from their group’, he explained. After that he became a strong proponent of Khrushchev’s policy of peaceful co-existence and other revisionist ideas. On his return to Hanoi, he was made vice chairman of the Nguyễn A´i Quốc School under Trường Chinh. At the Third Party Congress in September 1960, Leˆ Duẩn was confirmed in his post as First Party Secretary, the title of General Secretary having been retired in the process of de-Stalinization. At this point the leadership reached a compromise on the tasks of the Vietnamese revolution. In the North, above the 17th parallel, the Party would continue the task of constructing socialism; in the South the mission was to continue the national liberation struggle, or in Marxist – Leninist terms, to complete ‘the national democratic revolution’. This meant that the communists in the South could continue to cooperate with ‘patriotic nationalists’ or ‘the patriotic bourgeoisie’. The formation of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam at the close of 1960 was a manifestation of the decisions taken at the Party Congress.

The Ninth Plenum and its Meaning In Hanoi, ideological views remained mixed throughout the first part of 1963. The January communique´ praising peaceful co-existence ‘as the most correct policy’, signed by the visiting Czech president Antonin Novotny and Hồ Chı´ Minh, demonstrated that the DRV was still sympathetic to the Soviet position in the polemics dividing the Soviet bloc and the Chinese. Yet, a report from a German newspaper

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correspondent based in Hanoi underlined the tension that existed among Party members at that moment: ‘they were not allowed to discuss “problems within the international workers’ movement”’, he noted. This same report said that Tố Hữu, now head of the Party’s Propaganda and Education Committee, believed that if the VWP wanted to preserve the purity of Marxism– Leninism, it had to openly attack revisionist tendencies.18 A clearer sign of the direction the Party was moving in came in March, when Leˆ Duẩn gave a speech at the Nguyễn A´i Quốc Party school to commemorate the eightieth anniversary of Karl Marx’s death. In this speech he emphasized the Chinese struggle as the model for the VWP to follow and made the point that ‘the revolutionary war in the South promoted, rather than undermined, the defense of world peace because it weakened American imperialism’.19 Before Liu Shaoqi’s visit in May, a number of mainly middle-ranking cadres working in the DRV press were replaced, in particular a number who wrote on foreign policy issues. The Foreign Minister Ung Va˘n Khieˆm, a long-time Party member from the South, was made to bear the responsibility for the Novotny-Hồ Chı´ Minh communique´ and would be replaced at the end of the year by, first, Xuaˆn Thủy, and then by Nguyễn Duy Trinh.20 The signing of the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty on 5 August 1963 by the USA, Great Britain and the Soviet Union pushed the Chinese to a new level of invective against revisionism. The treaty was rightly viewed as an attempt to prevent China from joining the nuclear club. (France, at that time engaged in normalizing relations with China, was the only nuclear state that refused to sign the treaty.) Beijing responded quickly to the news that the treaty had been initialled in Moscow in late July; the Hanoi media followed suit. On 31 July Beijing accused Moscow of ‘surrendering to US imperialism’ and proposed a conference to discuss the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.21 The Vietnamese defended the Chinese view, stating that ‘socialist countries other than the Soviet Union must not be denied the means of defense’.22 Hanoi’s own campaign against revisionists in the Party’s ranks gathered pace in the summer and fall, and was institutionalized by a November decree issued by the Secretariat, signed by Leˆ Đức Tho. ˙ According to GDR sources, two of the targets of the building pressure were Vo˜ Nguyễn Gia´p and Hồ Chı´ Minh. General Gia´p was put under house arrest in June, the GDR diplomats reported. Prime Minister

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Pham Va˘n Đồng’s private secretary was arrested, on the charge of passing ˙ confidential information to the Soviet embassy, and Đồng was powerless to intervene on his behalf. The director of the Party’s Sự Thật press was removed from his post and returned to his home province to spend the next 12 years in isolation.23 The GDR charge´ d’affaires passed on the information that Hồ Chı´ Minh was being subjected to criticism for his past policies, in the form of a ‘theory of two mistakes’. According to this theory, Hồ’s first mistake was to have compromised with the French in 1945–6, to allow them to return to Vietnam; the second mistake was to have accepted the partition of the country in 1954.24 (The fact that the Chinese had advised accepting the Geneva arrangement and that Trường Chinh had given it his backing was forgotten, apparently.) Leˆ Đức Tho’s ˙ decree announced a new campaign to ‘protect the Party’ by investigating questions regarding members’ pasts, as the pressure to conform was ratcheted up. It is not surprising that Hồ Chı´ Minh was politically neutralized at this point, as Hoa`ng Minh Chı´nh later maintained.25 Secretariat decree number 68 was issued on 19 November 1963, apparently just before the Ninth Plenum; its long title was for convenience shortened to ‘Campaign to Defend the Party’. The text refers to ‘the enemy’s plot and tricks to destroy the inner core [noˆi boˆ] of ˙ ˙ the Party, from the time that peace was re-established to the present’.26 While emphasizing the need for constant education of members, the decree laments that a few cadres and members have ‘political problems that they have not yet sincerely reported to the Party; a number of cadres and members know of others who have problems in their political histories or current question marks that have not yet been exposed to the Party’.27 One resulting problem is that a ‘small number of members speak out in a way that is without principle, without organization, to express mistaken viewpoints regarding the Party’s policy’.28 These comments could harm the Party’s solidarity and unity; they create ‘weaknesses that the enemy can take advantage of to attack the Party’s core’.29 The remedy was to be a campaign that would not end until December 1965, to investigate any cadre with an ‘unclear political background’, paying special attention to cadres in ‘leading positions who work in essential or secret functions’.30 Overall, Decree 68 seemed to be a warning that debate at the Ninth Plenum would be restricted. The ‘mistaken viewpoints’ criticized in the decree were clearly linked to ‘revisionism’.

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Held in December 1963, just after the upheavals in Saigon seemed to open a door to political contacts between North and South, the Vietnamese party’s Ninth Plenum may well have shut the door to real negotiations, at least for a time. Many aspects of what happened at this plenum are unclear, including the number of party members present and the extent to which Hồ Chı´ Minh was excluded from its deliberations.31 But the decisions taken at this meeting changed the DRV’s foreign policy and ‘line’ from support of Khrushchev’s policy of ‘peaceful coexistence’ to a full alignment with the PRC’s line. Hoa`ng Minh Chı´nh, until the end of 1963 the head of the Institute of Philosophy in Hanoi, who would in 1967 be imprisoned for his ‘revisionist’ views, described the announcement of the Ninth Plenum decisions in an open letter to the Vietnamese National Assembly written in 1993. He explained that at a meeting of 400 top cadres in January 1964, Trường Chinh made the following announcement: due to the complicated situation within the international communist movement, we cannot write out all the points included in Resolution 9. You must pay attention to the fact the real nature of Resolution 9 must be made known only by word of mouth, that is: the external and internal policy of our Party and government is in fundamental agreement with the policies of the Party and government of China.32 Soviet-style ‘revisionism’ became a political crime within the DRV at this time and ideas of ‘peaceful co-existence’ went out of style. Hoa`ng Minh Chı´nh credited Leˆ Đức Tho, head of the powerful Party Control ˙ Commission, and Trường Chinh with spearheading this realignment of the DRV’s policy. Party First Secretary Leˆ Duẩn is also assumed to have supported it, in part because he led a delegation to Moscow in January 1964, where he delivered the long-winded speech detailing all the points on which the Vietnamese were in disagreement with their Soviet comrades.33 But the assumption made by recent histories of Hanoi politics during the Vietnam War, that Leˆ Duẩn was single-handedly making Hanoi policy in these years, is very unlikely to be accurate.34 For a start, there is no guarantee that Leˆ Duẩn, a native of central Quảng Tri province, could ˙ arrive in Hanoi from the South, and in the course of a few years come to

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dominate the entrenched power structures there. These views seem to reflect the current narrative in Hanoi, which is a reflection of the configuration of power since 2006. This version of events tends to downplay Trường Chinh’s role as an ideological extremist, or even as a powerful leader. In any case, the available documents of Party history do not support such an interpretation. One of the results of the Ninth Plenum, as Nguyễn Va˘n Trấn writes, was to create a climate of fear within the VWP. A Politburo committee led by Leˆ Đức Tho and Interior Minister Trần Quốc Hoa`n, was ˙ established to judge and sentence party members for political 35 mistakes. From this time until Khrushchev’s ouster, relations between the DRV and Russia remained cold. In 1964 students in the USSR were sent home – a number of Vietnamese received asylum there at this time. The overthrow of Nikita Khrushchev in October of that year began a slow return to a closer Soviet– Vietnamese relationship. The visit of Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin to Hanoi in February 1965, where he witnessed an American bombing raid, led to a Soviet commitment to supply heavy weaponry and military trainers to the DRV. As Hanoi’s dependence on Soviet-supplied anti-aircraft guns increased, their relations with their two communist patrons once again became more balanced. By this point the official DRV policy on peace and negotiations had become more hard-line. But well into 1964, the issue of whether and when to negotiate with the USA seems to have remained a contentious issue. The political turn of 1963 in Hanoi would be repeated more brutally in the summer of 1967. At that time, as plans were being made for the Tết Offensive, party members accused of revisionism were arrested in two waves, first in August and then in October– December 1967.36 Again, as we shall see in Chapter 5, one of the main points of disagreement within the communist leadership would be the issue of when to negotiate for peace.

The Ninth Plenum and the War in the South How was this political turmoil in Hanoi connected to events in the South? Did the changes in Hanoi immediately affect the chances for a neutral South Vietnam or the prosecution of the liberation war? One possibility to consider is that, in Hanoi’s eyes, after 1963 the role of a

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potential Third Segment in South Vietnam could be no more than part of a propaganda campaign. But, over the years, it appears that a diversity of opinions in the Politburo kept different options for reunification alive, including the search for a negotiated solution that would leave the Vietnamese the freedom to settle their own affairs. The nuances of Leˆ Duẩn’s political thinking would certainly have an impact on the revolution in South Vietnam. Some members of the Politburo believed that the move towards China required that the southern revolution become more radical in its policies towards agriculture, for example, or the united front among various classes in society. Recent sources on the southern resistance underline the refusal of the southern leadership to promote a more radical land policy, as they were encouraged to do by certain cadres in 1964– 5. The western Mekong Delta, where Leˆ Duẩn had served as secretary and had built up his political network, had avoided outright confiscation of the land of most supporters of the revolution.37 Between 1961 and 1963 they had distributed 916,467 hectares of land to 1.8 million peasants, of which 204,824 hectares was vacant or deserted land needing to be cleared. They relied on persuasion to convince large landowners, some of whom supported the resistance, to contribute land for the poorer peasants. This was supplemented by land formerly owned by the French or deserted by landowners who had fled the countryside. But after the Ninth Plenum there was more talk of radical measures in this region, while in An Giang there were examples of cadres organizing the poorest peasants to ‘speak bitterness’, to begin the denunciation of cruel and oppressive landlords as had happened in the North after 1953. In other provinces, such as Mỹ Tho, Bac Lieˆu and Bến Tre, attempts to start the campaign ˙ fizzled out when the poorer peasants failed to respond. Nguyễn Chı´ Thanh, by then the head political commissar in the South, held a meeting with the leaders of agriculture committees to persuade them to begin the radical land reform. But by then, according to this account, they had secured a telegram from Hồ Chı´ Minh, who encouraged Thanh to give up the plan.38 Leˆ Duẩn had followed a policy, from the Geneva Conference onwards, that encouraged solidarity with non-communists who opposed the Diệm government, including the anti-Diệm Cao Ða`i and Hoa` Hảo fractions. The idea that the resistance in the South should be governed by its own political goals, those of the ‘national democratic revolution’, had been

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firmly fixed in 1960.39 There is no evidence that he personally was ready to renounce this policy in 1963 or 1964. On the contrary, until l965, there is reason to believe that Leˆ Duẩn tried to balance the use of violence in the South with continued emphasis on the NLF’s political platform calling for a coalition government and a neutral South Vietnam. He explains this policy at length in his July 1962 letter to Nguyễn Va˘n Linh (Mười Cu´c), at that time First Secretary of the Central Office for the South.40 Using the recent Geneva negotiations on neutralizing Laos as his point of departure, he explains that with a determined and powerful enemy such as the United States, the southern guerrillas need to be careful not to provoke them to increase their troop strength or escalate the conflict. ‘The task of the world revolution’, he writes, is to preserve the peace, to prevent the imperialists from provoking war, to guarantee the security of people of all nations, but at the same time, to push our struggle forcefully, to push back imperialism step-by-step . . . The art of leading a revolution is to promote the development of these two aspects to the necessary or appropriate levels . . . Based on the balance of forces in Vietnam, in South East Asia and the world, we have defined our needs – to fight back against American imperialism, to make their policy of invading South Vietnam fail by means of defeating their puppet government and establishing an independent and neutral government in South Vietnam. (pp. 53, 56) With the US and Diệm governments becoming increasingly isolated, both within Vietnam and worldwide, he claims, ‘we can force the enemy to negotiate’. ‘Within these negotiations, if we put forth a demand that is reasonable (on the right level), the enemy will see that although they are defeated, they have lost to a degree that is bearable, that does not place them in danger; and then we can also agree to lose’ (p. 64). At this point, then, Leˆ Duẩn believed that by means of both military and political pressure on Diệm, the communists could convince the USA to settle for a coalition government in South Vietnam. After March of 1965, with the deployment of US forces in Vietnam, this stance would be overtaken by the new reality. There is more evidence that in spite of the changing winds in Hanoi in 1963, the southern resistance was still hoping to establish a neutral

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South Vietnam throughout 1964. Perhaps they even hoped that eventually they would receive US aid. This is demonstrated in an interview that Trần Bach Đằng, the Party’s political organizer for the ˙ Saigon– Chợ Lớn –Gia Ðinh zone, gave to Wilfred Burchett at some ˙ point during the chaotic reign of Nguyễn Kha´nh.41 He stated that ‘we will fight as long as necessary until peace, independence, neutrality and democracy. The leaders not only of the Front (NLF), but of the Party support these four points. This is not a propaganda trick. [They are] based on scientific analysis of the situation; we find the policy of neutrality just and realist.’ The idea of a ‘neutral’ South Vietnam, to be created by a coalition government, has long been dismissed as a communist ploy to get the Americans out of Vietnam. This may well be what lay at the heart of this peace platform. David Elliott puts it this way: ‘The form of power in such a coalition would be an alliance of revolutionary forces with various urban elements with no countrywide power base, thus ensuring the dominance of the Party from its rural base – assuming that external support was denied to its rivals, which was the point of the neutralization solution.’42 From the American point of view it was equivalent to handing power directly to the communists. The problem for historians to grapple with is that this solution appears to have had considerable appeal in South Vietnam, not just in rural areas but also among the urban population that had passively or actively supported the Việt Minh during the anti-French war. As we saw in the preceding chapter, the idea of a neutral South Vietnam continued to pop up during the short interregnum of General Dương Va˘n Minh, as it would in the last months of Nguyễn Kha´nh’s time in power. After all, with so many families divided between the two sides, the possibility that they could find a way to co-exist and reconcile their differences did not seem outlandish or unrealistic. Although it is unlikely that General Minh and his closest collaborators shared the NLF’s concept of neutrality, they did share with southern leaders on the ‘other side’ the desire to find a political solution to the war. The United States, in acquiescing to the coup that overthrew President Diệm and his brother, appears to have had little understanding of the political outlook of the military men who put the coup plan into operation. William Bundy described the situation as a ‘fantastic vacuum of information’.43

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Conclusion The official NLF programme continued to call for a neutral South Vietnam in 1964. As they continued a build-up of their own military force in the South, they also kept the door open to a political solution that would have allowed the Americans to save face and the Vietnamese to find their own way out of the conflict. As late as February 1965, Leˆ Duẩn continued to elaborate methods to make this happen in his communications with his comrades in the South. Leˆ Duẩn’s letter of February 1965 to Nguyễn Chı´ Thanh was written at a moment when he believed that the South Vietnamese army was losing faith in American military tactics and even disintegrating.44 US advisers in southern Vietnam tended to share this opinion. He also considered that the USA would not want to get bogged down in Vietnam (p. 72). For these reasons, he advised that the southern leaders should aim to bring about the collapse of the ARVN, but at the same time find a shrewd way of facilitating an American departure without a loss of face (p. 73). He was convinced that the political and armed opposition movements in the South were stronger than they had been at the end of the French– Việt Minh war (p. 74). By this time, however, Douglas Pike, the US government expert on the southern communist movement, had picked up what he believed were signs of a division between the NLF leadership and the Central Committee on the issue of a negotiated peace vs a full-scale war. He cited a July 1964 article in the Party journal Hoˆc Taˆp that makes the hard-line ˙ ˙ viewpoint unequivocally: it is necessary to smash the reactionary administrative machinery and the imperialists’ mercenary army. This Revolution can and should be settled only by the use of revolutionary acts and the force of the masses to defeat enemy force. It absolutely cannot be settled by treatises and accords . . . It is impossible . . . to count on ‘talks’ and ‘negotiations’ with [the imperialists] as advocated by the modern revisionists . . . The liberation of South Vietnam can be settled only by force.45 These conflicting viewpoints on how to reunify Vietnam show that there was a window of opportunity to avoid a US war in Vietnam in

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1963, one that had not yet closed by the start of early 1965. But after the Ninth Plenum and the beginning of the campaign against revisionism, it would become more difficult to find Vietnamese interlocutors in the DRV willing to engage in talk of a negotiated peace. Where the fault lines lay on this particular issue is difficult to determine, but it appears that the differences among the communist leadership were more than tactical.

CHAPTER 4 THE BUDDHISTS AND THE URBAN ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT, 1964—7

One attitude that almost all points of the political spectrum seem to share, from extremist Catholics to the most pliable Buddhist, is a fear that the Great Powers will both conduct the war and negotiate a settlement without paying much consideration to the needs and desires of the Vietnamese people, north and south.1 David Marr The year 1964 was a time of chaotic political struggle in South Vietnam. In the end, the United States’ determination to make a stand against communism on its territory overwhelmed all the other forces swirling about in this political maelstrom. By March of 1965, when the first US combat forces arrived on the beaches of Central Vietnam, it was clear that the Americans were not leaving and that only a government willing to wage war against North Vietnam could survive under their sponsorship. The Buddhists, intellectuals and anti-war students improvised an impressive counter-attack against the US-approved military government, and forced the generals to hold an election for, first, a constituent assembly, and then in 1967, a civilian presidential government. The anger over the rigged results, however, would lead to a new level of political polarization by 1968. By that time many activists had renounced their commitment to non-violence and the Buddhist movement had splintered.

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The USA Chooses Nguyễn Kha´nh A new face dominated southern politics in 1964 – General Nguyễn Kha´nh, a Buddhist from a southern landowning family, with a goatee that failed to convey the air of gravitas his position required. Trained in both French and US military colleges, he was promoted to Major General in 1960. The Americans did their best to transform him into a popular saviour of the South, but even he ended up flirting with neutralism and thus losing their trust. He staged a coup in the early morning hours of 30 January 1964, with American approbation and support. He announced that he had taken power because the Minh government was ‘paving the way for neutralism and thus selling out the country’.2 Kha´nh’s tough stand against the communists would do little to halt their advances in South Vietnam, however. A US Defense Department report stated in March 1964 that the Việt Cộng controlled 40 per cent of the territory and up to 90 per cent in several Mekong Delta provinces.3 The communists were able to raise taxes in a much larger area than their village control indicated. General Kha´nh’s response to this dire position was to promote the idea of attacks on North Vietnam. On 19 July, in a major address to the nation, he announced his support for the policy of ‘Bắc tiến’ or ‘advancing on the North’. His Air Force commander from northern Vietnam, the boyish Air Vice Marshall Nguyễn Cao Kỳ, supported this declaration. Kỳ let it be known that his forces were training for bombing attacks on the North, and on 23 July announced that ‘South Vietnamese commando teams had already been engaged in sabotage missions inside North Vietnam, “by air, sea and land”’.4 In view of this admission, it is surprising how few observers linked these South Vietnamese actions to the skirmish with an American destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin, which occurred only nine days later. The student and Buddhist opponents of Diệm were shocked to see what they hoped would become a social revolution change course so abruptly. After the success of their anti-Diệm campaign, they were not about to stand by passively as General Kha´nh steered South Vietnam back onto the path to war. His early actions appeared to be a repudiation of the Minh junta’s goal of bringing the regime closer to the people; he removed from power the main figures of the coup against Diệm and promoted younger, American-trained officers and civilian members of

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the conservative Đai Việt Party. General Minh was made a powerless ˙ Head of State, while his closest collaborators were arrested on charges of plotting a pro-neutralist coup. Kha´nh was known to court pro-Diệm Catholics and anti-communist Buddhists as well. His government appeared to the anti-Diệm forces as a restoration of the Cần Lao party, Ngoˆ Đı`nh Nhu’s tool of political control. A CIA report of August 1964 admitted that there was some merit to this accusation: ‘much of Kha´nh’s real power within the Military Revolutionary Council (MRC) and over key armed forces units is dependent upon officers objectionable to the Buddhists’, it stated.5 Kha´nh made some gestures to appease the anti-Diệmists, including the execution of Ngoˆ Đı`nh Cần, the Ngoˆ brother who had wielded power in Central Vietnam before the 1963 coup. But the junta’s civilian opponents did not let this distract them from their preparations for future political battles. This preparation involved, first of all, building stronger organizations. The Saigon students had held a congress soon after Diệm’s fall to set up a new Student Association, to replace the police-controlled organization of the Diệm years. The MRC gave them the complex at 4 Duy Taˆn near the Saigon cathedral, to serve as their headquarters. Nguyễn Hữu Tha´i, a student from a Catholic family studying at the School of Architecture, was elected president of the new association one month after the anti-Diệm coup. At the end of January 1964 this new body held a demonstration to let General Kha´nh know where they stood. The speech that Tha´i delivered on the steps of the Saigon opera house hammered home the point: We students will stand by our dedication to the ideals of the struggle against the dictator Ngoˆ Đı`nh Diệm. We warn everyone who would attempt to restore that old arbitrary rule that they themselves will receive the same tragic fate of dictators hated by their own people. We solemnly promise to our compatriots that we will never yield to violence and oppression.6 They set up a steering committee to coordinate the fight against General Kha´nh, as Tha´i explains in his memoirs. Although the first student demonstrations were orderly marches, the relationship with the military junta devolved into one of open warfare, as unknown forces stirred up trouble between the Catholic refugees and the students and Buddhists.7

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The Buddhists also took advantage of their victory in 1963 to strengthen their organization. There is little doubt that one of their aims was to increase their influence on South Vietnam’s political future. At a conference held in Saigon’s Xa´-Lợi Pagoda in early January 1964, they adopted the name, the ‘Unified Buddhist Association of Vietnam’. This grouping combined the members of the former General Association of Vietnamese Buddhism and the ‘Inter-sect Committee for the Defense of Buddhism’. This latter group had been formed after the May 1963 incidents in Huế, to group the more numerous Mahayana Buddhists with those from the Theravada sect, mainly of Cambodian origin, and a few other independent groups of Buddhist practitioners. A 14 May decree recognized the Unified Buddhist Association as a religious organization, giving them the status and advantages that both the colonial regime and the Diệm government had reserved for Catholicism.8 They nominated their own Buddhist chaplain to the Army, Thı´ch Taˆm Gia´c, and not a day passed without the announcement of ‘the laying of a cornerstone for a school, a kindergarten, a rest house or a medical dispensary’ sponsored by the Buddhists.9 The French consul in Danang reported that the Buddhist hierarchy had been both ‘surprised and intrigued’ by General de Gaulle’s August 1963 intervention in the debate on South Vietnam’s future. An influential member of the Buddhist community there (not named in the Consul’s report) believed that de Gaulle’s statement ‘coincided exactly with the ambitions of the Buddhist hierarchy, which since the fall of the Ngoˆ Đı`nh Diệm regime had been working towards reunification of the country, within a neutralist framework’.10 Although the Buddhists saw this as a distant goal, they were ready to begin spreading the idea of neutrality and passive resistance to the war among their followers. The monk Thı´ch Trı´ Quang was, in the French Consul’s words, ‘presiding over this vast propaganda operation’, with the authority he had gained during the previous summer. Taking advantage of the favourable situation at the end of 1963, Trı´ Quang was overseeing the creation of new Buddhist-sponsored organizations, from kindergartens to sports associations, Buddhist boy and girl scout groups, student associations, women’s groups and trade associations for carpenters, masons and pedicab drivers. Most of this organizing took place in Central Vietnam, where the role of Catholicism during the Diệm years had been particularly offensive to the Buddhists.

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By 1966, American-Japanese journalist Takashi Oka would write that the Buddhist organization in the old capital of Huế had been ‘for years a superbly disciplined and all-encompassing body’.11 Trı´ Quang, the heart of this movement, was often described as a political monk. According to Oka, many people believed that his ambition was the ‘renaissance of Buddhism in all fields – religious, cultural and social as well as political’. As a young man he had led a movement to reform the Buddhist clergy, which aimed to raise intellectual standards and enforce the rule of poverty for all bonzes.12 No one, to this day, has ever accused Trı´ Quang, who was still living in a Saigon pagoda in 2015, of breaking his vows of poverty. Over the years, many Americans and Saigon leaders suspected that he was a communist, in part because his Zen master at Huế’s Ba´o Quốc pagoda, Thı´ch Trı´ Độ, had remained in the North after a trip to Hanoi in 1946, to head the government-controlled ‘Unified Buddhist Association’ (Hội Phật Gia´o Thống Nhất) in the DRV.13 However, that suspicion would never be confirmed and other Americans were convinced by Trı´ Quang’s own protestations of anti-communism.14 After 1975 Trı´ Quang was held under house arrest in Ấn Quang Pagoda by the communist regime; at some time after 2000, he moved to another pagoda in the Phu´ Nhuận district, where his contacts were believed to be closely monitored. General Kha´nh’s leadership was gradually undermined by the growing strength of the NLF in the countryside and the outbreak of hostilities between the Buddhists and Catholics. During the Diệm years the Catholics had shown a ‘proselytizing zeal that was often maladroit and excessive’, the French Charge´ in Saigon wrote to his Foreign Minister in July 1964.15 After the November 1963 coup, the Buddhists in some cases found ways to take revenge and settle scores: Catholic administrators from the previous regime had been removed from office, while there were cases of churches being sacked and some hated administrators being murdered. After some of the Diệm-era Catholic civil servants were returned to power by General Kha´nh, the Buddhists continued to make their ambitions clear: on the anniversary of Buddha’s Birthday in May 1964, one of their senior leaders, Thı´ch Tinh Khiết, declared pointedly that the work of ˙ ‘defending the faith and building a national religion’ had not yet been completed’. By July and August, one Western observer commented, ‘there are now fanatics in both camps and any ill-considered gesture could lead Vietnam to the brink of a war of religion’.16

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The announcement on 7 August by General Kha´nh, that he would assume broad emergency powers as Chief of State, turned out to be just such an ‘ill-considered gesture’. This declaration and the hurriedly written constitution that followed on 16 August came after the ‘incidents’ in the Gulf of Tonkin, which led the US Congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, also on 7 August. This resolution gave the US president the power to determine when US military action would be necessary to assist any member of the South East Asia Treaty Organization, including South Vietnam. Thus General Kha´nh’s step to take on war-making powers was an echo of the policy being set in Washington to prepare for war. There is now compelling evidence, including the testimony of witnesses, that the second incident on 4 August never occurred.17 Yet this supposed act of aggression by the DRV provided the basis for the resolution that would serve as the US declaration of war against the Hanoi government. General’s Khanh’s declaration provoked more days of demonstrations led by both student and Buddhist activists, who since January had been fighting to preserve their civil liberties. Although the organizers intended these to be orderly expressions of popular discontent, the large numbers of protesters inevitably allowed some violent activists to penetrate their ranks. Whether these were communistorganized thugs as the Americans claimed, or Cần Lao provocateurs as the Buddhists maintained, or both, is now impossible to establish. But the large numbers of people gathered in the streets were often described in the Western press, including the New York Times, as constituting ‘violent mobs’. This, of course, made it easy to misrepresent the goal of the protests, which was to defend the democratic rights of the RVN’s citizens. After one student demonstration the Saigon radio announced that the students were ready to accept Kha´nh’s need for emergency powers. The students became so enraged by this distortion of their position that they attacked the radio station, forcing the director to flee. The following day, a mob attacked and burned the inside of the student headquarters on Duy Taˆn St. The New York Times identified the attackers as ‘a band of teenagers, led by men said to be their teachers’, while the students described them as ‘bands of extremist Catholics’ transported by military trucks from the Hố Nai refugee settlement outside of Saigon.18 This attack provoked more students to join the following demonstration,

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prepared during ‘teach-ins and sleepless nights in pagodas and schools’ around the city.19 The Buddhist and student leaders felt vindicated when on 25 August a crowd of demonstrators stretching two miles through the city converged outside General Kha´nh’s office near the Saigon zoo, provoking him to come out and declare to the sea of people that he would revoke the charter giving him emergency powers. This was a clear capitulation, one that increased the Buddhists’ political leverage and determination considerably. But it was accompanied by more religious violence, including street fighting in Danang between Buddhist and Catholic students, and the reported burning of a Catholic village near Danang by a Buddhist mob. This communal violence, not seen in Vietnam since the early days of French encroachment, continued until 27 August, when the MRC appointed a new caretaker government, a triumvirate composed of generals Kha´nh, Minh and Trần Thien Khieˆm. As Robert Topmiller explains it, this ˙ combination brought together the major power groups: ‘Minh, favored by the Buddhists due to his support for neutrality; Khieˆm, the Catholic leader of the Đai Việt faction in the army; and Kha´nh, supported by the United ˙ States but temporarily aligned with the Buddhists’.20 The Unified Buddhists issued a communique´ on 31 August to explain their position in the face of this outbreak of religious warfare. They described 27 August as a ‘day of sorrowful events’. ‘After so many incidents which occurred in so many places in the country’, they wrote, ‘the Unified Buddhist Association believes it necessary to make public the following points’: We praise the goodwill of the official Catholic leaders and hope to be able to collaborate with them to attain our goal of solidarity, as we have put it into practice these past few days. Our method has been, is, and will be based on the spirit of nonviolence, patience and tenacity . . . [T]his method cannot be the cause of the recent incidents. The Buddhists and those who love liberty, justice and the nation have been provoked in an insane manner and the most savage acts have succeeded one another, especially on August 27. All these barbaric acts have been fomented by the servants of the Cần Lao party, who have abused religion to disorient the people’s struggle . . .

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If by 27 October [within two months] the promises made [to establish a civilian government] have been betrayed . . . we envisage the following steps: 1. Direct liaison with the government to solve urgent problems. 2. Pupils and students will boycott their classes and the markets will close. 3. We will not cooperate with the government, if after October 27 1964, the calumny and propaganda and vengeance against Buddhism is carried on, under a regime that is not truly revolutionary and democratic, as promised . . . 4. There must be a declaration that all those who took part in the Buddhist actions of the past year are innocent. 5. . . . 6. . . . The most urgent task now is to resolve the persecution of Buddhists and compatriots committed in zones near to Saigon prefecture. This persecution is at this moment being tolerated by local authorities, as it was on August 27 . . . 7. . . . 8. We are advising our fellow Buddhists to support General Nguyễn Kha´nh. But the condition for our recommendation . . . must be a true revolution and democracy . . . we repeat this because this is the main aspiration of the population, the basis on which to resolve all problems . . .21 This communique´ was signed by Thı´ch Taˆm Chaˆu, a monk native to North Vietnam and head of the Association for the Propagation of the Faith (Viện Hoa´ Đao, the executive arm of Buddhism). He was seen as a ˙ potential rival to Trı´ Quang. At this moment, however, the two appeared to be of one mind. The CIA viewed the unstable political situation as particularly vulnerable to both Việt Cộng exploitation and to French exploitation in furtherance of a negotiated settlement in Vietnam. The professional character of the agitation may in fact reflect some Communist or French hand in the events. Overtones of anti-American sentiment have occasionally appeared during the demonstrations along with other real or fancied grievances . . .

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A Saigon University official recently told US Embassy officers that the attraction of a neutralist solution is now very strong in both student and intellectual circles . . .22 In fact, even some Americans could see the virtues of neutralism. A CIA ‘think piece’ was leaked to journalists around this time, a paper that set out the advantages of a neutral solution to the war. Written by a member of the agency’s Board of National Estimates, Willard Matthias, the paper raised the ‘serious doubt that victory can be won’. The author believed that ‘There is also a chance that political evolution within the country and developments upon the world scene could lead to some kind of negotiated settlement based upon neutralization.’ According to the New York Times, the author’s views on a negotiated settlement to the war, while not officially endorsed, ‘were widely held in the Government and the subject of recurrent official discussions’.23 The autumn of 1964 proved inauspicious for all the new governing combinations tested in Saigon. Pressure from the right led to a Đai Việt˙ inspired coup attempt in September, which was easily deflected by younger officers, chiefly Nguyễn Cao Kỳ, who remained, for the time being, loyal to General Kha´nh. After that, attempts to create civilian cabinets proved to be fleeting – the former Saigon mayor, Trần Va˘n Hương, installed as prime minister on 24 October, lasted three months, but was opposed by the Buddhists from the beginning. He worsened his position by declaring martial law and imprisoning large numbers of student protesters. By late December he had become a figurehead, as another coup, this time led by Kha´nh, established a new Armed Forces Council that held the actual power. With General Nguyễn Cha´nh Thi, the commander of I Corps in Central Vietnam, and Nguyễn Cao Kỳ as the council’s other leaders, this combination gained the favour of the Buddhist power structure. Ironically, the civilian leader Hương now received the backing of the American Embassy, which won him few friends among the opposition. Ambassador Maxwell Taylor’s urging that Hương resist Kha´nh’s coup elicited a new wave of anti-Americanism, now expressed by Kha´nh himself. In public statements Kha´nh criticized Ambassador Taylor, implying that American policy ‘had imposed a new colonialism on South Vietnam’, as the New York Times reported. The same Times story quoted a Vietnamese officer as complaining, ‘There’s an American looking over my shoulder every time I turn around.’24

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The political base of the Buddhists continued to grow, as they wielded their forces to oppose US policy. Intellectuals, students and professionals also joined what was becoming a single-issue movement focused on peace. With the impetus coming from organizers in the NLF, middle-class Saigonese formed a Movement for Self-Determination (Phong Tra`o Daˆn Tộc Tự Quyết) in late 1964, out of which grew a Committee to Defend the Peace, in the early days of 1965. The SelfDetermination Movement’s manifesto called for ‘America for Americans, South Vietnam for South Vietnamese. We demand that the NLF and the government negotiate peace between the two brothers. South Vietnam must have the right to determine its own future.’25 The Director General of the National Sugar Company, Trương Như Tảng, was one of the instigators of these developments. He was also one of the founding members of the National Liberation Front, one who would never join the communist party. Tảng’s memoirs describe the alacrity with which his friends among Saigon’s elite responded to his invitation to campaign for peace. The leading figure in the Committee to Defend the Peace was Dr Pham Va˘n Huyền, a northerner who had worked as Diệm’s ˙ Commissioner for Refugees in 1954. The other leaders included Toˆn Thất Dương Ky, a professor of history originally from Huế, and an ˙ offshoot of Vietnam’s royal family; the journalist Cao Minh Chiếm and the artist Đặng Va˘n Kỳ. Their window for action was a narrow one – the Committee’s first press conference on 1 February 1965 was broken up by the police. Dr Huyền was arrested on the spot, while the other leaders were rounded up a few days later.26 Dr Huyền, journalist Chieˆm and Professor Dương Ky would be expelled to North Vietnam, handed over in the Demilitarized˙ Zone (DMZ) on the Bến Hải Bridge, shortly after their arrests. The authorities in the North allowed Dr Huyền, an elderly man, to travel to France, where he would link up with Trần Va˘n Hữu’s neutralist movement. Ironically, Prof. Dương Ky was the only Party ˙ member among the three expelled; he would not return to his family in the South until May 1975. Dr Huyền’s daughter, known by her husband’s name as Mrs Ngoˆ Ba´ Tha`nh, was one of those arrested after the press conference. A polyglot lawyer, she had studied at Columbia University, as well as the Sorbonne and in Barcelona. She would become one of the most fiery and long-suffering members of the Saigon ‘Third Segment’ and peace movement.

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After days of uncertainty, a new civilian prime minister, Dr Phan Huy Qua´t, was installed on 16 February. His appointment followed the first US bombings of the DRV since the Gulf of Tonkin incident. These were explained as retaliation for a communist attack on a US base near Pleiku in the Central Highlands. Dr Qua´t, although an adviser to the Đai Việt ˙ party, possessed considerable prestige in Central Vietnam and found favour with the Buddhist hierarchy. The Buddhists had now explicitly become a force for peace and began to demand the formation of a ‘reconciliation committee’ to negotiate with the two sides, North and South. Prime Minister Qua´t seemed to be moving closer to their thinking when he stated on 25 February that ‘Vietnam is suffering too much. We want to end the war with honor.’27 But once again the balance of power shifted in favour of the Americans. A strangely muddled coup that followed Dr Qua´t’s installation resulted in an agreement for Nguyễn Kha´nh to step down and go into exile. That left the younger officers, in particular Nguyễn Cao Kỳ and Nguyễn Va˘n Thiệu, to assert their power within the Armed Forces Council. A young Catholic convert from Phan Thiết on the south-central coast, Thiệu became the council’s chairman. (He had been promoted from Colonel to Brigadier General for his role in the coup against Diệm.) Now, with the generals in control of the situation, Dr Qua´t declared on 1 March that there could be no negotiated settlement and no peace until ‘the Communists end the war they have provoked and stop their infiltration’.28 The start of Operation Rolling Thunder, the US bombing of the DRV, began in March with no formal discussions between the South Vietnamese civilian leadership and the American military. The Americans hoped that this would be the magic charm to unite the southern politicians and military men, to boost their morale for the fight ahead. The landing of the first US ground forces in Danang on 8 March likewise happened without a joint decision-making process – the operation was already underway when the US Embassy informed Dr Qua´t. ‘By the same token’, as Qua´t’s special assistant Bu`i Diễm recalls, ‘the decision to use US airpower in South Vietnam proper (as distinct from North Vietnam) was also made without any special notice being taken.’29 In Bu`i Diệm’s account of those weeks, he makes plain the gap that existed between US Ambassador Maxwell Taylor, who originally opposed the involvement of US forces, and the military planners, such as General William

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Westmoreland. But by April the key decision had been made: ‘to give American combat troops an independent part in the ground war’.30 Bu`i Diễm concludes: ‘The record does not show either that the American decision makers understood our perspective or that we understood American intentions.’31 To summarize, by the summer of 1965, the United States was deeply committed to a military intervention, ostensibly designed to protect the people of southern Vietnam, but undertaken without any formal consultation with the civilian South Vietnamese government. The US policymakers overlooked the broad appeal of the South Vietnamese peace movement, apparently because they could not understand what it represented. There had to be something subversive about preferring a negotiated peace to American protection, even if the latter came at the price of loss of sovereignty and probable massive destruction. The international reaction to US escalation was not enthusiastic or supportive. The UN General Secretary U Thant, British Prime Minister Harold Wilson, and the French all called for immediate negotiations. The French government, not surprisingly, held the view that the political troubles in Saigon justified their earlier calls for neutralism. Following the August 1964 resignation of General Kha´nh, the Minister of Information Alain Peyrefitte had remarked that ‘It is a development that conforms to France’s predictions to such a degree that it would be in poor taste to stress the point.’32 Prince Sihanouk, ever more troubled by violations of Cambodia’s borders and airspace, convened an ‘Indochinese People’s Conference’ in Phnom Penh in February 1965. Two Vietnamese neutralist groups were represented, the best known being the Committee for Peace and Renewal led by Trần Va˘n Hữu and Nguyễn Manh Ha` in Paris. On this ˙ occasion they found their communist brethren from the NLF and Hanoi’s Fatherland Front less pliant than in years past. It required the intervention of the Cambodian Minister of Foreign Affairs to get them admitted to the conference presidium. The communists questioned whether, as residents of France, they were truly representative of the Vietnamese people. Still, on his departure from Phnom Penh, Trần Va˘n Hữu declared that ‘all doors are not yet closed to the search for a negotiated solution, honourable for all’. He hoped that the ‘firm will and solidarity’ demonstrated at the Phnom Penh conference would persuade the USA of the need for a peaceful solution to the war.33 Yet in a

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post-conference news briefing, Prince Sihanouk took a more pessimistic tone, stating that ‘it is already too late for a negotiated solution’ to the fighting, as ‘these gentlemen [the communists] are now expecting nothing less than total victory’.34 The Qua´t government was responsible for renewing a 1964 Decree Law that outlawed communist activity, as well as ‘all plots and actions under the false name of peace and neutrality according to a Communist policy’.35 But by June the civilian veneer of the government appeared dispensable and Dr Phan Huy Qua´t was ousted by the military, to be replaced by a ten-member National Leadership Committee, headed by the 42-year-old General Nguyễn Va˘n Thiệu. Among the other leaders were Lt General Nguyễn Cha´nh Thi and the 35-year-old Nguyễn Cao Kỳ. This move dispelled the military’s fear that a civilian government might open the door to negotiations with the NLF. Kỳ became the effective prime minister as head of the Executive Council of the Leadership Committee. He banned all newspapers (briefly) and declared that communists, black marketeers and corrupt officials would all be shot on sight.

The Social Revolution At this stage in the evolution of the Saigon government, a number of idealistic young Vietnamese transferred their energy from street protests to social work. Faced with the fait accompli of the American entry into the war, and the narrowing of options within civil society, they tried to make themselves the vehicles of the social change they had been dreaming of since the overthrow of Diệm. These efforts involved a broad part of the political spectrum, including students and Buddhist and Catholic activists. Most of these amateur social workers were from the middle classes, educated young people who in another time would have been preparing for entry into the government bureaucracy and the ranks of teachers and professions. Severe floods in Central Vietnam in the autumn of 1964 pulled many students away from the streets and into volunteer groups, collecting and transporting food and other emergency relief supplies. When this work brought the youth into contact with communist-controlled villages, some of them were temporarily arrested by the Saigon government, under suspicion of carrying out liaison work. But at this stage it was still

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fairly easy for their leaders to intervene on their behalf to get them released from detention. Following his own arrest in late December 1964, student leader Nguyễn Hữu Tha´i was taken under the wing of a US professor from the School of Pedagogy, who recruited him to work in a summer social work programme for students. It did not take long, however, for the students to become disillusioned with the role they had been assigned. In his memoir Tha´i describes his disenchantment with the US-sponsored ‘social revolution’: That summer [1965], I had many opportunities to take part in different social work camps around Saigon. The situation in the An Phu´ Đoˆng refugee camp made me more pessimistic, and I began to feel that social action clearly could have no effect in the middle of this destructive war. We had built any number of houses, made roads, dug latrine holes for the people from the countryside who had been forced into these camps by American bombs. But it was the very work we were doing that enabled the US military and Saigon to continue to kill and destroy. I wrote in my diary at the time: ‘We can’t say that we are carrying out a social revolution when we just sing some songs, give haircuts, distribute candy to the children, conduct medical examinations, and pass out medicines to a few people. City youth like us have not yet progressed beyond charitable work.’ I saw in the refugees’ faces that they were still traumatized by the bombing. They watched passively while we worked – some of us in jeans and tight jerseys of the kind you would wear on a picnic – as if we were strange and distant beings . . .36 Among the Buddhists, the young monk Thı´ch Nhất Hanh took the lead ˙ in creating a cadre of social workers to serve the less advantaged. Born in 1926, Thı´ch Nhất Hanh was a Zen modernizer who believed in making ˙ Buddhism relevant to the suffering of the ordinary Vietnamese. He entered the Từ Hiếu pagoda in Huế at age 16, then moved on to the Ba´o Quốc Buddhist Academy, where Thı´ch Trı´ Quang also studied. In 1956 he became the editor of Vietnamese Buddhism (Phaˆt Gia´o Vieˆt ˙ ˙ Nam), the periodical of the Unified Vietnam Buddhist Association and the main Buddhist weekly in the South. He spent 1961 at Princeton

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University, where he studied the philosophy of religion, and also spent some time at Columbia University. After his return in 1963, he and Cao Ngoc Phượng, then one of the few female professors (in biology) at ˙ Saigon University, drew up the plans for the School of Buddhist Youth for Social Service (BYSS). In January 1964 he submitted his project for a Buddhist Institute, what would soon become Van Hanh University, to the Buddhist ˙ ˙ leadership. His plan incorporated a social work school, which he envisaged as a faculty where students could learn the techniques of nonviolent social change. The Buddhist university was soon functioning, with a full curriculum for undergraduate and graduate studies, but because of the leadership’s reluctance to commit money to the project, the BYSS took longer to get off the ground.37 The older monks of the Buddhist congregation treated Nhất Hanh as a ‘utopian poet’ and failed ˙ to see how he could realize his grand scheme without outside aid. Officially, the BYSS did not open until September 1965, and by then Nhất Hanh had already managed to create two pilot projects for rural ˙ development in villages near Saigon. But by mid-1966 this experiment in grass-roots work would be disowned by the Buddhist hierarchy. With hindsight, we can note that perhaps the most significant action that he took in 1965 was to write a letter to Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, to try to convince him to publicly oppose the Vietnam War. The search for a non-communist path to social revolution was not restricted to students and Buddhists in 1964– 5. The young Catholic intellectual, philosophy Professor Nguyễn Va˘n Trung, who first made his name at the University of Huế, had moved south to head the humanities faculty of the University of Saigon. Here he had popularized the idea that the Diệm government had been a government for the rich, and that the new leaders in Saigon must attack the problems of rural and urban poverty. His short-lived journal Ha`nh Trı`nh (The Journey) (1964– 5) presented thoughtful articles on the tensions between Buddhists and Catholics, as well as reprints of articles by European intellectuals, and discussions of the Algerian and Egyptian revolutions. In 1965 a group of Catholic-educated men, strongly influenced by changing ideas within the Vatican, organized an ambitious development project in District 8 of Saigon, a poor neighbourhood full of refugees from the First Indochina War that was beginning to receive a new wave. These were Hồ Ngoc Nhuận, Dr Hồ Va˘n Minh and the lawyer Đoa`n ˙

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Thanh Lieˆm. Their goal was clear: to begin a non-communist social revolution.38 Post-World War II Catholic social activism marked their approach to community service; the Belgian priest Emmanuel Jacques had also made a strong impression on them when he worked in Saigon. At the time all three were still army officers, released from active duty. As a young teacher, before being called for military duty, Hồ Ngoc ˙ Nhuận had organized a movement to help poor children receive an education.39 He was serving in a remote military camp, when on the day following the coup against Ngoˆ Đı`nh Diệm, he was summoned to Saigon to work in the newly established Youth Ministry. One of the people who recommended him for this work was his former philosophy professor, Father Bernard Pineau. He surmises that the new military leaders were concerned to find a way to control the passions of the young demonstrators who had come out into the streets to protest the excesses of Diệm and Nhu. This assignment ended abruptly following the coup led by Nguyễn Kha´nh in January 1964, when many of those military men close to General Minh were sent out of Saigon. Instead of being reassigned to the Central Highlands like some of his colleagues, Nhuận managed to get an appointment with the Seventh Division in Mỹ Tho, his hometown.40 The District 8 project gave him a chance to return to youth and social work. Đoa`n Thanh Lieˆm had spent a year in the United States, studying constitutional law, observing community development projects and the role of NGOs. He was influenced by the ideas of Dominican priest Father Jean Lebret, who had established a movement known as Economy and Humanism, based on his experiences in Africa. (Father Lebret would be one of the authors of the 1967 Encyclical Progressio Populorum by Pope Paul VI.) ‘We mobilized the young people, helped people build houses, and started cooperatives and night schools for women’, Nhuận says.41 In 1966 they opened the first community high school for the District, which is still in operation today. When Vice President Hubert Humphrey visited District 8 in 1967, he joked that this was the beginning of a socialist revolution in Saigon. Having the resources of the Catholic Church and the Kỳ regime behind them certainly gave this group an advantage that the Buddhists did not possess. (For the School of Buddhist Youth for Social Service, the issue of outside funding would bring painful consequences.)

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The District 8 project was a model that could have been replicated in the rural areas, had the war not intruded. In spite of its success, Saigon intellectuals such as Professor Nguyễn Va˘n Trung began to question whether a ‘social revolution’ was compatible with the American war effort, which by the end of 1965 was spreading into the Việt Cộngcontrolled countryside. He began to believe that ‘the nation’s righteous cause is with every day slipping into the arms of the NLF. To make a social revolution with the Americans, or to take advantage of the Americans to carry one out, is a utopian idea.’42 The District 8 team in the end came to agree with him.

The Final Buddhist Crisis Inevitably tensions arose among the members of the National Leadership Committee that had come to power in June 1965. In March of the following year, Nguyễn Cao Kỳ felt obliged to remove Lt General Nguyễn Cha´nh Thi as administrator of the First Military Region, where he had a strong following among the local Buddhists. This action gave the Buddhists the pretext they needed to start another full-scale protest movement. Bordering the DMZ, this region was most immediately threatened by communist infiltration from the North. It was in these central provinces, especially Quảng Nam, Quảng Tı´n and Quảng Nga˜i, that the communists had some of their most secure base areas and strongest popular support, dating to the Việt Minh years. Unrest in the major cities of I Corps was a frightening prospect for the Saigon rulers. The students and Buddhists were now well organized and ready for action, after their experience in opposition to Diệm and Kha´nh. They took to the streets of Huế and Danang, gaining the support of dissident army units who supported General Thi. By 26 March the opposition controlled these two cities and had taken over the radio stations. New organizations sprouted up, such as the Movement to Exterminate Corruption and Reactionaries and the People’s Force to Defend the Revolution (Lực Lượng Nhaˆn Daˆn Trấn Thủ Ca´ch Mang), led by two ˙ Huế medical students. The airlifting of Vietnamese Ranger battalions to Danang did not cow the opposition. On 10 April the Buddhists launched their own political movement, which they termed ‘the Vietnamese Buddhist Force’. This was a lay political party, in effect something very close to a proverbial Third Force. The new force was

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openly designed to bring down the military junta – its major demand was the election of a Constituent Assembly. It did not exclude the possibility of negotiations with the Việt Cộng; but this question would only be decided once the people’s aspirations had been made clear by elections, a press spokesman said.43 On 12 April Prime Minister Kỳ found ‘a face-saving formula’ that enabled him to withdraw the Rangers from Danang to Saigon. Two days later the military leadership gave the protestors a firm promise that elections for a Constituent Assembly would be held within three to five months, at which point the Buddhist leaders decided to end their demonstrations.44 Thı´ch Trı´ Quang undertook to convince his followers to call off their protests, a step that he later would bitterly regret. Fresh demonstrations erupted in early May, however, when Kỳ unsettled the protestors with an off-hand remark, saying that ‘we will try to hold elections by October’. He also provoked suspicion by stating that ‘he expected to remain in office for another year’.45 The result was that the opposition forces, now known as ‘the Struggle Movement’, or ‘Struggle Forces’, returned to the streets, as Huế and Danang again slipped out of government control. With quiet encouragement from Ambassador Lodge and the Pentagon, Nguyễn Cao Kỳ moved decisively to end the revolt in Danang on 15 May by flying in two battalions each of Marines and paratroopers. On 21 May the loyal ARVN forces attacked the last three pagodas where the Buddhists had taken refuge. Around 100 unarmed monks, women and children died in this onslaught, including attacks from the air.46 In Huế the Struggle Forces held out, as the generals cut off the food supplies to the city. Students burned down the US Information Service’s library on 26 May; the Buddhist nun Thı´ch Nữ Thanh Quang immolated herself the following day, leaving a note to President Johnson; her act inspired the immolation of eight more monks and nuns. On 31 May a student mob burned the US Consulate, as well as the consular residence. When the ARVN prepared to move into the city, many of Huế’s inhabitants brought their family altars out into the streets, to form roadblocks that the army could only destroy at their peril. By this point, however, with his support from the dissident First Division and the Mayor of Huế draining away, Thı´ch Trı´ Quang again intervened, to ask the people to remove their altars and to surrender in

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peace. He was said to be deeply disturbed by the lack of support he had received from the USA, when he had attempted to curb the ARVN’s violent attack in Danang.47 The American Embassy, once again presided over by Henry Cabot Lodge, had worked behind the scenes to coach the military leaders on ways to avoid inflaming the opposition. Lodge was among those who viewed the crisis as something being manipulated by communists. He believed that ‘certain Buddhists were unwittingly taking Communist-inspired advice, as were the students in Huế’.48 Thı´ch Trı´ Quang had without doubt become adept at playing the spoiler in southern politics, but his focus in the 1966 crisis had been consistent: the convening of elections to end military rule. It seems likely that he had contacts with the NLF, but that he was not sure where exactly they stood in 1966. Both communist and NLF activists certainly participated in the urban movement, but in the end their leadership believed that it had been a mistake to allow the Buddhist leaders to control events.49 However, one Vietnamese historian, himself a former Buddhist activist, claims that underground communist students often decided on the slogans for the Struggle Movement.50 For the student population, the Buddhist movement would for many be a halfway house on the way to joining the communist party, especially after arrests and the draft made it too dangerous for them to remain in governmentcontrolled areas. Other observers such as Takashi Oka believed that at the ‘riceroots’ level, there was intense competition between the Việt Cộng and the Buddhists for control of the rural people. Communist propaganda praised the Buddhist movement, as Oka says, but criticized particular urban bonzes, who, they claimed, had been ‘bought’ by the Saigon government and the Americans. At the same time, though, many of the Buddhists and their followers were also anti-American, a fact that at a certain level brought them closer to the ethos of the NLF. As Takashi Oka summed up the problem, American help was viewed as essential for the successful conduct of the war by many Buddhists. But in their view the initiative should have rested with the Vietnamese – because if it did not, the war was as good as lost.51 It appeared that the Buddhists and students in the Struggle Movement had won a victory by holding out for something more than a vague promise of elections. But by the time the elections for the

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Constituent Assembly were held, their success seemed less clear. For a start, the military Directorate had set highly restrictive limits on both candidates and voters: the election decree barred candidates who ‘have been directly or indirectly working for the communists, or procommunist neutralists, or have been involved in activities advantageous to the communists’.52 Moreover, the end of the ‘Struggle Movement’ had been followed by widespread arrests. Those imprisoned included five or six hundred military officers and non-commissioned officers, as well as several thousand ordinary soldiers who had joined the dissidents.53 When the assembly met in early 1967 to draw up a new constitution, the voices of those who had fought for it were largely missing. By this time the solidarity that had grown out of the Buddhist’s earlier political successes was dissipating, while the treatment of Buddhist candidates in the 1967 presidential election would demonstrate that the government could ride roughshod over their aspirations for political power.

The Splintering of the Buddhist Opposition The political force wielded by the powerful monks of the Ấn Quang pagoda and the Unified Buddhist congregation disintegrated after the end of their protest movement in Central Vietnam in the spring of 1966. While the government’s backers viewed the end of the Buddhist Struggle Movement as the end of an ‘adolescent rebellion’,54 the participants saw the outcome as a time of betrayal. Many of the Buddhists ended up boycotting the constituent assembly elections because a number of their candidates, including army officers, had either been arrested or refused permission to run. As the memoirs of the Buddhist activist Cao Ngoc Phượng (now the nun Chaˆn Khoˆng) explain, ˙ there was a belief in the Buddhist community that only Buddhist candidates from Central Vietnam (Huế, Danang, Quảng Nam and nine other provinces) were being arrested, while monks originally from northern Vietnam were free to contest the election.55 A serious split opened up within the Buddhist Struggle Movement between the two leading monks: Thı´ch Taˆm Chaˆu, head of the Society for the Propagation of the Dharma (Viện Hoa´ Đao) and Thı´ch Trı´ ˙ Quang. The allies of Trı´ Quang elected their own Viện Hoa´ Đao with the ˙ monk Thı´ch Thiện Hoa at its head.56 Taˆm Chau, who was travelling in India at the time, ignored requests to intervene with the military to

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demand the release of the arrested candidates. Shocked and betrayed, Trı´ Quang embarked on a hunger strike to demand their release, without success. After 67 days he was hospitalized, but he continued to refuse food for one hundred days. When he was finally convinced to end his fast, he was confined to his pagoda under house arrest for the duration of the war. In the spring of 1966 Thı´ch Nhất Hanh took the Trı´ Quang faction’s ˙ message to the USA, on the invitation of Cornell University and the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR). His outspoken attitude to the war only deepened the fissure opening up between the more cautious Buddhist leaders and his own circle. He held a 1 June 1966 press conference in Washington, DC, at which he issued a five-point peace proposal highly critical of the status quo in the RVN. The proposal listed the following points: 1. The United States must officially announce its willingness to aid the Vietnamese people in acquiring a government that truly represents their desires; 2. The United States must immediately declare a total bombing halt; 3. The US Army must limit its actions to a purely defensive role; 4. The USA must demonstrate in a convincing fashion their intention to withdraw their troops at the end of a period to be determined; 5. The USA must offer aid for the reconstruction of Vietnam, free from any ideological or political preconditions.57 That same day, Thı´ch Nhất Hanh was denounced as a traitor by Saigon ˙ Radio and the government’s spokesman. His Buddhist supporters convinced him that it would be too dangerous for him to return to Vietnam, so from that point on he remained in exile, an exile that would not end until 2005. One week after Nhất Hanh’s departure for America, the Dean of Van ˙ ˙ Hanh University, Thı´ch Minh Chaˆu, dissolved the Student Union and ˙ ended the university’s ties with the School of Buddhist Youth for Social Service. Only later, in 1967, did Cao Ngoc Phượng discover that Minh ˙ Chaˆu had come under pressure to declare that the monk Thı´ch Nhất Hanh had no connection with Van Hanh University. The pressure came ˙ ˙ ˙ from a ‘private US cultural foundation’ (almost certainly the Asia Foundation) that had donated $100,000 for the construction of a library

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at Van Hanh. A similar offer to the school of BYSS was turned down, as ˙ ˙ the School’s new director, the young monk Thı´ch Thanh Vaˆn, could not bring himself to accept such a bargain.58 The school continued to function with donations from Buddhist laypeople, as well as aid from pacifist organizations around the world raised by FOR, and it played a valuable role in organizing relief efforts during the Tết offensive. But it never developed into the powerful advocate for the suffering civilian population that the founders had envisaged. In 1967 several of its social workers would be killed in a grenade attack on their village dormitory; on another occasion four workers were kidnapped and assassinated. At the time the Buddhists believed that there was ‘strong circumstantial evidence pointing to the complicity of government agents’.59

Presidential Elections By November 1966, Thı´ch Nhất Hanh wrote that ‘the government is ˙ leaning on the false Viện Hoa´ Đao to crush the Buddhists whom they ˙ called “militant” and “communist” . . . Young and active Buddhist monks and laymen are being pursued and arrested or drafted.’60 These arrests and the harassment of Buddhist activists did not prevent the September elections for the Constituent Assembly from taking place with relative success, however. Representatives of South Vietnam’s variety of sects, religions and minority groups were all given places in the assembly. But the barring of neutralists (and NLF members) from candidacy, combined with the widespread arrests of those involved in the Struggle Movement, denied this exercise the legitimacy that the Americans craved for their anti-communist crusade. By this point, the ranks of those who believed that a ‘Third Way’ still existed to bring peace to Vietnam were thinning out. Student leader Nguyễn Hữu Tha´i, for one, would make up his mind to try to join the NLF.61 A few outspoken critics of the leadership, including two of the District 8 leaders, Hồ Ngoc Nhuận and Hồ Va˘n ˙ Minh, were elected to represent their working-class constituents. Over time they and a handful of other deputies would develop into an opposition bloc that became a voice for the dispossessed. But the distribution of power within the RVN would change surprisingly little in spite of the two elections. In 1967 General Nguyễn Va˘n Thiệu would outmanoeuvre Nguyễn Cao Kỳ to place himself on the ballot as the military candidate for president, leaving Kỳ with the vice-presidential slot.

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The 1967 elections proved important as a test of how far the USA would go to preserve the pliant military leadership they relied on. By using their power to guarantee a reasonably free election, they could have helped to create a credible civilian government, one that could have negotiated with the communists with popular support behind them. But in the summer of 1967 the US military still believed that a military victory was possible. As the Pentagon Papers notes, the Constituent Assembly conveniently approved a draft article which permitted Thiệu and Kỳ to run without resigning from the Armed Forces. They also approved a result allowing for a mere plurality of votes, with no second round. By mid-July, the Assembly had voted acceptance of the Thiệu-Kỳ ticket while disallowing one headed by Big Minh [who was in exile in Bangkok].62 The compilers of the Pentagon Papers pass over the voting itself with little apparent awareness of how disillusioning the process was for the Vietnamese middle classes. ‘With only a few hitches’, they report, ‘the campaigning proceeded so as to satisfy American observers that it was acceptably fair; and the resultant Thiệu – Kỳ victory was a surprise only in its smaller-than-expected plurality’.63 The Thiệu– Kỳ ticket received 35 per cent of the votes, with a virtual unknown, lawyer Trương Đı`nh Dzu from the Mekong Delta town of Can Tho, coming second with 17 per cent. He waited until relatively close to election day to announce that he was running on a peace platform. His symbol was the dove. Altogether the three runners-up received 38 per cent, and this was with the most popular candidates barred from the race. In fact, in Saigon, where it was difficult to change the results, the Dzu ticket ran well ahead of Thiệu– Kỳ. Revealingly, Trần Ngoc Chaˆu in his 2012 memoir reports ˙ conversations in Kiến Hoa` and Bı`nh Đinh provinces, in which provincial ˙ officials admitted that they had changed the final tallies to give Thiệu and Kỳ the victory over Trương Đı`nh Dzu.64 In fact, there was much about this presidential election that was not straightforward. The first sign that all was not well was the murder of the private secretary of the head of the Central Election Council, also president of the Saigon Bar Association. Then there was the barring of

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the two best-qualified candidates from running: General Dương Va˘n Minh and Dr Aˆu Trường Thanh, an economist who had served in Saigon governments since 1963, until resigning from Kỳ’s cabinet, where he had served as General Commissioner for Economy and Finance. Aˆu Trường Thanh had started his campaign as a peace candidate, promising if elected ‘to realize the aspirations of the whole Vietnamese people, meaning: to end the war, which at present is tearing apart our beloved country’.65 Thiệu and Kỳ decided to eliminate his candidacy when they fixed the final slate on 19 July. However, they permitted enough candidates to remain in the race to assure that the popular vote was diluted. A well-qualified election observer was sent to follow the process by a consortium of peace groups: the Methodist Peace Division, SANE, Friends Committee on National Legislation and the Unitarian Universalists. Dr David Wurfel, a political scientist specializing in South East Asia, had observed four Philippine elections and spent considerable time in South Vietnam before 1967. ‘Even without extensive documentary proof’, he wrote, ‘it is crucial that most Vietnamese view the election as having involved widespread fraud – while recognizing it as an improvement over the Diệm period – and thus cannot regard the government which results from such an election as legitimate’.66 Wurfel believed that ‘fraud on election day was extensive – producing 300,000–500,000 votes and inflating the total number of votes. The manipulation of returns took place between the district and the province level, he reported. Trương Đı`nh Dzu complained that his representatives were often prevented from seeing the district returns. Slush funds were distributed to Hoa´ Hảo leaders by Nguyễn Cao Kỳ. There was no control of the total number of ballots issued, and some military units received two ballots per person. The election for the 60-member Senate was viewed as particularly corrupt, with a drawn-out counting process overseen personally by Thiệu and Kỳ. On top of that, three senatorial slates supported by the Buddhists were removed from the ballot.

Conclusion By 1967 there had been two years of battle involving the US military in the Vietnam War. The political life of South Vietnam had been

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punctuated by crises, driven in part by a popular demand for a civilian government that could begin talks with the ‘other side’ – the NLF, the Việt Cộng, the communists, as they were variously known. The elections meant to bring legitimacy to the US-backed government failed in this aim and kept in power the same cast of generals. Given the near success of the Struggle Movement in 1966, it should not be surprising that the opponents of Generals Thiệu and Kỳ would try to develop and expand their political forces. But from this time the communists would try to bring the political opposition under their own guidance. With the fear of neutralists and peace advocates as great as ever in Saigon, the role of any ‘neutralist’ political opposition in South Vietnam became more difficult to carry out. But the Politburo of the Workers Party still understood that they needed this added weapon in their arsenal. The memoirs of NLF activist Trương Như Tảng describe how he was mobilized by communist organizers in 1965– 6. He received a summons from Trần Bach Đằng, the Party Secretary for the Saigon –Chợ Lớn – ˙ Gia Ðinh region, in June 1966, to discuss the Front’s new urban ˙ strategy. The new policy, based on a decision known as ‘the 1966 Resolution’, underlined the importance of the armed struggle in the countryside and the political struggle in the cities. ‘Specifically’, Tảng writes, ‘we would be looking for new ways to use the city’s volatile and often militant youth to heighten the political confrontation between the regime and the urban population’.67 By this time, Tảng says, he was ‘working toward the development of a Third Force of independent nationalists’, although this force would not take on a formal identity until after the 1968 Tết offensive.68 The following chapter will take up this theme of the communist-led political struggle.

CHAPTER 5 THE TURNING POINT: THE TẾ T OFFENSIVE

There is a tendency to assume that there is a sharp line dividing the NLF and the non-NLF portions of the population, but it is not so. Thı´ch Nhất Hanh, December 19671 ˙ Lately we have not been emphasizing the development of the Party within the working, middle and poor peasant classes, and in places some ‘complex elements’ as well as a number of people from the exploiting class have been admitted to the Party. Leˆ Dức Tho, December 19672 ˙

Introduction The 1968 Tết or New Year’s Offensive may appear a strange time to think about peacemaking, but in fact it marked the major turning point in Vietnamese efforts to find a political end to the war. The Johnson administration, determined to show some progress by the election year of 1968, had begun to think more seriously about peace talks in 1967. Although their efforts to open talks were rebuffed in the fall of 1967, their internal conversations on launching negotiations continued into January 1968, before the start of the Offensive. These discussions took on a new urgency in March, as President Johnson’s closest advisers absorbed the massive shock that the first phase of the offensive had administered to the American public.

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The years 1967 – 8 saw major fissures open up within each party to the conflict, a fact that made peacemaking more challenging than ever. The least public of these internal debates was the flare-up of a second wave of the ‘anti-revisionist’ campaign in the DRV. In the southern resistance, tensions mirroring those in Hanoi began to be felt, as the language of class struggle and prejudice against bourgeois NLF members surfaced. In Washington, doves in Lyndon Johnson’s administration were becoming more outspoken; Robert McNamara had grown disillusioned with the war and resigned as Secretary of Defense in late 1967. Those who doubted the war’s prospects for success would finally win a victory when President Johnson announced an unconditional halt to the bombing of the DRV, above the 20th parallel. But it took the shock of the Tết Offensive to make that concession possible. By May, the DRV would agree to begin negotiations in Paris.

The RVN in the Lead-Up to Tết In the Republic of Vietnam, as we saw in the previous chapter, popular dissatisfaction with the war was not making the Thiệu – Kỳ regime any more trusted or popular. The year 1967 had seen powerful demonstrations of the popular desire for peace – in addition to the strong showing by the unknown peace candidate Trương Ðı`nh Dzu in the September elections, the self-immolation of a young Buddhist nun in April had catalysed an outpouring of grief. Nhất Chi Mai, a follower of Thı´ch Nhất Hanh’s philosophy of Engaged Buddhism, had ˙ lit a match to set herself on fire, as she sat before a statue of the Virgin Mary and the Bodhisattva of compassion, Quan Aˆm in Vietnamese. She had left behind many letters and poems exhorting Buddhists and Catholics to unite in the name of peace. Her friend Cao Ngoc Phượng ˙ wrote that ‘Her act seems to have moved a great many people and helped the peace movement to swell like waves during a storm.’ Thı´ch Trı´ Quang disguised himself as a novice monk to escape from his pagoda arrest and to come to pray before her body. He paid for the publishing and recording of her poems and letters. Even friends who had joined the armed combatants in the jungle contacted the Buddhists to ask what they could do to realize Mai’s dream of peace and reconciliation.3

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In 1967– 8 the gulf between anti-war Buddhists and Catholic peace advocates began to disappear. The Sorbonne-educated Catholic priest, Nguyễn Ngoc Lan, agreed to write the introduction to Mai’s writings. ˙ As philosophy professor Ly´ Cha´nh Trung wrote in the journal Ða´ˆ t Nước (The Country), Nhất Chi Mai had ‘chosen her path’ in response to the dehumanizing war. Professor Trung, a product of the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium, felt that each Vietnamese was being forced to find some kind of response to the tragedy that was engulfing his or her country – if not, they were in danger of ‘turning into two-legged beasts’.4 (He personally had not yet found his own path, he confessed.) He was in part responding to the publication of a report on civilian casualties of the war put out by Senator Edward Kennedy’s Subcommittee on Refugees in the fall of 1967. This report showed that within the Saigon-controlled zones alone, from 100,000 to 150,000 civilians were being injured every year, with around one-quarter of these counted as deaths. At a minimal count the war had left 35,000 civilians as amputees.5 Yet worse was to come. At the end of 1967, Thı´ch Nhất Hanh was still trying to educate ˙ Western leaders about Vietnamese disaffection with the war. He had met the Pope and Martin Luther King the preceding year, with significant results. Nhất Hanh had an undoubted influence on Dr King’s Riverside ˙ Drive speech of April 1967, in which he laid out his opposition to the war. Dr King had earlier nominated Nhất Hanh for the Nobel Peace ˙ Prize, in January of that year. The following December Nhất Hanh ˙ addressed a group of opinion leaders, at the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions in Santa Barbara, California, at that time an influential think tank. His presentation was titled, ‘The Third Solution’. In his talk and question-and-answer session, he fleshed out his ideas of how to establish peace and a coalition government in South Vietnam. He made it clear that he saw little role for the Thiệu– Kỳ government, ‘because it has no effective popular support among any class of Vietnamese’. Explaining that the ordinary Vietnamese did not tend to distinguish between the NLF and what he called ‘the non-Front bloc’ of nationalist proponents of peace, he said that: It is therefore quite usual for peasants to sympathize with the Front while at the same time supporting the leadership of the nonFront bloc, which is committed to a peaceful solution instead of

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Figure 5.1 Martin Luther King and Thı´ch Nha´ˆ t Hanh at a press conference ˙ in June 1966.

the militant campaign of the NLF. Thus it is very hard for outside observers to sort out the population into active supporters of the Front and of the non-Front leadership.6 He did not believe that either side in the war could win a military victory – as he explained, escalation from the other side will increase as escalation on the American side is increased . . . It is our belief that the United States will not believe that it can afford such a defeat by such an ‘insignificant’ country. And we fear that the United States is going to do everything necessary to prevent such a defeat, including the use of the kind of weapons that might wipe out the whole country. That is why we are afraid any time either side talks of victory. Victory simply means the effective destruction of the whole country. So the kind of solution we Buddhists envision in our county is one that can help both sides not to lose face. We call this the Third Solution.7

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When asked whether Hanoi would support a neutral government, Thı´ch Nhất Hanh showed confidence in the promises of the NLF: ˙ Well, Hồ Chı´ Minh has declared that if South Vietnam wants to be neutral, it should be neutral. We believe that Hồ is wise enough to accept such a solution. We believe, too, Hanoi has no choice but to accept the decision of the Front in South Vietnam not to press for reunification right now. Guerilla warfare is not possible without support from the local population; therefore North Vietnam is impotent without the Front. Also, we do not believe that Hanoi is a satellite of Peking in any real sense . . . They do not say so, of course, but many Front leaders want to see North Vietnam join South Vietnam in neutrality, becoming independent not only from Western powers, but independent from China as well. That is an aspiration shared historically by all Vietnamese.8 This observation that there might be leaders in Hanoi who would prefer to leave the Chinese orbit is one that the Americans were unable to grasp or refused to believe. By the end of December, however, these leaders’ influence on DRV policy had been greatly weakened, as we shall see. Interestingly, Thı´ch Nhất Hanh’s thinking seemed to ˙ reflect the official policy of the NLF as of mid-1967. But by 1968 their policy on coalition governments and peace was coming under fire in Hanoi.

Organizational Problems In January 1968, Thı´ch Nhất Hanh’s follower Cao Ngoc Phượng ˙ ˙ persuaded 70 of her fellow professors to sign a petition demanding that the warring sides extend the Tết ceasefire. Among them was Father Nguyễn Ngoc Lan. The communists had agreed to a truce of three days ˙ for the holiday, but within hours of the Tết ceasefire’s beginning, an unprecedented communist offensive had broken out in the towns and cities of the South. Phượng and two of her colleagues refused the Ministry of Education’s demand that they withdraw their petition and sign one condemning the communists, as they did not want to be seen to be controlled by the Thiệu government. Again, Father Lan was one of these colleagues, along with the US-educated agronomist, Chaˆu Taˆm

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Luaˆn. Both of these men would remain adherents to the cause of peace and identify themselves with the Third Segment until the war’s end. In the weeks following the Offensive, Cao Ngoc Phượng joined the ˙ students, monks and nuns who set up first aid stations for the civilian population and engaged in the gruesome work of disposing of the cadavers decomposing on the city streets.9 This was not how the ‘General Offensive and General Uprising’, the communists’ term for their action, was supposed to have developed. But not being a party member, Cao Ngoc Phượng would not have been privy to the secret ˙ scheme for the urban uprising in Saigon. The original communist plan was to climax in a series of student New Year’s performances and celebrations with a massive gathering in the Tao Dan Park opposite the President’s Independence Palace. At the signal for ‘G hour’, the students were to move en masse into the palace, along with a group of underground special forces, occupying it as the Saigon government structures collapsed and armed liberation forces appeared in the streets. These coordinated actions had been planned to begin on the evening of 4 February and continue into the early morning of 5 February. But when General Trần Va˘n Tra` returned from Hanoi in early January, he brought the news that the offensive was now scheduled for the first night of Tết, 30 January. This upset the plans for the student gathering, which never reached its grand finale.10 Not much went according to plan during the offensive. The student occupation of Independence Palace never came about, while the units in the Mekong Delta and on the outskirts of Saigon received the order to attack with only hours to spare. The propaganda unit to which Nguyễn Thuy Nga, Leˆ Duẩn’s wife, was assigned was roasting a pig for a Tết feast when˙ at 11 a.m. on 29 January they received the order to move to attack at ‘top speed’.11 A major flaw in the planning had appeared: the opening date for the offensive was 24 hours in advance in locales where Hanoi’s main force units were in charge. In Huế the Tết Offensive began on 29 January; in the Delta and Saigon, the starting date was due to be 30 January. This difference in dates was attributed to a recent change in the DRV Tết calendar, which depends on the phases of the moon – this meant that the regions that had started the offensive later lost the element of surprise and had to rush to catch up. The ARVN troops had already been called back from their Tết leave when the attacks on Saigon began. The communist forces were outnumbered by the US and South

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Vietnamese forces stationed around the city, and without the weapon of surprise, most of the forces attacking from outside could not break through the city’s defences. One has to ask why the difference between the Hanoi and Saigon calendars was overlooked or if there was, in fact, some other reason for the last-minute change of schedule. These unfolding events of January 1968 reflected a gap between the communist planners in Hanoi and the people who were meant to organize the attacks, as well as those expected to rise up to support them. One of the puzzling questions about the Tết Offensive is why this gap existed. The rest of this chapter looks at this and other questions about the Tết turning point, including the hardening political climate in the DRV. Throughout 1968, as the Hanoi government prepared to negotiate with the United States in Paris, it continued to investigate a group of leaders arrested in 1967, for the crime of supporting ‘revisionist’ ideas. Ironically, among these ideas was support for peace negotiations. Finally, the chapter examines the reactions of the Saigon government to the Tết events and the opening of peace talks. One of the results would be widespread arrests of political activists and a growing number of political prisoners. At the same time, those southerners who had before felt sympathetic to the NLF grew increasingly willing to form links with their intellectual peers on ‘the other side’, the side of the communist resistance.

Hanoi’s Purge of Revisionists and Plans for the Offensive The full story of the Tết Offensive begins in the second half of 1967 in Hanoi, where a wave of arrests of senior cadres dampened discussion of issues linked to peace and negotiations. The debates and forces that influenced this crackdown had already altered the political climate in Hanoi in 1963, as was explained in Chapter 3. At that point the Soviet Union had been advocating a peaceful resolution to the conflict and focusing on repairing its tattered relationship with the United States. The cooling of DRV relations with the Soviet Union was not permanent, however. After the American escalation began, Vietnamese – Soviet relations improved, as the post-Khrushchev ruling troika worked to reclaim their leadership of the world revolution. The warmth of this relationship would fluctuate in the coming years, depending on how much aid the Russians were willing to provide and how the Chinese were behaving.

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Figure 5.2 Author with Traˆ`n Bach Ða˘`ng, in 1968 responsible for the ˙ NLF’s Saigon – Gia Ðinh zone, in his home in Hoˆ` Chı´ Minh City, 2004. ˙ He had recently had a stroke. Photographer unknown.

After Khrushchev’s ousting in October 1964, the new prime minister Alexei Kosygin made a visit to Vietnam in February of 1965. This opened a new phase for the two countries – as the US bombing of the DRV began, the Russians offered a steady supply of heavy weapons and advisers. At the same time, the Chinese, who had been a reliable source of food, consumer goods, military equipment and even foreign currency during the early 1960s, became embroiled in their own internal struggle, the Cultural Revolution. The PRC maintained logistical support and anti-aircraft troops in the northern part of the DRV until early 1969, as their share of total foreign aid going to Hanoi gradually decreased. They began their withdrawal of support troops in November 1968 and completed the withdrawal of antiaircraft artillery units the following March.12 When speaking to counterparts in Eastern Europe, Vietnamese diplomats often registered dismay at the way the Cultural Revolution in China was turning a secure rear logistical base into a scene of chaos. The power of the Ninth Plenum Resolution decreeing Vietnam’s ideological unity with the PRC seemed to be waning by 1966, as the necessity of Soviet anti-aircraft technology to defend the DRV became

Figure 5.3 A double amputee in the Quảng Nga˜i Physical Rehabilitation Center. Photo by Paul Quinn-Judge.

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clear. The Vietnamese maintained an even-handed approach in public towards their two socialist patrons, although one senior political adviser, Trần Quỳnh, maintained that the majority in the Vietnamese Politburo continued to favour China.13 However, the Soviet Charge´ in Washington believed that there existed ‘forces of moderation in the DRV’ that wanted to start negotiations with the USA, but that ‘they could not be active while bombs were falling on Hanoi’.14 For reasons that are still not entirely clear, in mid-1967 Hanoi’s relations with its two socialist patrons swung away from the Soviet Union and entered a renewed phase of the campaign against ‘revisionism’. This time around, the attack on those deemed to be ideologically outof-step led to arrests and imprisonment. The official Hanoi explanation of these arrests portrays them as the reaction to one discreet event, a supposed anti-government plot referred to as the ‘Anti-Party Affair’. The controversy arose in part from fear that some Vietnamese leaders close to the Soviet Union were encouraging negotiations to end the war, an issue discussed at the June superpower summit in Glassboro, New Jersey between President Lyndon Johnson and Kosygin. These talks especially disturbed the Chinese leadership, who were becoming more suspicious of Soviet intentions. By 1967 China had slipped into chaos, as the Cultural Revolution grew into pitched battles between rival factions. The growing extremism began to effect foreign relations, as well as internal stability. When Indonesia expelled the Chinese ambassador Yao Tengshan in April, he returned to a hero’s welcome in Beijing and took control of the Foreign Ministry from the Minister Chen Yi. The spillover from this radicalization provoked crises in Hong Kong, Cambodia and Burma in April and May. China’s diplomats were called home in the spring and returned to their posts in June, when a major escalation in the export of the Cultural Revolution began.15 The actions of Chinese diplomats in spreading Maoist propaganda in Burma and Cambodia is well documented; in Vietnam we do not have a clear idea of how active the Chinese were in promoting this new phase of ‘permanent revolution’. But there was certainly a raising of the political temperature in Hanoi in the middle of the year, something that may have been connected to the recall of Hanoi’s diplomatic corps in July. The US State Department began to request reports on the movements of Hanoi’s diplomats at the end of June. The Vietnamese representatives in

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Paris, Beijing, Phnom Penh and Vientiane were known to have returned, and there was reason to believe that the Ambassador in Jakarta had also flown back to Hanoi.16 The British Consul in Hanoi could offer no real information to his colleagues in London as to why this recall was taking place. But it seems logical to assume that it was somehow related to what was happening in Beijing. At the same time, another event occurred in Hanoi that caused a disturbance in communist party ranks. This was the 7 July death of the chief military commissar in South Vietnam, Nguyễn Chı´ Thanh, of heart failure in a Hanoi hospital. He was known as an aggressive proponent of large-unit warfare in the South and was widely believed to be a rival of General Vo˜ Nguyeˆn Gia´p. Whether or not his death had any bearing on the events that followed in August and September is a mystery; it may well have changed the delicate balance of forces within the Politburo. Another unusual aspect of the situation in Hanoi was that Hồ Chı´ Minh had not been seen in the capital by any Western witnesses since 13 April, when he had been visited by two Swedish doctors. He had not made a public appearance on May Day or on his official birthday, 19 May. (He was pictured in the press at an anti-aircraft site in winter clothing, when the temperature in Hanoi was 100 degrees.)17 Hồ was back in Hanoi to meet two French peace envoys, Raymond Aubrac and Herbert Marcovitch, on 24 July, but then in September returned to Beijing until December, for medical reasons.18 The succession to the ailing Hồ Chı´ Minh must have been in the minds of competing factions in the leadership. At the end of August 1967, as preparations for a new stage in the war, the general offensive, were getting underway, a number of Lao Động party members believed to be pro-Soviet began to be arrested. Among these was a former personal secretary to Hồ Chı´ Minh, Vu˜ Ðı`nh Huỳnh. Another of the victims of this first wave of arrests was Hoa`ng Minh Chı´nh, until late 1963 head of the Institute of Philosophy in Hanoi. Although he had been removed from this post, he was still known as one of the Vietnamese proponents of ‘peaceful co-existence’. Another group of people, not all members of the party, were arrested in October and December. The arrests of these men and the subsequent accusation that they were involved in a pro-Soviet plot against the Lao Động Party became known as the ‘Hoa`ng Minh Chı´nh Affair’ or ‘The Anti-Party Affair’.19 Around 30 high-level figures were arrested, and perhaps as

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many as 300 altogether, including generals, theoreticians, professors, writers and television journalists trained in Moscow. The memoirs of Vu˜ Ðı`nh Huỳnh’s son, Vu˜ Thư Hieˆn, who was arrested just before Christmas in 1967, have become a major source on this affair. Published in Germany in 1997 as Deˆm Giữa Ban Nga`y (Darkness in the Daytime), his account of his arrest and interrogation, has not been published in Vietnam. But its basic themes are corroborated by the letters and petitions for the restitution of civic rights from other victims of the affair, in particular by Hoa`ng Minh Chı´nh himself, who finally passed away in 2008, after many years of prison, solitary confinement and house arrest. His first imprisonment lasted until 1972; after that he was kept under house arrest until 1978. When he petitioned for restitution of his civic rights in 1981 he was rearrested for another six years, this time followed by three years of house arrest.20 It has been difficult to determine the significance of these events in late 1967 and 1968. The obvious conclusion is that Party members considered as hostile to the escalation of the war and the Tết Offensive were being incarcerated to quell any dissent within the regime. In November, a decree from the Standing Committee of the National Assembly, headed by Trường Chinh, prescribed ‘death sentences, life prison terms and lesser penalties for a long list of “counterrevolutionary crimes”, including espionage, sabotage, security violations and the crime of opposing or hindering the execution of national defense plans’.21 The British Consulate in Hanoi later reported on a Nhaˆn Daˆn editorial of March 1968, discussing the revival of Law no. 63, which the analyst described as a ‘vehicle for the legal disposal of any dissident members or factions in the Party’.22 This editorial presumably was referring to the November Decree. The fact that these men were held in prison until 1972, and rearrested if they made an effort to gain redress, leads one to believe that they were considered a long-term threat by some faction of the leadership. Vu˜ Thư Hieˆn, educated in Moscow, a non-Party member who was known in Hanoi as a talented translator of Russian literature, offers his own explanations for the wave of arrests. During his prison interrogation he was closely questioned about his father’s relations with General Vo˜ Nguyeˆn Gia´p.23 He concludes that Leˆ Ðức Tho and Leˆ Duẩn viewed ˙ Gia´p as a rival for power, and thus concocted the story of a coup plot to discredit him, along with other influential, second-tier cadres who were

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considered to be pro-Soviet. At another point in his narrative, Hieˆn writes that Leˆ Đức Tho may have led Leˆ Duẩn astray with his story of a ˙ Soviet plot.24 As Hieˆn points out, the only formal accusation against the ‘modern revisionists’ came four years later, at a Central Committee plenum in January 1972, when Leˆ Đức Tho announced that there had ˙ been a conspiracy to overthrow the Party leadership.25 The Soviet Ambassador Ilia Shcherbakov and his Second Secretary Rashid Khamidulin were accused of links with the plotters.26 A further clarification of the charges was made in a document titled, ‘The Activities of a Number of Enemy and Opposition Forces’, circulated to party members in April 1994 by the Hanoi party committee. This document explained that in July 1967, Hoa`ng Minh Chı´nh and others involved in the Anti-Party Affair got hold of the secret transcript of a Vietnamese –Chinese consultation. They found a way to send these minutes abroad, and for this reason the security organs arrested Hoa`ng Minh Chı´nh and three others. At the same time the accused were said to be collecting documentation that amounted to an opposition programme or theses in opposition to the party.27 If such a transcript exists, it would tell us a lot about the Chinese attitude and advice given to Hanoi regarding the Tết Offensive, advice proffered at the peak of the Cultural Revolution.

Organizing the Offensive and General Uprising From the various accounts of the Tết Offensive provided by Vietnamese military historians since 1975, one can see that there is still controversy surrounding its organization and aims. US scholar David Elliott has pointed out many gaps and anomalies in the official record in his study of the war in Mỹ Tho province. His description of the Tết decision as ‘incremental, contested and improvisational’ conveys the mood of the times, especially the fact that the schedule was changed more than once to push the offensive forward.28 From the American side, it seemed clear that some leaders in Hanoi were supporting negotiations in 1967, since they agreed to receive the peace envoys from Paris, Aubrac and Marcovitch. (These two carried a proposal to Hanoi approved by President Johnson, passed to them in Paris by Professor Henry Kissinger.) But in late August and September the Vietnamese contacts involved in this peace initiative, codenamed ‘Pennsylvania’ by the USA, went

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dead. The French envoys received no reply to a second proposal sent on 25 August via the Vietnamese representative in Paris. They were not invited back to Hanoi. One of the Vietnamese diplomats closest to these negotiations, Lưu Ðoa`n Huynh, later revealed that he had had responsibility for drawing up negotiating documents for talks with the Americans in 1966 and 1967. Most of the files were ready by August 1967, ‘just in time’, as he put it. But at that point, ‘because of illness and exhaustion’, he says, ‘I had to ask for a transfer to the China division’.29 This appears to be Huynh’s diplomatic way of hinting that the negotiating process was cut short by the Vietnamese. The fact that on 20 August American planes bombed targets around Hanoi may have been linked to the breakdown in talks. The British Consulate reported that the bombing of targets close to Hanoi, including the power station and the main bridge over the Red River, was inducing a ‘spy fever’ in Hanoi.30 At the same time, the decision to stage an offensive had already been made and it would seem that, whatever support for immediate peace talks had existed in July had collapsed by late August. From 20 –4 October the Politburo met and decided that they could carry out the offensive earlier than they had initially planned, as the 1988 official history of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) states.31 This meeting was chaired by Trường Chinh and included Pham ˙ Va˘n Đồng, Nguyễn Duy Trinh, Leˆ Thanh Nghi, Va˘n Tiến Du˜ng, Trần ˙ Quốc Hoa`n and Leˆ Đức Tho. A number of Politburo members were ˙ absent from Hanoi at the time, including Hồ Chı´ Minh and Vo˜ Nguyeˆn Gia´p, the latter having flown to Hungary for medical treatment.32 Leˆ Duẩn was also absent, having already departed for the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution in Moscow.33 Although Leˆ Duẩn is usually presented as the key proponent of the Tết Offensive, the military planning was carried out by General Va˘n Tiến Du˜ng, possibly according to plans drawn up by Nguyễn Chı´ Thanh before his death.34 A recent history of the Southern Resistance War, Lich Sử Nam Bộ _ Kha´ng Chiến, reinforces the picture of the planning for the offensive as rushed and overly ambitious.35 The People’s Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF) General Trần Va˘n Tra` was the first to make this judgment public, for example in a 1988 article for the Journal of Military History (Tap Chı´ Lich Sử Quaˆn Sự), later translated for publication in the USA.36 _ _ As he explained, ‘It was not until the end of October and the beginning

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of November 1967 that the Party Central Office for the South [COSVN], Regional Command (B2), and a number of key cadres at the key fronts (Eastern area and Saigon – Gia Ðinh) were informed of the ˙ Political Bureau’s Resolution, and began discussing its general directives and details.’37 Had it not been for earlier plans drawn up in 1964–5, when the concept of a ‘general offensive, general uprising’ was first designed, the task would have been too challenging, General Tra` says. As it was, ‘the field command was caught somewhat by surprise and had to hurriedly review the old plan and set out to complete it’.38 At the heart of the confusion over the Tết planning seems to be the vexed question of what an appropriate revolutionary victory would look like. Since 1964, there had been voices in the leadership that claimed that ‘it is necessary to smash the reactionary administrative machinery and the imperialists’ mercenary army. This Revolution can and should be settled only by the use of revolutionary acts and the force of the masses to defeat enemy force. It absolutely cannot be settled by treaties and accords.’39 This insistence on a ‘violent military victory’ was also the clearly stated view of Chinese leader Mao Zedong, who feared any signs of negotiation between the Vietnamese and the Americans.40 The Chinese view was that until a violent military victory was possible, the Vietnamese should not attempt to take over the cities. The Chinese leadership, moreover, had by June 1966 accused ‘proKremlin revisionists’ of infiltrating the DRV leadership, ‘producing a struggle between those who backed fighting until military victory . . . and those who favored talks to end the war quickly’. Zhou Enlai referred to Leˆ Duẩn as someone who had ‘changed course’. ‘Until now he had been a leftist’, Zhou said.41 In 1967 – 8, Leˆ Duẩn justified Zhou’s critique. On his return from Moscow, he called for a ‘decisive victory’, but at the same time made it clear in his January 1968 speech to the Central Committee that his plan, in 1968 as in 1963, was to fight for a coalition government and negotiations. In his speech, the only one by a Politburo member published among the documents from the Fourteenth Plenum, he argues in support of the potential of the urban opposition. ‘From the time that the Buddhist movement failed, the leadership belonged to us’, he claimed. ‘Now we have done our research – the Saigon movement, from beginning to end, is violent. The political struggle movement in Saigon is violent.’42 In other words, Duẩn was making it

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clear that these urban forces were not simply reformists who wanted to take power in a military coup, as had occurred in 1963. They were prepared to use both political and military means to bring the Thiệu government to its knees. But in the same speech, he declares that the goal of the ‘General Uprising’ will not be an outright communist victory. I will say more about this below. The plans made in October and November made ambitious demands on the youth of Saigon. On 25 October, COSVN issued its Quang Trung Resolution on the General Offensive and General Uprising.43 This decision followed a visit earlier in October by General Nguyễn Va˘n Vı˜nh to inform the COSVN leadership of the programme and timing for the offensive. Around this time the concrete aims for Saigon and the plan to develop the uprising were laid out. The eight objectives to be taken over included the General Staff Headquarters, Chı´ Ho`a prison, the government radio station, Independence Palace and the US Embassy. For each of these targets an advance battalion was designated to move in from outside the city; in each case, with the exception of the US Embassy, a group of urban youth and students was to link up with the regular forces on the spot. For the General Staff headquarters, the youth group was to be 5,000 strong. At Chı´ Hoa` prison, there were to be 1,000 youth on hand. The lowest number of youth projected to occupy an objective was 200 (pp. 583– 4). The youth were divided into three groups: the Youth Group armed force (special forces), the armed political forces and the legal (coˆng khai) political force. The role of the legal group was to ‘raise the flag for peace and neutrality’ in order to gather various layers of the population such as intellectuals, patriotic personalities and religious dignitaries’ (p. 585). There were also underground party members within the city, including 325 ‘loyal families’ who were charged with finding 400 places to billet troops. These families arranged the secret storage points located near each of the targets, where weapons smuggled into Saigon were hidden (p. 584). In his January speech to the Central Committee, Leˆ Duẩn is full of optimism as he describes the new front that will spring to life out of the uprising. The new front will ‘gather together all the people who have not joined the National Liberation Front, because they see it as communist’. The imperialists would see that this is not a communist government.

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We will bring all the personalities close to the French into this government; even those who have worked with the Americans for a long time, if they are not dangerous – we can also include them. We are strong, we will confuse the other side, we will divide them. There will be a new front, with a new name and a different flag . . . in the North there will be one government, in the South there will be two governments: the Liberation Front and the new front. There will be three, but one, like the earth with the sky.44

Creating the Alliance of National, Democratic and Peace Forces The thinking of Leˆ Duẩn at this juncture seems to have been somewhat out of touch with reality. He may have been clinging to the belief that the popular uprising in Central Vietnam of 1966 could be replicated, but this time controlled by underground communist cadres. It is unclear how much he knew about the roundup of NLF political organizers in Saigon that occurred in the middle of 1967. It had been a serious blow to the organization of the neutral group of leaders who, according to Duản’s plan, were to play a key role in setting up a new government in Saigon. The Tết Offensive would aim to destroy the RVN government and replace it with a coalition of respected citizens who could negotiate with the NLF to form a new southern government. The citizens who would emerge to lead this coalition were to come from the Alliance of National, Democratic and Peace Forces, the Third Segment group that should have been organized in Saigon by NLF activist Trương Như Tảng. The plan went awry when Tảng and many of his Saigon comrades were arrested in a sweep of urban activists in mid-1967. Trương Như Tảng’s account of this episode provides a glimpse of the measures the southern regime employed to crush their political opposition. After he was driven to the Secret Police interrogation centre, in a villa that had once been a casino run by the Bı`nh Xuyeˆn mafia, he was quickly informed that his role in the NLF urban underground had been given away by one of his colleagues, a seemingly hard-line communist named Ba Tra`. Although Tảng was not a communist party member, to the Saigon government his NLF work made him as good as one, meaning that he did not have any legal rights under the

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constitution. As he was marched down the prison corridor to his cell, he saw a sight that inspired him with horror. ‘Sprawled out on the floor the whole length of the corridor were people chained together by the ankles. Many of their faces were bloody and swollen; here and there, limbs jutted out at unnatural angles.’45 This was the start of days of torture (by a local variation on water boarding and electric shock). He recalls lying ‘in the dark on the hard cement without eating or sleeping, listening to the screaming night after night and day after day’. After one month, he was longing for death, when his wife tracked him down and bribed the chief interrogator with $6,000 to transfer him to the National Police prison. There, she hoped, he would not disappear without a trace. The only other price Tảng had to pay was to sign an admission that he was a communist. At this point he was willing to make up a date on which he supposedly joined the Party. The National Police prison was not a torture centre, but the inmates were locked in dark, solitary confinement, with no exercise other than a weekly trip to the showers. This is where Tảng spent the Tết Offensive, when an attack on the prison brought fleeting hope to the inmates. The sounds of battle lasted only several days and the prison routine returned to normal all too soon. In February, however, a prisoner exchange organized by the chief of intellectual mobilization for the Saigon– Gia Ðinh zone, Trần Bach Đằng, brought a sudden change of fortune for ˙ ˙ Tảng and a few other prisoners, including Đằng’s wife. They were swapped for an American prisoner of the NLF and eventually wound up at COSVN, the Politburo’s nerve centre for the southern battlefield, on the Cambodian border. In the spring, after the released prisoners had recuperated from their ordeal, the Alliance of National, Democratic and Peace Forces was finally launched, in a ceremony held in NLF headquarters, hidden in the jungle of Taˆy Ninh province. The southerners who made their way to this meeting were largely members of the Saigon elite: lawyers, teachers, engineers, businessmen and the woman doctor, Dương Quynh Hoa, a childhood friend of Tảng. The presidency went to Trinh Ðı`˙nh Thảo, a ˙ well-known lawyer of 70; engineer Laˆm Vaˆn Tết, a leader of the civilian council that had taken power after Diệm’s overthrow, was made a vice president, together with the scholarly Buddhist monk, Thı´ch Ðoˆn Hậu, who had pledged to join the Alliance during the communist occupation of Huế. Professor Toˆn Tha´t Dương Ky, one of the three peace ˙

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activists who had been expelled to the DRV in 1965, was chosen to be secretary general.46 This new front was designed to unite the nationalist, non-communist opposition in South Vietnam into a group that could be called on to enter a coalition government with the NLF. Several of its members would join the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) that would be formed in June 1969 to take part in the Paris peace negotiations. Trương Như Tảng would be named Minister of Justice. As he explains, the NLF’s increased reliance on the DRV communists, after the Americans sent their troops into Vietnam, had made their independence suspect. The Alliance was to be formed of noncommunists (and at least one underground party member) who, it was hoped, would inspire trust among the southern population. The difficulty was that they were forced to remain in the communist zone, as an affiliate of the NLF, once President Thiệu sentenced them all to death in absentia and confiscated their property.47 Thus they could not carry out any independent political activity and depended on Hanoi for their access to the West. However, there were other Third Segment nationalists who refused to join the Alliance, judging correctly that they could be more useful if they remained in Saigon to act as an independent opposition to President Thiệu. Some of this group, including Father Nguyễn Ngoc Lan, the agronomist Chaˆu Taˆm Luaˆn and the lawyer, Mrs ˙ Ngoˆ Ba´ Tha`nh,48 were invited after Tết to visit the Liberated Zone, known simply as the ‘Khu’ or ‘zone’ among the activists, to hold discussions with Trần Bach Đằng. He possessed the political skill to ˙ maintain their sympathies with the NLF and to keep channels of 49 communications open.

The Long-Term Impact of Tết on the Political Opposition The Tết Offensive was a collision of voluntarist faith with the reality of an unfavourable balance of forces. The enthusiasm for the attacks among the NLF and their supporters grew out of the belief that victory and peace would finally be theirs.50 One former student activist described to the author how she and her husband rode around Saigon on their Honda, singing revolutionary songs in the days leading up to the offensive, as though victory had already been achieved. A Buddhist activist from the General Students’ Union cultural troupe describes the performances put

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on at schools and university faculties around the city, to celebrate the coming Tết holidays. Patriotic songs and dances representing historic victories of the Vietnamese people were a fixture at these shows. At a 26 January performance, just days before the culmination of ‘Tết Quang Trung’, the official name for the Offensive and Uprising, she describes how the students from groups all over Saigon and neighbouring provinces ended their show with a tableau accompanied by singing and drumming. The words of the final song, ‘Before our country’s dishonor, should we make peace or should we fight?’ provoked a roar from performers and the thousands of spectators, who shouted, ‘We are determined to fight!’ These student shows were a form of uprising, to mobilize the people of Saigon for the General Offensive, she says.51 The final performance never occurred, however, and many of the students involved were arrested between the end of the first and start of the second phases of the Offensive. Trần Tuyết Hoa, the student performer, ended up in prison with the pregnant daughter of Professor Toˆn Tha´t Dương Ky, Quynh Như. The police had taken her into custody because her ˙ ˙ had already gone into hiding when they came to arrest him. husband The Tết Offensive in Huế ended with the near destruction of the city by American bombing and a massacre of prisoners held by the communists, carried out as they prepared to retreat. The discovery of the bodies in mass graves, months after the offensive, led to the ‘bloodbath theory’ – the belief that countless Vietnamese who worked in the RVN infrastructure would be murdered if the communists won the war. This became a persuasive argument against reducing the US commitment to the Thiệu government. But in Saigon, most of the city remained under government control; according to Trần Bach Đằng, there were no ˙ reported incidents of mistreatment of the ordinary people.52 Whether or not that is accurate, many civilians died in the rocket attacks of the NLF and the US bombing of areas taken over by the guerrillas, in particular in District 8. In both Huế and Saigon there were signs of popular support for the offensive that we in the West rarely heard about. Two of the oldest Buddhist temples in Saigon – Gia Ðinh, Đức Laˆm in Taˆn Bı`nh district ˙ and Gia´c Laˆm nearby, provided meeting places for the Tết organizers.53 In Huế, the surfacing of the Buddhist monk Thı´ch Ðoˆn Hậu as a member of the non-communist opposition to President Thiệu, was a sign that not all of the Buddhist leadership had dropped out of the

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anti-war movement. He had been a long-time activist in Central Vietnam, first associated with the Buddhist reform movement in the 1930s and later known as a supporter of the Việt Minh. Sentenced to be shot by the French in 1947 in Huế, he was saved by the intervention of the Emperor Bảo Ðai’s mother, Từ Cung.54 Thus he was a well-known ˙ figure among the Buddhists of Central Vietnam, who seems to represent the blurring of lines between the ‘Front and non-Front’ blocs of the population, as defined by Thı´ch Nhất Hanh. Thı´ch Ðoˆn Hậu ended up ˙ at NLF headquarters, along with Trương Như Tảng. When the first phase of the Tết attacks subsided in February, the urban youth and other activists who had openly participated found themselves in danger. Their acceptance of violence and co-optation into the communist plan for a popular uprising may have happened without their full awareness of Hanoi’s role. But once they had been arrested and dumped into the growing South Vietnamese network of prisons, there was little chance that they would meekly accept the rule of Nguyễn Va˘n Thiệu. A total of 16,000 political prisoners were detained in 1968 alone, according to an end-of-year report to Saigon’s National Assembly. Prisoners regularly waited for as long as six or seven months before they could be given a hearing. US sources estimated that at least 20,000 political prisoners were being held, some who had been in detention since 1966. A leader of the Saigon Student Union claimed that it was ‘government suppression, not communist ideology, which causes the students to join the NLF’.55 Nguyễn Hữu Tha´i, the leader of the Saigon students in 1964– 5, had been in prison since the end of the 1966 movement and was not released until after the Tết Offensive – to be drafted into the army. Don Luce, from a small town in Vermont, was one of the most dedicated of the young American volunteers who by 1968 –9 were driven to bear witness to the consequences of the war. He had first worked in Central Vietnam beginning in 1958, as an agricultural adviser under the auspices of the International Voluntary Service (IVS). By 1968 he had resigned in protest against US policies and was working with the World Council of Churches in Saigon. He learned from student friends about what was happening in the prisons and began to carry out his own investigations. The high numbers of people who passed through the prison system made it difficult for the USA to claim ignorance of the treatment meted out to men and women, young and old; US advisers

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were in fact the source of information on numbers of prisoners. In December 1968, Mr Luce wrote that he had seen in the office of the USAID prison adviser a chart of the number of prisoners in Correction Centres (32,689), of whom 20,050 were ‘civilian defendants’, that is, ‘people put in prison for political reasons’.56 As for the professional people who advocated peace, their legal opposition to the war, if anything, expanded after the Tết Offensive. The next chapter will deal with the opposition press in Saigon and its increasingly active role in the 1970s. Among the politicians, Trương Ðı`nh Dzu continued to make President Thieu anxious, even after the ˙ election of Richard Nixon, a strong Thiệu supporter, as US president in November 1968. In May, Dzu had taken the impolitic step of calling publicly for a coalition government and negotiations with the NLF, earning himself a trial in military court and a sentence to five years of hard labour, handed down on 26 July 1968. He was sent to the prison island of Coˆn Sơn (Poulo Condore) to keep him away from delegations of US dignitaries investigating the state of the war. His advantage over Thiệu was his son, David Trương, a Stanford student who turned himself into a full-time anti-war lobbyist in Washington, DC. David kept his father’s case before the public, befriending Congressmen and -women, as well as journalists. By 1969, pressure from the USA forced Saigon to bring his father back to the mainland for medical treatment. But he would not be released from prison before the end of the war. Trương Ðı`nh Dzu’s lawyer, Trần Ngoc Liễng, became the leader of the ˙ ‘Progressive National Committee’, a group that in mid-1969 was calling for a government of reconciliation for South Vietnam. In an interview with the New York Times, lawyer Liễng stated that ‘the real salvation of South Vietnamese freedom lies in “nationalist” forces that are not Communist but that give no real support to Thiệu and his Americansponsored regime’. He was already mentioning General Dương Va˘n Minh as a figure who might lead such a government, a government that would be ‘empowered to prepare and organize elections to determine the political future of South Vietnam’.57 Trần Ngoc Liễng and his fellow committee ˙ members now were convinced that ‘the greatest political difficulty for nationalist forces’ was the ‘adamant and overpowering American political, military and economic support for the Thieu regime’.58 The Catholic intellectual community also began to think about the political path to ending the war in late 1968. Lyndon Johnson’s

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announcement on 31 October, that full peace talks in Paris would begin in early November, with Hanoi, the Saigon government and the NLF all at the table, forced those Catholic leaders to begin pondering the longterm survival of the Catholic Church in a Vietnam where they would have no foreign protectors. The Vatican under Pope Paul VI was encouraging reconciliation and dialogue with Marxist governments and parties in Europe, so such discussions in South Vietnam existed in harmony with trends in the worldwide Church. Historian of the Catholic peace movement, Trần Thi Lieˆn, explains that: ˙ the option of a negotiated solution, which until then had been considered as pro-communist, now appeared possible, as the Americans had opened negotiations with North Vietnam in Paris in May 1968 . . . The fact that this discussion of negotiating with the enemy was taking place at all, even among progressive Catholics, was revolutionary. To them, the longer the war continued, the more the risk of a total communist victory grew.59 Professor Nguyễn Va˘n Trung, who had been one of the first Catholics in South Vietnam to call for an examination of the injustices within southern society, in October 1968 published a 117-page booklet titled The Communists, My Brothers: Roman Catholicism and Communism in Vietnam. This publication reviews the history of Catholic missionary work and conversion in Vietnam, and also describes the post-Vatican II dialogue that was beginning in Europe. He laments that the Church lagged behind the communists in addressing the ‘sufferings and struggles of the workers’ in the nineteenth century. All the papal encyclicals on social problems, all actions of social struggle movements originating from Christianity were too late – about half a century after Marxism and the Communist movement . . . Until now, almost everywhere, the Catholic Church institutionally still sides with the rich, the master, and still defends the oppressing and unjust orders.60 Finally, he develops the argument that ‘a policy based on a foreign country to defend the religion until now has only resulted in failures and it must push the Catholics to re-examine the effects which are more

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harmful than advantageous, and harmful in the long range while advantageous only in the short term’. Referring to the 1954 migration of Catholics to the South, he then asks, And if in the future, there will be another migration, certainly not all Catholics in the South will be able to go and those remaining will receive all consequences of the accomplices and connections with imperialism. For that reason, the first thing to be reviewed is: have the individuals and organizations that make anti-communist politics by force, that connect with the foreign country and are capable of going away in case of failure, the right to leave behind a heritage of fiasco that the remaining Catholics must suffer?61 Professor Trung’s logic was powerful, yet the Republican party’s policymakers, who would inherit the Vietnam conflict from the Democrats after the 1968 election, remained focused on preserving the government of Nguyẽn Va˘n Thiệu.

The Changing of the Guard in America The year 1968 is now remembered in the United States as a time of violence and discord. The April and June assassinations of two outspoken opponents of the Vietnam War, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, created a polarized climate for the November presidential election. Chicago mayor Richard Daley’s police attacks on peaceful anti-war demonstrators at the Democratic nominating convention strengthened the sense of America’s descent into tribal civil war. Both the Republican and Democratic Parties’ establishments were facing off against the young, the pacifists and anti-war activists of all ages, and increasingly the African American population. To help the campaign of Hubert Humphrey, his vice president and the Democrat’s nominee, President Johnson on 31 October announced a total bombing halt over North Vietnam, expanding the cessation north of the 20th parallel, announced in March. This brought the breakthrough in the stalled Paris negotiations that enabled Johnson to claim that constructive four-part talks on ending the war would begin on 6 November, the day after the election. Mr Humphrey’s poll numbers began to close in on Richard Nixon’s lead immediately after this promise of peace.

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Nixon’s reaction to this ‘October surprise’ was a blatant act of interference in the conduct of US foreign policy. Using the Republican operative Anna Chennault as his go-between, he passed the message to President Thiệu that he should hold out for a Nixon victory, as the Republicans would press for a better deal at the Paris negotiations. When Thiệu accordingly declared that his government would not participate in the Paris talks, the Nixon campaign was able to disparage Johnson’s promise of peace and win the popular vote by a very thin 1 per cent margin. President Johnson’s now declassified White House tapes reveal that he learned of Nixon’s role in orchestrating Thiệu’s withdrawal by bugging the South Vietnamese Embassy in Washington. However, the Democrats never revealed what they knew about Nixon’s interference as they preferred not to reveal to their South Vietnamese allies that the FBI had been listening to their phone calls. The BBC account of this affair sums up its results bluntly: Once in office he [Nixon] escalated the war into Laos and Cambodia, with the loss of an additional 22,000 American lives – quite apart from the lives of the Laotians, Cambodians and Vietnamese caught up in the new offensive – before finally settling for a peace agreement in 1973 that was within grasp in 1968.62 One can infer that another result of Nixon’s interference was that Nguyễn Va˘n Thiệu remained the president of the RVN until the final month of that government’s life.

The Post-Tết Policies of the DRV The phenomenon known as ‘Tết ’68’ or ‘Tết Mậu Thaˆn’ (‘The New Year of the Monkey’) to the Vietnamese, became a rolling series of attacks that lasted from the end of January to October. In the third phase, from August to the end of October, the NLF strongholds in the countryside were badly weakened, as the villages had been left undefended while the main force units battled on the outskirts of the towns and urban areas.63 The guerrilla forces withdrew across the Cambodian border to regain their strength, but many lives of southern combatants had been sacrificed to the Offensive. In the coming years these losses would be offset by the arrival of more recruits from the North, as the NLF slowly

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rebuilt its strength. By the next major offensive, the Easter Offensive staged in the spring of 1972, the Vietnam War would become predominantly a conflict fought by regular units, with Soviet tanks appearing on the battlefield. The final question to consider for the transformational year of 1968 is how it affected the DRV. One thing that we know is that the victims of the Anti-Party Affair were not released, even though Sino –Vietnamese relations did not markedly improve over the course of 1968. In November Mao finally admitted that the DRV had made a rational choice to begin negotiations in Paris, a decision the Chinese had heavily criticized earlier in the year. As Sino– Soviet relations deteriorated, the Chinese began to feel less worried by Hanoi’s dealings with the USA.64 Yet a growing coolness was developing between the two communist parties. This cooling off was happening during a time when the Workers’ Party leadership was affirming its adherence to certain Maoist doctrines, such as the need to maintain a ‘two-line struggle’ against capitalism in the economy and to strengthen the working-class nature of the party’s leadership. Leˆ Đức Tho, now more than ever the strongman of ˙ the DRV, made these ideas clear in a speech reprinted in Hộc Tập in February 1968. As the man who controlled all appointments within the party bureaucracy, Tho’s views on ‘Constructing a Strong New-style ˙ Marxist– Leninist Working-class Party’ must be seen as decisive for future Workers’ Party policy.65 Although in his speech he rejected the idea that Vietnam would follow one communist model or the other, he did not accentuate the nationalist aspect of the revolution. Instead he emphasized the two-line struggle: ‘we must constantly maintain the struggle between two paths – the collective, socialist path and the path of individualistic capitalism – in all aspects of politics, ideology, the economy, culture and our daily life’. ‘We must constantly struggle against opportunism of left or right’, he continued.66 When he spoke of Party development, he did not bother to camouflage his opposition to the more nationalist wing of the Party. ‘We must choose Party members from the most basic segments of the revolution: the poor peasantry’, he said.67 ‘Rightist deviations’ in the construction of the Party still continue: ‘lately we have not been emphasizing the development of the Party within the working, middle and poor peasant classes, and in places some complex elements as well as a number of people from the exploiting class have been admitted to the

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Party’.68 ‘When we were correcting the errors of the Land Reform campaign and of the Party Rectification, we made the rightist error of restoring the membership of a number of people who should not have been readmitted. This situation has had a negative influence on the Party’s purity’, he claimed. He singled out the upper levels of the Party, where he said the majority of members are ‘petty bourgeois intellectuals’. The problem of cadres’ class origins is very important, he emphasized. This emphasis on class origins underlines the gap that existed between the evolving communism of the DRV and the united front, coalition style of organizing being carried out by the NLF below the 17th parallel. One has to ask what the thoughts of the DRV leadership were regarding the future development of the People’s Revolutionary Party, the southern branch of the Workers Party. Leˆ Duẩn had been hoping that two compatible but separate governments could be set up in the South, with the three Vietnamese governing entities eventually merging to become one. Would the successful establishment of a southern coalition government and national elections have obliged Leˆ Đức Tho to moderate his tone? As Thı´ch Nhất Hanh and other observers ˙ ˙ had noted, the northerners had to rely on the southern NLF to fight the US forces in 1967– 8 and so had to respect their wishes. But what if this relationship were to change, as it in fact did by 1972, as troops from the DRV took over more of the fighting? Later analysis of the terminology used in the Tết planning reveals that there was a basic disagreement as to how the military and civilians would coordinate activities. The final instructions issued by Pham Hu`ng ˙ to the southern forces focused on the term dứt d¯iể m, meaning ‘to take 69 over a target completely’. This emphasized the military aspect of the Offensive and would seem to have de-emphasized the civilian uprising. Such a policy did not leave any ‘wiggle room’ for local political activists, for whom the need to maintain their legal status was important, as they would remain in the areas being fought over, whether or not the campaign led to victory.70 Carrying arms would have compromised their position – in Huế many legal activists had to leave the city after they revealed their communist links during the uprising. The contradictions between the two different concepts of the Tết actions came to a head in 1974, when Trần Bach Đằng was removed from his post as the chief of ˙ political mobilization for the Saigon –Gia Ðı`nh region.71 A document

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titled, Draft Review of the City Party Committee’s Guidance from Tet 1968 until 1974 stated that: This was the period when petit bourgeois ideological concepts grew to their highest level within our Party chapter, especially among a number of comrades in key leadership positions. These errors had existed previously, but now they grew increasingly clear. They were exposed by the belief that the student movement was a proletarian movement, while the workers’ movement was just ‘play acting’; in the tendency to evaluate the workers’ and labourers’ movement in terms of union activities . . . In addition, too much emphasis was placed on conducting overt legal activities, and insufficient attention was paid to secret or semilegal transformational and underground operations.72 By 1974, when the party leadership was preparing for another offensive, they were apparently less willing to rely on the support of the petty bourgeois urban youth, who had been slated to play a major role in the Tết uprising. On the other hand, a number of these bourgeois youth had by 1974 served time in prison and joined the communist party. They could presumably be trusted to follow the party’s orders. But the quiet removal of Trần Bach Đằng from his post did not augur well for those ˙ urban people who identified themselves with the ‘Third Segment’. In August 1968 a shift in the balance within the socialist bloc occurred when the Soviet Union sent troops into Czechoslovakia, to end what had become known as the Prague Spring, a period of experimentation with economic and political reform that was beginning to threaten a weakening of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. This interference in the affairs of a ‘fraternal communist party’ struck fear into the Chinese, who believed they might suffer a similar fate some day. They began to denounce the Soviet Union as a ‘hegemonic power’ that was replacing the United States as the major threat to China. The Vietnamese hard-liners, on the other hand, welcomed this demonstration that Moscow was at last supporting orthodox communist policies and moving away from ‘revisionism’. After the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, a major speech by Trường Chinh was broadcast by Hanoi and printed in the Party’s journal in September and October. The Vietnamese now appeared to feel secure enough to publicize their

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orthodox views on communist theory, without fearing that they would appear too pro-Chinese. With the rise of Leonid Brezhnev to preeminence in the Moscow leadership, the USSR would slide back to more Stalinist economic and political positions. Trường Chinh’s speech in part served as a warning to the southern party not to take coalition politics too far. He made clear that the Party must remain in: undisputed control of the united front at all stages of the national democratic revolution and on no account let it fall into the hands of the ‘bourgeoisie’ – the Party must always preserve its independent identity within the front – the sole purpose of the front’s ‘minimum platform’ (independence and social reform) is to facilitate the realisation of the Party’s maximum platform (the creation of a communist state). The Party ‘must absolutely not allow the national bourgeoisie to lead the national united front’. In his statements of 1968 it is difficult to pick up any hints that he wanted to reduce the DRV’s commitment to the South, that he was a ‘North-firster’. What is notable here is his insistence that the southern revolution must rely on ‘non-peaceful means’ to make the transition to socialism.73 This seems to mean that a negotiated solution leading to a coalition government in the South would not be an acceptable outcome of the war. Possibly when Mao Zedong altered his stance on negotiations, Trường Chinh also moderated his attitude to the four-part talks that started in November in Paris. But there is no sign that his overall ideological outlook changed. As the Cultural Revolution subsided in China and the Soviet Union moved back to more orthodox policies, the Vietnamese leaders were able to re-establish some balance in their relations within the communist bloc. But this balancing act remained a challenge, especially with the outbreak of open Sino – Soviet warfare along the Ussuri River in the spring of 1969. The tightened political control achieved by Leˆ Đức Tho in the aftermath of the ‘Anti-Party Affair’ meant, however, that the ˙ more Maoist members of the leadership could retain their power in Hanoi without direct Chinese backing. Although the DRV became increasingly dependent on Soviet weapons, aid and training, this dependence did not threaten the personal power of either Leˆ Đức Tho or ˙

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Trường Chinh. The place of Leˆ Duẩn in the hierarchy may have weakened, however. He had advocated reformist policies on the economy in 1966–7, under the influence of Alexei Kosygin in Moscow, and the Hanoi economist Trần Phương.74 He had also lost out in a battle with Trường Chinh on the issue of agricultural contracts within cooperatives in 1968.75 As Kosygin’s star waned at the end of 1968, Leˆ Duẩn had to bend to the collective will of a Politburo increasingly dominated by Leˆ Đức Tho and Trường Chinh. The death of Hồ Chı´ Minh in September of ˙ 1969 may also have affected Leˆ Duẩn’s status in a negative way, by removing one moderate voice from the Politburo. The combined effect of the Anti-Party Affair and the aborted urban uprising in Saigon may have resulted in more reserve towards bourgeois nationalists in the South. As the DRV struggled to bring the war to a satisfactory end, this group continued to be given a role to play in the search for peace, especially after the 1973 signing of the Paris Agreement. But by late 1974, Hanoi was criticizing the leadership of the Saigon party and planning for military victory, as the final chapters will show.

CHAPTER 6 VIETNAMIZATION AND SAIGON'S POLITICAL OPPOSITION

Richard Nixon’s pledge to bring the Vietnam War to a close, along with his sabotage of Lyndon Johnson’s planned peace talks, had led to his election victory in November 1968. What grew out of this pledge was an accelerated programme to ‘Vietnamize’ the war – to replace US ground troops with Vietnamese forces. This new policy was unveiled in June 1969, when President Nixon announced an initial schedule for troop withdrawals. Its political consequences in South Vietnam disappointed the members of the urban anti-war movement, for instead of bringing a loosening of controls on political activity, Vietnamization resulted in President Thiệu’s adoption of more repressive mechanisms for political control. Although Thiệu brought the aging civilian Trần Va˘n Hương into his government as prime minister in 1968, as George Herring observes, ‘the prospect of negotiations made Thiệu more reluctant than ever to broaden the base of his government’.1 By August 1969 Hương had been removed by a no-confidence vote and Thiệu’s trusted associate General Trần Thiện Khieˆm had taken over as prime minister. The Thiệu government did send official representation to the Paris talks in January 1969, but the new US administration did not at first make much use of the diplomatic arena for a resolution of the war. They instead opted for an extension of US force into areas of Laos and Cambodia that provided refuge for the Vietnamese communists.

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Bombing of communist Pathet Lao-controlled areas of Laos, mainly the Plain of Jars, resulted in the destruction of the Plain’s civilian society, but did little to curtail the movement of PAVN troops along the Hồ Chı´ Minh trail, which lay further south in the Lao panhandle.2 An ARVN incursion into this area of Laos, staged in February 1971, also failed to disrupt the Hồ Chı´ Minh trail as intended. In fact it was a debacle for the RVN’s army, as intelligence leaks to the NLF/PAVN enabled them to ambush the invading troops as they landed by helicopter. The casualties from this incursion rose to 45 per cent of the attacking soldiers.3 In March 1969, Nixon authorized bombing raids on Vietnamese base camps inside the Cambodian border, including what the Pentagon assumed was COSVN, the command centre for the war in the South. Over a 14-month period extending to April 1970, this secret bombing, code-named Operation Menu, dropped 110,000 tons of bombs.4 But COSVN was in reality a decentralized, mobile headquarters which was disrupted by the bombing but whose personnel largely survived. The neutrality of Cambodian ruler Prince Sihanouk was also deemed to be an obstacle to US progress in Vietnam; he was overthrown by his Prime Minister Lon Nol in March 1970, while on a trip to Europe. Although there was no overt US role in the coup, Sihanouk strongly suspected CIA involvement.5 The final US operation to remove the NLF bases in Cambodia was an incursion announced by Nixon on 30 April 1970. This public expansion of the war reignited the US peace movement and campus protests, but, again, did not change the balance of forces in favour of the Saigon government, much less of US ally Lon Nol. The overthrow of Sihanouk turned out to be one of the most tragic mistakes of the whole US involvement in Indochina. It pushed the Prince and the Vietnamese communists into an alliance with the Khmers Rouges communists, who with Vietnamese help were quickly able to take control of the Cambodian countryside. With Sihanouk as their figurehead in a united front, Pol Pot and his comrades gained the trust of the Cambodian peasantry and many of the youth as well. President Nixon and his National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger did not entirely neglect the peace process underway in Paris. They sent veteran Ambassador David Bruce to lead the US delegation there. But he failed to engage with the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) and responded to the peace proposals of Nguyễn Thi Bı`nh, the head of ˙ their delegation, by calling them ‘old wine in new bottles’.6 At the same

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time, much of Kissinger’s energy went into the creation of a new relationship with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). This was a long-overdue step for American diplomacy, one that, among other things, allowed China to take its seat at the UN, replacing the Taiwanese delegation in 1971. For Nixon and Kissinger, this change in the international strategic balance was a means to exit Vietnam without exposing South East Asia to the dangers of the old ‘Domino Theory’. With a friendly China to help guarantee the peace process, Hanoi would have to fall into line, they reckoned. However, they failed to take into account the Chinese alliance with the Khmers Rouges, a relationship that was not complicated by any divided loyalties since the Soviets never recognized this movement. As the left-wing Khmer coalition gained control of the Cambodian countryside, Beijing was reluctant to pressure the DRV or the Cambodian communists, now allied against the United States, to halt their battles for victory. The US – PRC rapprochement did not result in full normalization of relations until 1978, but Nixon’s 1972 visit to China and the signing of the Shanghai Communique´ would make explicit their common strategic interests linked to curtailing Soviet power. The Nixon visit would signal to the Hanoi leadership that they could no longer count on unconditional support or continued largesse from their northern neighbour.

The Thiệu Government vs Saigon’s Opposition Press and Politicians For anti-war forces in South Vietnam, the focus of peacemaking shifted in 1969 to the negotiations in Paris. They had a reasonable foreboding that their voices would not be heard at the peace conference – the noncommunist opposition doubted that either the Thiệu government delegation or the United States would take the interests of the war-weary Vietnamese people into account. The other preoccupation of the anti-war movement in the early 1970s was to publicize and contest the Thiệu government’s expanding repression of protest. The excesses of the RVN’s prison system became better known in the spring and summer of 1970. In April, Don Luce interviewed a group of students who were recuperating from torture in a lab-turned-dispensary at the College of Agriculture in Saigon. Among them was Cao Thi Queˆ ˙

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Figure 6.1 Father Chaˆn Tı´n, at Ky Dong Church in Saigon, 1974. Photo by Paul Quinn-Judge.

Hương, a young teacher of philosophy from the Ðoa`n Thi Ðiểm High ˙ School in Cần thơ. ‘Her knees are swollen three times their normal size and black and blue welts cover her tiny arms’, he wrote. She had been stripped naked and beaten with police clubs, as other policemen watched and drank whiskey. Her husband, Nguyễn Ngoc Phương, another young ˙ teacher, was brought into the room to watch, in an attempt to force him to sign a confession. He refused and later died in prison after days of torture. That year Lưu Hoằng Tha´o, Deputy Chairman of the Buddhist Van ˙ Hanh University Student Association, spent five weeks in jail. After days ˙ of beatings, and his continual refusal to confess to any crimes, the police put pins under his fingernails, then attached electrodes to his ears, tongue and penis and cranked their generators. They forced soapy water into his mouth as he lay on his back, then trampled on his stomach after it became bloated with the water. (Different variations on water boarding were standard interrogation techniques in the Saigon prisons.)

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Figure 6.2 A demonstration with banner calling for Peace, Food and Clothing, Saigon, 1974. Photo by Paul Quinn-Judge.

In the end they had to inject him with a drug, and take his hand to sign the confession paper. All it stated was that he had ‘liaison with the communists’.7 Some observers theorized that the authorities had released the students as a warning to others, who continued to demonstrate in protest at government repression. Even more shocking was the revelation of conditions in the South’s largest civilian prison, known to the French as Poulo Condore and to the Vietnamese as Coˆn Sơn or Coˆn Dảo. In a ‘Fact Sheet’ put out by the US government’s Public Safety Division, the Director Frank E. Walton described Coˆn Sơ n as having ‘an enlightened and modern administration’.8 But in fact, this island prison 140 miles southeast of Saigon housed the Saigon government’s version of the ‘oubliettes’ in the Bastille, where French prisoners had been left to rot in the days before the Revolution. Don Luce, who had been receiving reports from exprisoners on the island, accompanied a US congressional delegation to Coˆn Sơn in July, along with Congressional aide Thomas Harkins, later the US Senator from Iowa for many years; the Congressmen Augustus Hawkins and William Anderson were the official members. With a map drawn by a former prisoner, Luce was able to lead the group to Camp

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Figure 6.3 Father Nguye˜ˆ n Ngoc Lan at a demonstration in 1974. Photo ˙ by Paul Quinn-Judge.

Four, where they found the tiny metal door leading to the Tiger Cages. These were stone compartments topped by iron bars where prisoners were shackled for months at a time, in groups of three to five. Although the delegation was informed that this door could not be opened, when they rattled the lock a guard turned up to let them in. What they encountered was beyond imagining, in a country where the US government paid the budget of the penal system. Each stone cage of about five feet by nine had one wooden bucket for excrement, which was emptied once a day. On the platform above the cages where the guards patrolled, there were buckets of lime. The prisoners called out to tell the visitors that the guards threw lime down on them when they asked for food. Don Luce translated as they begged in French and Vietnamese for water. The common wisdom was that only communist prisoners were sent to Coˆn Sơn; however, the delegation encountered Buddhist monks in the Tiger Cages who had been imprisoned during the 1966 Struggle Movement. Altogether, the Tiger Cages housed around 300 prisoners, in two different buildings. In the women’s cells, five people were shackled together in each one. The Congressional visit brought the conditions on Coˆn Sơn to the attention of the US public, but in spite of the photos

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Figure 6.4 Huy`nh Lieˆn, leader of the ‘Begging Nuns’, and Mrs Ngoˆ Ba´ Tha`nh demonstrate against the Thiệu government, 1974. Photo by Paul Quinn-Judge.

published in Life magazine, the Tiger Cages continued to be used. Eventually they were replaced by somewhat larger ones. The parliamentary opposition was one of the few forces that remained to broaden the political spectrum in South Vietnam. The legal opposition was small, but composed of eloquent and charismatic personalities, several of whom had become well known in Saigon thanks to their journalism. Their parliamentary immunity from prosecution gave them the freedom to speak out that ordinary citizens did not possess. At the heart of the opposition were three youthful men who entered the political arena during the Constituent Assembly elections in 1966. These three, Ly´ Quı´ Chung, Ngoˆ Coˆng Đức and Hồ Ngoc Nhuận, ˙ ran successfully for places in the Lower House of the National Assembly in 1967. Running in Saigon constituencies, Chung and Nhuận would repeat their success in the 1971 elections, but at that point Ngoˆ Coˆng Đức would be forced into exile, as we shall see. To backtrack for a moment, we should take note of the other opposition leader who might have made a difference in southern politics, Trần Ngoc Chaˆu. Also elected to the Lower House in 1967, he had been ˙

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Figure 6.5 Deputy Hồ Ngoc Nhuận, on right in 1974. Photo by Paul ˙ Quinn-Judge.

removed from the scene by his arrest in 1970, after the capture in 1969 of his brother, Trần Ngoc Hiền, a high-ranking communist proselytizer. ˙ Chaˆu had defected from the Việt Minh in 1950, while a rising military leader, when he realized that he would have to become a communist party member if he continued in a leadership role. Yet he was never wholly at ease in the Saigon government structures, where he tried to convince his superiors of the need for honest, humane service to the ordinary people. His closeness to the more reformist Americans serving in Vietnam, such as John Paul Vann, Daniel Ellsberg and Edward Lansdale, brought him a leading role in the original pacification programme of 1965– 6. It also led him to inform them when his brother Hiền first showed up in Kiến Ho`a Province in 1964, requesting an introduction to the US Ambassador. Vann passed on the message on behalf of the brothers, but Henry Cabot Lodge would not risk the possible fall-out from such a contact. Hiền disappeared from view after this, but returned in 1968, after the first waves of Tết attacks had petered out. This time he tried to convince Chaˆu to take a position in the coalition government being promoted by the NLF. Chaˆu, disturbed by what he had recently observed of the Tết aftermath in Hue, refused to

Figure 6.6 Mrs Ngoˆ Ba´ Tha`nh at her sentencing, being held by her husband. AFSC collection.

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consider the offer. When Hiền’s arrest occurred in 1969, Chaˆu resolved that he should inform the Saigon authorities of their contacts, a step he had thus far avoided. In spite of Chaˆu’s parliamentary immunity, Thiệu worked to strip him of this protection and have him arrested. Having decided against an escape by helicopter to Cambodia (a plan suggested by John Paul Vann), Chaˆu returned to his office at the National Assembly building to await his arrest. He did not want to run, for fear that this might appear to justify the charge that he was a secret communist. Chaˆu’s real problem was that he had begun to challenge Thiệu: elected Secretary General of the Lower House of the National Assembly, he was openly organizing a coalition of deputies and intellectuals to support a peace plan that would have involved direct RVN negotiations with the DRV. On the face of it, this plan seemed to lie firmly within the anti-communist ambit of Chaˆu’s other activities. But the Americans backed off it because they felt it was not loyal to the president. Thiệu, on the other hand, feared that such a plan would cost him the support of his anti-communist base. Chaˆu was sentenced to twenty years, but by the end of 1970 the Supreme Court declared the sentence void. Thiệu, however, who had once been a close friend of Chaˆu’s, refused to set him free, citing a ‘higher law’ than the Constitution, the demands of national security. Trần Ngoc Chaˆu remained in prison until 1974.9 ˙ The 26-year-old Ly´ Quı´ Chung was the second-youngest member of the new assembly (from which, we should recall, all communist candidates, neutralists and a number of Central Vietnamese Buddhists had been excluded). Chung was first elected as part of the Movement to Restore South Vietnam (Phong Tra`o Phuc Hưng Miện Nam), led by ˙ the Catholic engineer Vo˜ Long Triều. He saw the new assembly above all as a place to voice opposition to the war and to US involvement in Vietnam.10 The son of a well-educated civil servant in the French bureaucracy, Chung passed his higher-level Baccalaureate, concentrating on philosophy, at the Lyce´e Yersin in Dalat. He then enrolled at the National Institute of Administration, but left in his second year out of boredom and a growing taste for writing. He became a full-time journalist after he married, against his parents’ wishes, a young woman from the wrong social class. The couple rented a room in a working-class neighbourhood and he wrote to make a living and pay the rent. His first challenge as a journalist was to learn to write expressively in Vietnamese.

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(His French education had treated Vietnamese language as a minor subject.) Chung contributed to the sports pages of a number of publications, from Thanh Vieˆt (Vietnamese Youth), which did not pay its ˙ writers; to the weekly Ðuo´ˆc Thieˆng (The Sacred Torch), for which he wrote about the Tour de France; Buổi Sa´ng (The Morning Paper) and in French for Journal d’Extre`me Orient. In the Lower House, Hồ Ngoc Nhuận, elected from Saigon’s ˙ District 8, was the leader of the New Society group (Nho´m Xa˜ Hội Mới) with around ten members, including Dr Hồ Va˘n Minh and, from Tra` Vinh in the Mekong Delta, Ngoˆ Coˆng Đức. By 1970 Đức had emerged as the acknowledged leader of this group of opposition journalist-politicians. From a wealthy landowning family, a cousin of the Saigon Archbishop, Đức had by then found his role as a publisher and journalist. His father had been killed by the Việt Minh, when Đức was in the first class at the Catholic Lyce´e Taberd in Saigon. Instead of finishing his baccalaureate, he returned home to manage his family’s affairs. In the Diệm years he led the Republican Youth, a Ngoˆ Ðı`nh Nhu creation, in his province. When the NLF began their uprisings in the early 1960s, Nhu encouraged the youth group to engage in intelligence work. But after around one hundred of the youth were killed, Đức refused to allow them to continue this role. For this insubordination, Nhu removed him from his leadership position. So Đức returned to Saigon, aged 25, exempt from military service thanks to his father’s martyrdom, and established himself as a successful journalist and entrepreneur. A new law, passed in 1966, ended his military exemption – this is when he chose to contest the election for the National Assembly in 1967, to become a Deputy rather than a soldier.11 Đức was criticized by the military as a draft dodger, but he in turn pointed out that he knew the names of countless government and military officials who had protected their sons from the draft. Among his list were the sons of the Minister of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, both well-off students in Paris.12 Trần Ngoc Chaˆu recalls his first impression of the young Đức, when ˙ he emerged as a government critic: During our first months in the House, I too resented Đức and several other deputies I regarded as draft dodgers. Gradually

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I realized that they formed the most active group of Southerners opposed to the government’s abuses of power . . . This group of Southern deputies chose the National Assembly as their platform to fight for reform. They also established the only real opposition newspaper, Tin Sa´ng . . . Đức’s group was the first in South Vietnam to generate support from intellectuals and students in the cities. It soon expanded its appeal to the population at large.13 The activist southerners in the National Assembly did not at first unite, but joined separate groupings. In order to gain the privileges given to blocs of twenty or more deputies, Chung eventually gathered the seven deputies from his movement, a group of Buddhists from Central Vietnam led by the former math teacher Phan Xuaˆn Huy (son-in-law of General Minh), and scraped together several more independents to form the 20-member Khối Daˆn Tộc (the Nation Bloc). (A bloc was given an office, and a car with a driver, and its leader had the freedom to speak in debates without registering first.)14 Nhuận’s New Society bloc joined forces with several young deputies identified with the Taˆn Ðai Việt (New Great Vietnam) party, who had been trained at the National School of Administration. In the final National Assembly, elected in 1971, the Nation Bloc and the New Society group merged to form the Society and Nation Bloc (Khối Xa˜ Hội – Daˆn Tộc). All three, Ly´ Quı´ Chung, Hồ Ngoc Nhuận and Ngoˆ Coˆng Đức, ˙ were, by 1970, prominent journalists in Saigon. As Chung wrote in his memoirs, ‘An opposition deputy without a newspaper was like a crab without claws.’15 After 1969 their primary mouthpieces became the daily newspapers Tin Sa´ng (The Morning News) and Ðieˆn Tı´n (The ˙ Telegraph). In his memoir Hồ Ngoc Nhuận claims that Tin Sa´ng, ˙ published and edited by Ngố Coˆng Ðức, was regularly one of the papers with the highest circulation in the South. Notoriety was good for circulation – the fact that both Tin Sa´ng and Ðieˆn Tı´n were ˙ frequently confiscated by the censors and even physically attacked made them more sought after. Ðieˆn Tı´n, where Chung found his ˙ journalistic home, temporarily suspended publication in 1971 after it was fire-bombed. Tin Sa´ng more than once printed the Four and Seven Point Peace Proposals of the PRG, which called for President Thiệu to resign. In response the government organized a demonstration where

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Ðức was burned in effigy; they hung banners in the streets denouncing Nhuận.16 Eventually, in February 1972, following Ðức’s escape to Sweden, the team of journalists from Tin Sa´ng moved to reopen Ðieˆn ˙ Tı´n, where Hồ Ngoc Nhuận became the lead writer. This paper ˙ continued its spirited opposition to the Thiệu government until the last days of the RVN.17 By 1970 Ngoˆ Coˆng Ðứcc and Hồ Ngoc Nhuận were making contacts ˙ with the PRG in Paris, sometimes on personal trips, and at other times via General Minh’s son, Dương Minh Ðức. Both papers backed what became known in 1971 as the ‘Dương Va˘n Minh Solution’ for an end to the war. This was the moment when the role of the ‘Third Segment’ in a peace settlement was becoming an important part of the Paris negotiations.

The Dương Va˘n Minh Solution and the PRG’s Seven-Point Proposal Ngoˆ Coˆng Ðức travelled to Paris in September 1970 to give a press conference at the Hotel Lute´tia. By this time he held the title of Secretary-General of the Socialist Opposition bloc in the National Assembly, as well as President of the Federation of Newspaper Editors of South Vietnam. This conference marked the reappearance of the Third Segment on the international scene, where it had been eclipsed by the government-led peace negotiations. The time had come to alert world opinion to the new reality in Saigon, they believed. The US policy of Vietnamization was turning out to be a prolongation of the war, with total support for the ‘militarists’ in the government of Nguyễn Va˘n Thiệu. As Ðức stated in introducing his peace proposals, The current war is destroying untold human and material resources in South Vietnam. Not including the forces of the NLF, the army of the Republic of Vietnam numbers one million men; to this figure must be added the forces of self-defense, numbering one million men; and the police forces numbering 100,000 men. In other words, two million young people, instead of pursuing their studies and engaging in productive work, are forced to take up arms in order to help American imperialism achieve its political aim in South East Asia.

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The government of Mr. Nguyễn Va˘n Thiệu is a dictatorial government, which persecutes all those who struggle for peace and independence, and jails the innocent. In 1969 the Americans stated that there were only 20,000 (communist) cadres in South Vietnam; at the end of 1969, however, the government arrested more than 70,000 people, and it appears that the number of Communist cadres has not diminished.18 Mr Đức put forward a set of proposals divided into three sections that would lead up to the creation of a neutral, provisional government in South Vietnam. First would come the withdrawal of all American forces and war materiel, along with the forces of Thailand, New Zealand, Australia and South Korea; the Thiệu government would have to end torture and free all illegally held prisoners; and all parties to the war would have to de-escalate, meaning the USA would have to stop the bombing and use of ‘harmful chemical products’ on the territory of South Vietnam; the NLF should halt ‘all indiscriminate bombings by rockets or mortars, which victimize the innocent’. When these conditions had been fulfilled, the Paris Peace Conference should be enlarged. As Đức believed, the overwhelming majority of the South Vietnamese population, who demand peace, independence, democracy, freedom and national reconciliation, are not represented. This is why there must be a delegation representing the political and religious groups and forces . . . in order that it may join the other delegations in finding a concerted solution to the problem of Vietnam. With the addition of this extra delegation, the peace conference could proceed to ‘discuss the conditions for a ceasefire and for the withdrawal of the North Vietnamese forces from South Vietnam and to solve the problem of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam and of the National Liberation Front’. The very last step would be to establish the provisional government, which would ‘establish relations with North Vietnam and organize free elections in South Vietnam’.19 This set of proposals made clear the fact that the South Vietnamese opposition now saw the Americans as the heart of the problem. A US counter-proposal made by President Nixon on 7 October called for a

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ceasefire, but did not show any readiness to compromise over the makeup of the Saigon government. The Executive Committee of the National Union of Students in Saigon blasted Nixon’s proposal for an ‘internationally controlled and immediate cease-fire’ without conditions, saying that it would be ‘a means to legalize the illegal US presence in South Vietnam’.20 However, by the spring of the following year, after the disastrous ARVN invasion of Laos, Henry Kissinger appeared to take a renewed interest in the genuine negotiating process. At the same time, the southern Vietnamese communists were still recovering from their Tết 1968 losses. The Workers’ Party Central Committee plenum at the end of 1970 had to resist pressure from some of its members for another large-scale offensive, in view of those losses.21 By the summer of 1971 they seem to have calculated that the USA was in as much need of a negotiated peace as they were. At this point the PRG and the Hanoi leadership made another concerted effort to revive the peace process. This came in the form of the PRG’s Seven Point Programme, announced in early July at one of the sessions of the Paris Conference. The overall objectives of the seven points (as summarized by Lưu Ðoa`n Huynh) were: (1) to get the Nixon administration to set a date for complete troop withdrawal and the return of POWs; and (2) to get the Nixon administration to join in addressing the political aspect of the Vietnam War.22 The focus of these peace efforts throughout 1971 was the October presidential election in South Vietnam. The PRG’s Seven Point Programme was designed to sway southern public opinion to vote against the incumbent, Nguyễn Va˘n Thiệu, to open a path to negotiations. This programme marked another effort to revive the Geneva framework, in that it called for a peace government in the South, which would lead to neutralization and consultations between North and South on reunification. The push for a negotiated settlement via elections in 1971 involved a number of actors. From early 1971 the French took an active role in pushing the different sides towards a political solution. Although they had to admit by 1970 that the ‘institutional frame’ of the Geneva Conference was outdated, they still held to the idea that the fundamental principles established at Geneva remained an important measure of any peace initiative. The Ambassador to China, Etienne Manac’h, wrote to his Foreign Ministry that, the ‘ground-floor’ of any structure of peace

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would have to be established by the Vietnamese themselves, but a true solution would rest on a new ‘international equilibrium’ involving the Soviet Union, the USA, and China, with France serving as a ‘poˆle de rapprochement’ among the communist powers and the USA.23 The Quai d’Orsay had a strong interest in keeping the Paris negotiations alive, as records of their diplomatic conversations show. Their conversations with the PRG Foreign Minister, Nguyễn Thi ˙ Bı`nh, and Leˆ Đức Tho, now Kissinger’s Hanoi counterpart in secret ˙ negotiations, make it clear that they still saw the Geneva framework as a useful basis for negotiations. But the French acknowledged that an enlarged international conference could only serve to guarantee any settlement agreed on in Paris. Foreign Minister Maurice Schumann, in a February 1971 conversation with Madame Bı`nh, claimed that he had tried to convince President Nixon in 1969 that ‘there was a possibility of seeing a political solution take shape’. This would be based on a ‘neutral and independent South Vietnam’, he explained.24 In order to convince the Americans that they should move back to negotiating, the minister said that they needed to be shown that ‘escalation would lead to nothing’ and that there existed a concrete possibility of a political solution. The failure of the ARVN’s incursion into Laos would take care of the first point, he felt. As for the question of a political solution, he told Mme Bı`nh, ‘you may have to help us a little’.25 In this exchange Mme Bı`nh expressed scepticism as to whether there was anyone on the political horizon who could lead a neutralist force. She even asked the Director of the Foreign Ministry’s Department for Asia and Oceania, Henri Froment-Meurice, if he had encountered any personalities who might play this role.26 When pushed by the French to define how the PRG would define a Saigon administration favourable to peace and what actions it should take, she said the following: We want to see an administration established in Saigon without Thiệu-Kỳ-Khieˆm, but at the moment we have no idea who is capable of being ‘inserted’ in this administration. Dương Va˘n Minh has declared that he will run [in the election], but since then he has done nothing . . . we are ready to hold discussions with an administration that is not in favour of pursuing the War, that would not back Vietnamization, that would not support the mutual slaughter of Vietnamese, but that would support a peaceful

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solution, that is to say peace, independence and that other aspect of independence, neutrality.27 She continued by explaining how the PRG would negotiate with a ‘peace administration’ to establish a provisional coalition government to hold elections. Such a coalition would have three segments: one composed of members of the Saigon administration who supported peace, another from the PRG and a third composed of representatives of political and religious forces who were linked neither to the Saigon government nor the PRG, what was now regularly referred to as the ‘Third Segment’. This formula outlined the political solution proposed in the Seven Points later that year. In a follow-up conversation on 22 March, M. Froment-Meurice asked that Mme Bı`nh consider what the PRG might do to clear up ambiguities about their attitude to a new administration in the South, without Thiệu. She responded by saying that, ‘For the US, the best way of resolving the Vietnam problem would be to negotiate with the PRG; but if Mr Nixon desires, these elections could be an exit door.’28 She was now ready to admit, as well, that she had met South Vietnamese political figures in Paris who agreed with the French view of the coming elections as a good chance to escape from the impasse of war. A meeting between Leˆ Đức Tho and Foreign Minister Schumann on ˙ 27 July provides a further example of how persistently the French were promoting the electoral solution to the War. It also reveals their awareness that the planned Nixon visit to China might be viewed by the Vietnamese as an attempt to escape from the confines of the Paris negotiations and make peace over their heads. In this conversation Leˆ Đức Tho described the Seven Point Proposal as ‘reflecting the ˙ fundamental points of the Geneva Accords of 1954’, but with more flexibility and generosity. Regarding political issues, he stated that ‘the replacement of the Nguyễn Va˘n Thiệu administration is the key to a political settlement in South Vietnam’. Like Nguyễn Thi Bı`nh, Tho ˙ ˙ expressed doubt that there could be ‘truly democratic’ elections held in the South under the Thiệu regime. But he promised that ‘when there is a new administration in South Vietnam calling for peace, independence, neutrality and democracy, the PRG will immediately begin negotiations with such an administration, in order to find a political solution to the problem of South Vietnam’.29

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Maurice Schumann emphasized his understanding that the Seven Points proceeded from the idea that questions of war and peace would be settled by the Vietnamese themselves. Thus a peace settlement would have to be negotiated first of all by the Vietnamese: Certainly, we have always judged that, as in 1954 and 1962, and perhaps even more today, the effective participation of China in the negotiations is an essential, even indispensable, element for peace. But we do not believe that it is the role of the great powers and superpowers to substitute themselves for those parties who are directly interested. Thus, if we rejoice at anything that brings China back into the ranks of the powers [concert des puissances] and to the negotiating table, we think that the negotiations themselves are the responsibility of those who have suffered and felt the weight of war, that is to say the Vietnamese people and the peoples of Indochina in general.30 The Minister finished by expressing his fears that the coming Nixon visit to China might slow down the negotiations in Paris or distract attention from them. He explained that France felt a duty towards the Vietnamese people, who are ‘closely linked to us’, and that moreover, he felt a particular responsibility towards those who had drawn up the Seven Points, ‘because they have taken into account a number of our suggestions’. He then reiterated his view that the Paris talks would be the appropriate framework for carrying on negotiations on the Seven Points, should Thiệu be defeated in the elections. Of course, as we know, the elections in October 1971 did not go the way the French had hoped, and eventually Nguyễn Va˘n Thiệu ran unopposed. Nguyễn Cao Kỳ was eliminated from the race by Thiệu’s manipulation of the nominating process, and General Dương Va˘n Minh withdrew his candidacy when he became convinced that the USA would give Thiệu their full support. One witness, philosophy professor and Minh speechwriter Ly´ Cha´nh Trung, described the scene when General Minh met US Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker to ask for a pledge that the United States would help to guarantee a fair election. Bunker refused, but suggested to Minh that he run and lose, and then become leader of the opposition to prepare his candidacy for the following presidential election in 1976. Minh was so insulted when the

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Ambassador asked him how much money he wanted to run against Thiệu, that he showed Bunker the door.31 So Thiệu won with a declared 94.3 per cent of the vote. Ngoˆ Coˆng Đức was also forced out of the 1971 election for the Lower House, but by less gentlemanly means than Dương Va˘n Minh was subjected to. All opposition candidates faced obstacles that authoritarian governments apply around the globe against their foes: these included government control of radio and television, rigid press laws discouraging favourable stories about opposition candidates, and army logistical support for pro-government candidates. Đức, however, was singled out for special treatment. Especially after his 1970 Paris press conference, he became the object of police harassment. His newspaper was confiscated 150 times, the press itself was drenched with gasoline and set on fire, while the offices of Tin Sa´ng were bombed on two occasions.32 His Saigon residence was fire-bombed and his home in Vı˜nh Bı`nh province (today named Tra` Vinh) was set on fire. Perhaps the most alarming threats were those against his supporters in Vı˜nh Bı`nh. They claimed that government officials had threatened to reclassify their villages as communist, should Đức win his race for the National Assembly. This would leave the villagers open to forced relocation to refugee camps; their homes could have been demolished and bombed. In this situation Đức could not ask his supporters to vote for him. He finally opted to make a secret escape to Cambodia and from there to Sweden, as he no longer had the right to receive a visa for foreign travel. The view of the Quai d’Orsay and South Vietnamese neutralists such as Professor Ly´ Cha´nh Trung was that the 1971 election was a major missed opportunity for peace. ‘If Minh had won, we would have had a military structure that remained intact, but the political life would have changed. We might have had a different peace’, Trung believes.33 On the other hand, Henry Kissinger’s view of this election sums up the United States’ rejection of an authentic South Vietnamese political process, and by extension, all-Vietnamese consultations, as called for in the Geneva Final Declaration. ‘It would be preposterous to maintain that Hanoi lamented the absence of a fair election in Saigon. What bothered it was our refusal to use the election as a pretext to decapitate the leadership of the non-Communist political structure in South Vietnam’, he writes.34 Thus the United States continued under Nixon and Kissinger to believe that South Vietnamese political leaders had to meet their standards of

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anti-communism. As a Saigon witticism put it, ‘For the Americans, a South Vietnamese nationalist is someone who does what they want without having to be told.’35 In the view of Henry Kissinger, a free election would have spelled the death of democracy. Yet by 1971, Kissinger was already negotiating in secret with the Chinese communist leaders who in 1964– 5 had provided the rationale for the American entry into the Vietnam War. And the final negotiations for peace in Paris would be carried out with total disregard for the opinions of citizens of the RVN. In the view of war critic George Kahin, a myth had taken root: that the regime in Saigon that they [the US administration] designated as our ally genuinely represented the 18 million people living in South Vietnam. Although this myth was helpful in justifying US intervention to the American public, ‘representativeness’ was never in fact one of the central purposes of the United States in building up this regime.36

The Spring Offensive and the Paris Peace Agreement The communist’s ‘Easter Offensive’ of 1972 was their answer to the lack of political progress in Paris and Saigon. Their goal this time was to force the Americans to the bargaining table. Beginning in March, this threepronged assault left little room for urban demonstrations or popular participation. After some initial PAVN victories, with tanks rolling into the capital of Quảng Tri province south of the DMZ, and the retaking ˙ of zones lost at the end of Tết 1968, American air power stopped the communist side from gaining the decisive advantage they desired. Nixon, buoyed by his visit to China in February, gave orders during the first two weeks of April to remove the bombing restrictions established by Lyndon Johnson in 1968. In an operation known as ‘Linebacker I’ the B-52s returned to the skies over the DRV and began bombing the Hanoi-Haiphong area. On 8 May Nixon ordered the mining of Haiphong harbour and other northern ports.37 The US bombing of massed PAVN troops attacking Kontum in the central highlands and An Lộc, north of Saigon, resulted in some of the worst carnage of the war, as naval airpower was beefed up and the B-52 force based at U-Tapao in Thailand and on Guam grew from 52 planes in January to over 200 by the close of May.38

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Due to visit Moscow for a summit later in May, the US president gambled that the Russians would not call off the meeting. They did not, much to the chagrin of their Vietnamese allies. The US public also failed to react to this escalation of their government’s role, as numbers of men on the ground in Vietnam continued to decrease (they would drop by 20,000 to 49,000 men as of 1 July, as the President announced in April). Much of this decrease, however, as Arnold Isaacs points out, was made up of ‘Air Force flight and ground crewmen who simply moved from Vietnam to bases in neighbouring Thailand without missing a day of combat.’39 This brutal round of fighting left both sides with heavy casualties, equipment destroyed and questions about the commitments of their respective allies. Negotiations in Paris picked up speed in the autumn, as the US presidential election approached. Both sides returned to the negotiating table, knowing that the war had become an anachronism in terms of international relations. None of the major backers of the two Vietnamese opponents, not the Chinese, Soviets or the Americans, had much interest in prolonging the conflict. The USA no longer needed to hold the line on communism in South Vietnam, if the Chinese were going to become allies against the Soviet Union. The time for concessions had come. The Paris Agreement, officially titled ‘The Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam’, had the same fatal weakness as the Geneva settlement, that it separated the military and political aspects of the conflict. Once the USA withdrew its troops and the prisoners of war were returned by the stipulated 60-day deadline, the Nixon administration showed little interest in the implementation of the political agreement. Much was left to the goodwill of the two southern sides. Unfortunately, President Thiệu had no intention of displaying goodwill or making any concessions to the PRG. He announced his campaign of ‘Four No’s’ well before the agreement was signed: there would be ‘no recognition of the enemy, no neutralization of South Vietnam, no coalition government, and no surrender of territory’. His opposition to the agreement delayed the signing until after the US elections, when Henry Kissinger had promised the voters that ‘peace is at hand.’ (Nixon won re-election in a true landslide with only one state voting for his anti-war opponent, George McGovern.) This delay, from October to January, did not result in a substantially different

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agreement, but allowed the USA to complete a massive transfer of military equipment known as ‘Operation Enhance Plus’ before the ceasefire would limit resupply to a one-for-one replacement principle. Thus by January 1973, the RVN air force had become the fourth largest in the world.40 Kissinger’s high-handed treatment of his South Vietnamese partners was humiliating – they discovered some of the details of the draft agreement from a captured DRV translation – but in the end, as the dependent child of US policymakers, they were forced to sign.41 As a cynical consolation prize, the USA carried out one last bombing campaign, titled ‘Linebacker II’, to weaken the DRV’s war-making capacities before the final signatures on 27 January 1973. This was the heaviest bombing of Hanoi of the whole war, aimed at air defences, transportation hubs and fuel supplies, but civilians in these densely settled neighbourhoods were not spared. The idea that the ‘Christmas bombing’ brought concessions from the DRV is not backed up by the content of the agreement. Moreover, most serious evaluations of the bombing campaign reveal that the USA lost a punishing number of planes, including B-52s – from 15 to 34, depending on whose estimate one believes – during the 12 days of bombing.42 Even the lower figure did not represent a sustainable rate of attrition. The DRV had found ways to improve their radar and may have also extended the range of their SAMs, with Soviet assistance. The almost universal international condemnation of this last bombing campaign was, finally, too costly to US prestige to make it a successful policy. The key political points of a peace settlement for the South had in fact been agreed on in October 1972. Neither of the southern parties to the agreement was completely happy – the PRG and its allies had to swallow the fact that the demand for Thiệu’s replacement by a coalition government had been dropped by the DRV at the end of August. According to this compromise, Thiệu would remain in power while the elections for a new government were organized. But at the same time, President Thiệu had to accept a ceasefire in place, with North Vietnamese forces remaining on the territory of South Vietnam. In hindsight, one can see that these arrangements would promote a military solution to an inherently unstable, unworkable political situation. The formula agreed upon for a ‘National Council of Reconciliation and Concord’ composed of three parts transformed it into an

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‘administrative structure’ that would organize elections. But it would not have the status of a governing body. Still, had the formula been implemented, the Third Segment would have had an internationally sanctioned role in creating a new political future for Vietnam. Article 12 of the agreement called for political negotiations in which the two south Vietnamese parties would agree on ‘the internal matters of South Vietnam as soon as possible and to do their utmost to accomplish this within ninety days after the ceasefire comes into effect’. These political talks began on 19 March in a chateau outside of Paris, but the two sides were so far apart that no steps towards a new election were ever mapped out. In the early months of the ceasefire, the PRG policy was to publicize the peace agreement and the rights it accorded to people of all political shades within the territory of the RVN. Their plan was to isolate the politically unpopular President Thiệu and narrow his base of support. But Thiệu did not make this easy for them. Refusing to honour the ceasefire, the ARVN went on the offensive to enlarge their areas of control. COSVN remained in a defensive posture, hoping for a political breakthrough, until the middle of the year.43 By then the creation of a Council of National Reconciliation and Concord, with or without real power, appeared unlikely. The communists would not stand back to wait for the Paris Agreement to be enforced, as they had waited after Geneva. Still, those in Saigon who identified with the Third Segment fought on for a political solution. Once the US POWs had been released, the USA abetted Thiệu in his fight to retain his power as the constitutional leader of the RVN. ‘Toward South Vietnam’, Arnold Isaacs writes, ‘the United States behaved not as if carrying out a peace treaty or disengaging, but as if reconfirming a military alliance’.44 US signals to Thiệu, that he would receive US air support in case of a communist attack, were backed up by real contingency plans. ‘The four ARVN corps commanders were flown to the new US South East Asia headquarters at Nakhon Phanom in Thailand and given procedures for requesting air strikes . . . None of these arrangements were altered, even after the US Congress voted to ban all bombing after 15 August 1973.’45 The Saigon CIA Station Chief Thomas Polgar recalls being in the room in San Clemente in April 1973 when President Nixon informed Thiệu that ‘should the North Vietnamese violate the essence of the Paris Agreement, our retaliation

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would be instant and brutal’.46 President Nixon’s resignation over the Watergate scandal was still over a year away. From what we now know of the 1968 Nixon– Thiệu pact, this obdurate loyalty to Nguyễn Va˘n Thiệu appears to result from the bargain Nixon made to get elected. But Nixon was supported in his attachment to Thiệu by the new US ambassador Graham Martin; and, until the bitter end, by his new CIA director, William Colby.47

Saigon Politics After the Ceasefire As Ly´ Quy´ Chung describes it, the time from Thiệu’s unopposed election until the final communist victory in April 1975 was gloomy, but still very lively for the Saigon opposition and the anti-war intellectuals.48 Different groups and organizations appeared to contest the policies of Nguyễn Va˘n Thiệu. While many of these were probably the brainchildren of underground communist organizers, the opposition deputies, Catholic priests, Buddhist nuns, students, workers and courageous laypeople involved were mainly non-aligned citizens who were tortured by the fate of their nation. Thiệu had undermined any semblance of normal political competition in the RVN with a new law on political parties, introduced in March 1973. In order to compete with the communists if new elections were held, he organized his own political party, the Democracy Party, which civil servants and military men were expected to join. Seventeen existing parties were dissolved under the law, including what were considered to be leftist parties, the old nationalist parties and Buddhist groups.49 The deputies in the Society and Nation bloc attempted to rally an organized Third Segment, but found themselves stymied by Thiệu’s machinery of police control. Hồ Ngoc Nhuận coordinated closely ˙ with Ngoˆ Coˆng Đức in France, to push forward a political programme, but as he explained in his published letters to Đức, it was hard to hang on to their supporters: ‘The reliable organizers in our force, who have been active by my side have all been wiped out . . . people are still being arrested and locked up, or are being forced to join the Democracy Party.’50 ‘It is too bad that there are so many tendencies and influences’, he wrote in this letter of 21 March 1973. He felt isolated in Saigon, as:

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the majority of our friends are working for ‘the Old Man’ [their code for General Minh], while I am doing something a bit different. However, I can’t leave them and go off on my own with another minority group, so I have decided to stick to organizing with ‘the Old Man’. It took me almost one month to persuade him and other friends to do something, even though they all agree with me. So we finally created a new programme [cương lı˜nh], but it has not gone anywhere, because the ‘old man’ says it is not urgent and he does not want to impose himself on anyone.51 Nhuận concluded that the weakness of the opposition to Thiệu at this stage was their unwillingness to coordinate their activities. He was in the process of organizing a coordinating committee of 40 deputies and senators to persuade the General to take action, the day this letter was written.52 Gradually the supporters of the Paris Agreement got organized and a ‘Coordinating Committee to demand Liberty, Democracy and Peace’ took shape. By 13 May, Nhuận could report that ‘the Old Man’ was content with his role and making contacts with local groups, following Nhuận’s suggestions.53 A key opposition demand became the implementation of Chapter IV, Article 11 of the Paris Agreement, that prohibited acts of reprisal and discrimination and called for democratic liberties to be ensured. Without these conditions it would be difficult to imagine the formation of the National Council of Reconciliation and Concord. Activists without parliamentary protection or international reputations continued to be picked up and held by the police under edicts such as ‘Decree Law 004/66’, whose article 19 permitted the authorities to detain citizens under the pretext of national security for a maximum of two years, renewable. Hồ Ngoc Nhuận was followed everywhere by ˙ plainclothes policemen, so that if he visited a supporter, the police could burst in on the spot and summon the host to the police station for an appointment the following morning. Volunteers who distributed leftwing Catholic publications were frequently arrested as well.54 In these last years of Thiệu, as the press remained closely controlled, the most active opposition deputies introduced what they called ‘talking newspapers’ to spread their message beyond the confines of Saigon. A group would travel in a small van with a loudspeaker to lecture the

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public on the state of the country, on the Paris negotiations and other local issues. They liked to take along the Catholic priests Father Nguyễn Ngoc Lan and Father Chaˆn Tı´n as a way of confusing the police. (A ˙ young policeman was unlikely to rough up a priest in a black cassock.) Even the ferryboats crossing the Mekong provided an opportunity to address an audience.55 After the Paris Agreement, they introduced this method of spreading information to Huế. One of the most effective organizations fighting for democratic rights was the Committee to Reform the Prison System (Uỷ Ban Vận Động Cải Thiện Chế Dộ Lao Tu`), started in 1971 with the aim of making known the situation of political prisoners in South Vietnam. The young teacher Cao Thi Queˆ Hương, whose husband died under torture, first brought ˙ this idea to the Catholic fathers, who had more protection to speak out on sensitive topics than the families of prisoners. The council of advisers and chairmen included most of the anti-war deputies, professors, lawyers and priests in Saigon, with Professor Nguyễn Va˘n Trung serving as the titular head. The Redemptorist priest from Huế, Chaˆn Tı´n, was the heart and soul of the committee, and it was his office that published the monthly journal Lao Tu` (Prison). He gathered letters from prisoners and from family members who had visited the prisons, and also passed on information to foreign organizations and the press. So, for example, in October 1973 when the Young Catholic Worker leader Ðoa`n Khắc Xuyeˆn was illegally transferred to Taˆn Hiệp prison from Chı´ Ho`a, after a Military Field Court had acquitted him of the charge against him, Chaˆn Tı´n could inform the local press. The Thiệu government had secret policemen keeping watch on visitors to Father Tı´n’s office on Kỳ Đồng Street and had in the past arrested Catholic priests, including Father Lan, for brief periods. But the sprawling compound of the Redemptorist Church offered a protected space, where information could be exchanged and publications edited.56 It was from this compound that Father Lan also published his journal, which changed its name every time permission to publish was withdrawn. President Thiệu was able to ignore the efforts to create an organized Third Segment for more than a year after the Peace Agreement was signed in January 1973. He claimed that a ‘third force’ had failed to materialize; in an April 1974 speech in Ngoˆ Coˆng Đức’s home province of Vı˜nh Bı`nh, he threatened that ‘the government and the people of South Vietnam will take appropriate measures against traitors who call

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themselves the third force’.57 Ly´ Quı´ Chung came to believe that ‘any kind of change would be better than the present situation’. As he explains, the group around General Minh worked to isolate President Thiệu by providing backing for both Buddhist and Catholic groups who were willing to oppose his policies. Among the Catholics, the chairman of the Senate, lawyer Nguyễn Va˘n Huyeˆn, declared his support for Minh and also began to mobilize the Saigon Archbishop, Nguyễn Va˘n Bı`nh. Among the Buddhists, the former Foreign Minister and current Senator, lawyer Vu˜ Va˘n Mẫu, was a member of Minh’s inner circle. He became the chairman of an organization called the ‘Forces for National Reconciliation’. However, the real challenge was to win over Thı´ch Trı´ Quang, still nominally under house arrest. He retained considerable authority and could throw the weight of the Ấn Quang pagoda Buddhists behind General Minh’s initiatives. Ly´ Quı´ Chung took on the task of persuading the somewhat reluctant Trı´ Quang to join the declared supporters of Dương Va˘n Minh. The agreement was sealed by General Minh’s public visit to Ấn Quang, followed by a return visit of Trı´ Quang and a press conference at General Minh’s compound. Privately, Thı´ch Trı´ Quang described Minh as someone who was ‘not an astute politician’ but who was the ‘man who is necessary now’.58 In the summer of 1974, Thiệu’s luck began to change. The 9 August resignation of President Richard Nixon, as he was on the point of being impeached for his role in covering up the Watergate burglary, caused a sea change in Saigon politics. The sense that without Nixon’s protection, Thiệu was vulnerable, underscored the heavy reliance of the southern leadership on Washington’s approval. As Nixon’s grip weakened, a more assertive US Congress also became a decisive factor in Thiệu’s crumbling dominance. They cut back the military funding appropriated for the RVN in 1974– 5, becoming increasingly sceptical that South Vietnam could be saved by additional appropriations. At the same time, rising fuel prices after the 1973 Arab– Israeli War made running a fueldependent military more expensive. In the autumn of 1974 a new level of opposition to Thiệu arose from an unexpected quarter. This was the People’s Anti-Corruption Force led by a Catholic priest who had once written speeches for Ngoˆ Ðı`nh Diệm. Father Nguyễn Hữu Tha`nh, with the air of a professor in his wirerimmed spectacles, became another figure in a black cassock to lead demonstrations in the streets of Saigon. Three hundred priests joined

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him in signing a six-point indictment of Thiệu’s corrupt practices. One of their accusations was that, ‘Under the protection of influential officials, narcotics dealers, gangsters, gamblers, prostitutes, and smugglers have become a true menace to a society plagued with purse-snatching, fraud, rape and other unthinkable crimes.’59 Part of the Saigon establishment was now preparing to join the struggle for a more open, responsive government, one that could make a serious attempt to implement the Paris Agreement. The police seized the newspapers that printed this indictment of Thiệu, but there was probably no one in Saigon who had missed the message. Even a dissident US diplomat, cited anonymously in the New York Times, joined those who saw the urgent need to begin a political peace process: ‘Saigon cannot win militarily’, he observed, adding that the only chance of preserving a non-Communist government is through the political mechanism of the Paris agreement – democratic liberties and open general elections . . . ‘If another regime would take over, willing to take the political risk, there’s a real hope of keeping the place out of Communist control. I don’t see any hope on the military side.’60 Thiệu decided to ignore the anti-corruption campaign, and in a televised speech, he stuck to the theme that the opposition to his rule was infiltrated by the Communists. But, as he clung to power, time was running out for the political process that was the best hope for peace to take effect. The New York Times noted that: the summer months have seen the bloodiest, most sustained level of heavy fighting since the signing of the ceasefire agreements 20 months ago. Some military analysts believe that, particularly in the northern provinces and in the lower Mekong Delta, the Communists have achieved that critical, highly intangible edge in a war of attrition: momentum.61 This was indeed the case, despite the optimists who still hoped that with more substantial US aid, the Saigon government could rebuild and develop a successful export-based economy. But there was not going to be a ‘residual force’ of American military men remaining in

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South Vietnam, as there was in Germany and South Korea, and as Thomas Polgar had been promised when he took up his CIA post in 1972.62 When the PAVN overran the province of Phước Long, on the Cambodian border, in January 1975, there was no reaction from the US military, none of the air support that Thiệu still believed would be forthcoming. This was an important test for the DRV and COSVN, the prelude to the Hanoi meetings that drew up plans for a final offensive.

CHAPTER 7 THE END OF THE REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM AND REUNIFICATION

Introduction I first arrived in Saigon in October 1973, to join the team of the American Friends Service Committee, along with my husband Paul. We were to be the Saigon representatives of this Quaker-based organization, whose main focus was the physical rehabilitation of civilian war victims in Quảng Nga˜i province, one of the most fought-over provinces below the 17th parallel. In addition to supporting the medical work of the Quảng Nga˜i Rehabilitation Centre, we were encouraged to keep track of the Saigon political scene and to report on the implementation of the Paris Agreement. For almost three months we did nothing but study Vietnamese, which gave us enough confidence to start practising conversation on the streets and to work out what the newspapers were covering. Having come from Paris, we were also fluent in French, making it easy for us to communicate with educated Vietnamese, especially those who had done their studies before the 1960s and the start of American influence. Like most Westerners who attempted to learn the Vietnamese language, we were overwhelmed by the warmth and encouragement of the Vietnamese people. We came to know many of the figures in the Third Segment, who were working for peace in 1973–5. Quickly we were immersed in the post-Paris Agreement struggle of the southern Vietnamese. In January of 1974, on what was going to be a short visit to a refugee resettlement area near to Quảng Nga˜i town with our team member and fluent Vietnamese speaker, Diane Jones, we were

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picked up by young guerrillas of the NLF. They held us captive for almost two weeks. It was a traumatic experience, especially the initial moments of having guns pointed at the back of our heads and not knowing what they were going to do with us. Crossing Highway 1, the main north– south highway, with a troop of guerrillas and political cadres, when we were roped together to prevent our flight, was also fairly scary, as there was no guarantee that the ARVN would not detect this movement and open fire. A few other moments left deep impressions. First was our meeting with the cook who had memorized the Paris Agreement. We had been led along the Tra` Khu´c River up to the edge of the mountains, where we stopped in a hamlet with a mixed population of Hreˆ montagnards and revolutionaries. The cook, who brought us rice and fresh vegetables for every meal, would stop and chat while we ate. One of the first topics of conversation was the Paris Agreement – did we understand its provisions? She proceeded to recite the key political articles, in case we did not. That January was the first anniversary of the agreement and it turned out that we had been captured on the assumption that we were former US military personnel who had put on civilian clothes to remain in the country. (We were not really what the guerrillas were hoping for, but while they checked our backgrounds and tried to figure out how to release us, we had a rare opportunity to visit the countryside of Central Vietnam.) The other moment that is imprinted in my memory was when the NLF took us back across the porous front line, stopping at one point to cock their pistols. This brought home to me the reality of war for the local people. We were led to a hamlet in the ‘no-man’s land’ south of Quảng Nga˜i town, from where we would be able to walk back to the Saigon zone in the morning. We spent the night in a thatched hut, on the one woven-straw bed of a peasant family, who all retreated to sleep in their earthen bunker. Very soon we began to wish that we had chosen the bunker. All night long, bullets and tracer bullets from a nearby base lit up the sky around this hut, seeming to fly right past the open door. In the morning light we could see that the bed was just about the family’s sole possession. We followed a little boy at a discreet distance, as he carried a load of firewood to a market on Highway 1, where we flagged down motorcycles to drive us back into town. From then until the spring of 1975, time passed in a rush. We were in Quảng Nga˜i with the AFSC team when in mid-March the local US

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consulate suggested that we evacuate to Saigon. Afterwards, three of our team members tried to return once more to Quảng Nga˜i with a canvas duffle full of piasters, to pay the final salaries of the Vietnamese staff there. They never made it to Quảng Nga˜i, getting caught up in the evacuation of Danang later that month. Our team doctor opted to stay with a local Buddhist group, to treat the wounded if fighting broke out; he remained in Danang for six months, working in a local hospital. The other two were evacuated on an overloaded barge to a US ship, to be delivered to the temporary safety of Cam Ranh Bay, a large naval base. The bag full of money was lost. From there they made their way back to Saigon. None of our team took part in the final evacuation of Saigon – by then we had decided that the safest thing was to stay put. We had student friends who promised to vouch for us if we stayed on to observe what we all then knew would be a change of government. But no one could have predicted how this would happen.

April 1975 As the month of April 1975 progressed, there were two schools of thought about the future of Saigon and the Republic of Vietnam. One was the bloodbath theory and all of its variations. This prognosis was based on the Huế precedent: the massacre that was uncovered there, after the communists were driven out during the 1968 Tết Offensive. The memoirs of the man who was soon to become the Minister of Information in the last South Vietnamese government show how the bloodbath stories were ratcheted up during the final weeks of war: on 16 April, Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger told the US Senate that if the communists were victorious, 200,000 Vietnamese would be killed; on the 18th, Pentagon spokesman Robert Burke announced that according to secret reports from areas that had already been overrun, there had been many reports of bloody revenge killings, with horrifying details; Pacific Stars and Stripes, the army newspaper, published a headline saying that, at the very least one million Vietnamese would be murdered.1 An American observer, the CIA analyst Frank Snepp, noted the same pattern. He wrote in his diary for 15 April that: Atrocity stories abound too, now imaginatively embroidered by Saigon radio, the local press and the Embassy. At the Ambassador’s

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orders, Joe Bennett [the political counsellor] is still zealously churning out his share of them, playing on thirdhand reports relayed out of Ban Me Thuot by a Buddhist monk. ‘They’re tearing out women’s fingernails up there and chopping up the town council’, one of Bennett’s younger staffers advised me gleefully this afternoon. ‘That should turn some heads in Congress.’2 By mid-April of the final communist offensive, it was too late to frighten the Congress into approving new military measures to stem the tide. But it was not too late to start a panic – one that did not abate until 30 April, when the surrender was declared. The other scenario for the end of the Vietnam War was perhaps equally fantastic: that there would be no vengeance, that the Provisional Revolutionary Government’s (PRG’s) policy of national reconciliation and concord would embrace all of the people of South Vietnam who were not guilty of ‘acts of cruelty’ against their communist opponents. While reconciliation was taking place, it was understood that the South would live under a separate system for at least ten years, perhaps longer. This policy had been in place ever since the founding of the National Liberation Front (NLF) in 1960, and was restated at intervals, as new peace proposals issued forth from Hanoi, the maquis, Moscow and Paris. In 1971, the PRG’s Seven Point Programme had made this position clearer; at the same time French-sponsored efforts to find a neutral candidate to run in the southern presidential election that autumn had created the impression that a solution to the war relying on a ‘Third Segment’ leader such as General Dương Va˘n Minh was a workable proposition. The Soviets had also endorsed such a solution. Trương Như Tảng, the Minister of Justice in the PRG, established in 1969 to represent the southern communists at the Paris peace negotiations, reveals in his memoirs that the policy of reconciliation became the cause of dissension in revolutionary ranks as the final peace agreement was being hammered out in 1972. During discussions at the communist command centre for the South (COSVN), he claims that many southern guerrillas and the NLF’s nationalist intellectuals argued that Vietnam’s war-devastated condition demanded that the: entire Vietnamese people must be regarded as victims, even including the Southern bourgeoisie, even including those working

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for the Saigon government and fighting in its army . . . Our Party comrades, however, were not to be persuaded by arguments either of compassion or reason. They had (or so it seemed to me) given up their consciences and pragmatic sense both in return for the certitudes of their political religion.3 To prevent a split in the revolution, Workers’ Party First Secretary Leˆ Duẩn had to intervene personally and in August issued a signed directive to all political and military cadres: ‘The policy of national concord and reconciliation without reprisal is the long-term strategy, and it is the political line and the political behaviour of the Party. It is also the position of the worker class.’4 After the signing of the Paris Agreement on ending hostilities in January 1973, copies of this policy were circulated in South Vietnam. (I was shown a carbon copy in Saigon, late in 1973, by one of the young women teaching me Vietnamese.) Whether this was simply a propaganda tool used to hasten a negotiated settlement, or whether it reflected the position of part of the Hanoi leadership is unclear. But Leˆ Duẩn’s declaration, that it was the long-term aim and the position of the ‘worker class’, sounds like a stance taken to undercut the ideological arguments of his fellow politburo members. What he was saying was that even when the ‘national democratic revolution’ was completed, the policy of reconciliation should remain in force. As late as mid-April 1975, French diplomats in Saigon were working on the assumption that some sort of negotiated settlement with the communists would be possible, if President Nguyễn Va˘n Thiệu would resign and Dương Va˘n Minh could take his place. Frank Snepp saw this last-minute foray into peacemaking as pure illusion, and despaired that it was giving false hope to his Ambassador, Graham Martin. The Ambassador was refusing to face the need to plan for an evacuation of American and Vietnamese personnel at risk. He did not endorse the French plan, however, and preferred to wait until a constitutional means of replacing Thiệu could be found. Neither Martin nor the French ambassador, Jean-Marie Me´rillon, appeared to comprehend that the end was at hand.5 The US evacuation did not begin until 20 April. When exactly the communist leadership understood that all of South Vietnam was falling into their laps is hard to say. But they kept moving their long-range battle plans forward, starting from the capture of Phước

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Long province on the Cambodian border in January 1975. It was on 5 February that General Va˘n Tiến Du˜ng set out with a large contingent of military and political officers for the Central Highlands to establish a new command for the coming military campaign. By 11 March the town of Banmethuot (now Buoˆn Ma Thuột) had fallen to the communists, and a retreating column of ARVN soldiers with their dependents was clogging up the route to the coast, Highway 19, as communist troops pursued them. At this point the Politburo began to imagine a larger campaign than they had originally planned for the season, including possibly an attack on Saigon.6 But according to Leˆ Duẩn’s Thư va`o Nam (Letters to the South), it was only after the liberation of the coastal city of Ða` Nẵng at the end of March that the leadership shifted their attention to Saigon. As he wrote with only slight hyperbole, ‘our revolution is now developing at a pace, where one day has become like twenty years’. He was especially heartened by the news that the population of Ða` Nẵng had participated in the takeover of their city.7 On 31 March he sent the order to General Va˘n Tiến Du˜ng to proceed south to COSVN to prepare for the attack on Saigon. From that point on, the communist forces had trouble keeping up with the collapse and flight of the ARVN troops, as they moved down the coast. The CIA was receiving reports on the new timetable with impressive speed: Frank Snepp was warned by an agent on April Fool’s Day that the North Vietnamese were on a ‘blood scent’. Then on 8 April the station’s best agent supplied the intelligence that the communist high command had just issued a new resolution calling for ‘the liberation of all territory north of Saigon during April and a move against the capital at an as yet unspecified date, with no allowance whatsoever for a negotiated settlement’.8 Saigon politicians, the diplomatic corps and the Eastern European members of the International Control Commission (ICC), however, continued to believe that with the removal of President Nguyễn Va˘n Thiệu, a ceasefire or negotiations could be arranged to preserve a South Vietnamese state in Saigon and the Mekong Delta. The memoirs of Saigon General Trần Va˘n Ðoˆn show that discussions on the formation of a government that would be ‘acceptable to the NLF’ continued up to the last days of the Saigon regime, with both Nguyễn Cao Kỳ and Trần Va˘n Hữu, the exile in Paris who had been linked to the Third Segment since 1954, among those being promoted as successors to Thiệu.9

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Dương Va˘n Minh and the Surrender The handover of power in Saigon on 30 April 1975 went remarkably smoothly, when one considers what might have happened if General Dương Va˘n Minh had been unwilling to surrender. He had finally become the last RVN president on 28 April after Nguyễn Va˘n Thiệu’s resignation on 21 April left his 71-year-old vice president, Trần Va˘n Hương, in power for an agonizing week. As Hương balked at transferring power to Minh, the possibility that the communist forces would fight their way into the city grew. Rumours of ultimata were floating around Saigon, including the demand that all Americans should depart. On 24 April the PRG announced that all US intelligence officers, as well as military personnel disguised as civilians, must depart. There must be an end to both military and economic aid to the Saigon government.10 By the time of Thiệu’s resignation, it appears that the communists had already set the date of their final attack as 29 April. (My experience gives an idea of what a close call the people of Saigon had. I was living in a small row house on a crowded alley between the airport and the centre of town, with the other Quaker volunteers who had earlier evacuated from Central Vietnam. We had all decided to stay to witness the change of regime, as had a handful of Western journalists. We were told by a student friend who dropped by around 8.00 a.m. on 30 April that we should stay in our house unless it started to burn.) Minh was believed by many people in the know to maintain contact with his brother, a colonel with the NLF. But unlike 1963, there was no sign that his sibling was in Saigon. In April 1975 there was no one in his inner circle who had a direct line to the communists, at least not to those who were making the decisions. Information about the ‘other side’s’ intentions was being passed to Washington by the Soviets; in Saigon it was Liberation Radio and the PRG delegation in Paris that kept the major actors informed. Since the signing of the Paris Agreement on ending hostilities in 1973, General Minh had put himself forward as a representative of the Third Segment, as one of those neutralists who would make up one-third of the Council of National Reconciliation and Concord mandated by the agreement. This council was to have, by weight of its moral authority, overseen elections and the transition to some sort of coalition government. As Thiệu had stonewalled on implementation of the political provisions of the Paris Agreement,

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however, the council never took shape and those identifying themselves as neutralist or Third Segment were treated as dangerous dissidents. Among these were the opposition deputies from the National Assembly who grouped themselves into a political bloc under Minh’s protection. General Minh gave little evidence of providing political leadership to this group, preferring to follow the consensus among his advisers. But he understood that he was necessary as a figurehead for the Third Segment and undertook his final role in Vietnamese politics with great dignity. Ly´ Quı´ Chung was designated to be Minister of Information in the short-lived Minh cabinet. By his own admission, he had no direct information in the final days about communist intentions, with the exception of the advice coming from the staff cartoonist at his newspaper, Ðien Tı´n (The Telegraph). (This cadre, Huỳnh Ba´ Tha`nh, who _ signed his cartoons as Ơt (Hot Pepper), only began to reveal his connections towards the very end, when he advised Ly´ Quı´ Chung that General Minh had no option other than surrender.) On 29 April when Chung addressed the people of Saigon on television, he could only guess about the latest policy of the Liberation Forces – would they or would they not fight their way into Saigon? But he reassured the populace that they should not worry about a bloodbath in the city, since he believed the communists would not fight if the Saigon army laid down its arms. He advised the people to stay put.11 As the evacuation of Westerners and at-risk Vietnamese grew in urgency, the mood in the city changed from panic to lawlessness. In the early morning of 29 April the communist troops started to rocket Taˆn Sơn Nhứt airport, tearing up the runways and making a continued evacuation by plane impossible. The US Embassy’s final option, ‘Operation Frequent Wind’, evacuation by helicopter, was launched hours later. The houses and villas left empty by departing dignitaries were stripped bare by looters. After the Chief of Police, Nguyễn Khắc Bı`nh, departed, General Minh’s aide Dương Va˘n Ba called Bı`nh’s second in command to request that he do everything in his power to prevent looting. But the new government really had little control over the Saigon military and police, in this situation of every man for himself. It was the knowledge of this powerlessness and of the carnage that had occurred in Ða` Nẵng, when drunken soldiers, deserted by their officers, had shot up the city before the entry of the communist troops, which

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forced the next decisions of General Minh. After Minh’s swearing in, Ly´ Quı´ Chung begged the General to declare Saigon ‘an open city’, so that the Liberation forces could enter and take up responsibility for law and order. That would be the only way to prevent chaos.12 By then Chung was more frightened of what the desperate ARVN soldiers might do than he was of the Việt Cộng. The new government put off the declaration of a ceasefire until the following morning, to prevent a night of anarchy, and while the American evacuation continued. His cabinet convinced Minh to spend the night in Independence Palace, for his own safety. The palace had a bomb-proof bunker – had the General been killed by a random shell, there would have been no one with the authority to announce the ceasefire or transfer power the following day. The evacuation helicopters continued to depart from the roofs of US Embassy buildings until the dawn of 30 April. At 8.00 that morning Minh’s inner cabinet met at the prime minister’s residence, to hear his decision on announcing the ceasefire. Technicians from the nearby television studio came to record the announcement, although there was no video camera. Later French General Francois Vanuxem dropped by, to try to convince Minh that he should send an appeal for help to some ‘powerful country’. But Minh rejected the idea, saying that he had been ‘a lackey of the French and a lackey of the Americans’, and that he could not continue that path. A call came from Thı´ch Trı´ Quang, the monk who had led the Buddhist uprisings in 1963 and 1966. He begged General Minh to surrender. The question now was to whom.13 Around 9.30 a.m. the Minh entourage drove back to the palace, to wait for the Liberation troops. They remembered to tell the guards the news about the ceasefire, and the General asked them to open the main gates. Later Ly´ Quı´ Chung remembered being puzzled by the images of the communist tank knocking down the gates, as though the palace had been locked up. (This may have been part of a re-enactment for the communist press, which included a soldier dashing across the lawn of Independence Palace with a huge PRG flag.) The first T-54 showed up around 11.30 a.m. The young captain who commanded tank 843, Bu`i Quang Thận, was helped up to the palace roof to take down the old flag and raise the blue-and-red flag of the PRG. (At this point, all the arriving troops had was a small red-and-blue pennant from their tank antenna.)14 The irony, as Ly´ Quı´ Chung points out, was that he had spent

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years opposing the Americans and opposing Thiệu – and now he was standing in for them at the surrender ceremony. The ranking officer on the scene ordered General Minh to write a surrender declaration. He was driven with his Prime Minister Vu˜ Va˘n Mẫu to the television station to record the proclamation, dictated by the political officer, Bu`i Tı´n. It wasn’t until 1.30 that afternoon that they were able to broadcast the declaration, after the student activist Nguyễn Hữu Tha´i went to round up a technician. When we went out on the streets that afternoon, Saigon was eerily quiet – here and there deserted tanks blocked the streets and everywhere were the signs of a disappearing army. Discarded uniforms and identity cards of the defeated army littered the sidewalks. At Van Hanh Buddhist ˙ ˙ University, a designated surrender point, student activists and monks were collecting weapons and uniforms as soldiers turned them in. By late afternoon the piles of M-16s were turning into small mountains. The body of one young man in civilian clothes, someone who had come out on the streets too early, lay by the university gate. This was a far cry from the ‘popular uprising’ that communist history includes in the tale of the war’s end, but there was a student movement and members of the Hồ Chı´ Minh Youth ready to play their part in keeping order. Two diminutive sisters, both young, attractive and secret members of the communist party, had to take the surrender of hundreds of soldiers in the Bı`nh Thanh district in Gia Ðinh, just outside the city centre. More ˙ ˙ important members of the Saigon underground were waiting before making themselves known, and the NLF infrastructure appeared to be short-handed. During the next week, students directed traffic, set up health checkpoints, cleared garbage and tried to reassure the population. Basic services such as the water and electricity supply continued without interruption, thanks to the underground’s mobilization efforts. They had quietly been contacting managers in the essential services and asking for their cooperation in the weeks before the surrender. Tom Polgar noted that, as the last Americans flew out of Saigon, ‘the city had its normal night time picture. The street lights were on, the traffic lights were working.’ Of the last weeks in Saigon, he said, ‘they were so unreal because everything appeared to be so normal. It wasn’t like the long siege of Warsaw, you know. A day before the collapse you could still go to restaurants and get a very nice meal and a good wine.’15

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After what seemed a long hiatus, a temporary Military Management Committee was introduced to the city on 7 May, under the leadership of the legendary southern general Trần Va˘n Tra`. In his speech that day, General Tra` took pains to present the communist victory as ‘the victory of all Vietnamese’; ‘anyone with Vietnamese blood in his veins has a right to feel proud’, he stated.16 Reconciliation felt natural for the first few weeks – the northern soldiers camped in the shaded central park by the cathedral, spent their days chatting with the Saigonese who gradually came out to meet them. But the official image of the tanks crashing through the gates of Independence Palace belied these sentiments. There was before long a sense in the air that Hanoi would insist on its moral superiority as a conquering power. The bloodbath had not happened, but the mood in the city was not as jubilant as might have been expected after the end of a 30-year war. The Buddhist nun, Ni sư Huỳnh-Lieˆn, who had led several anti-Thiệu demonstrations in the last years of the war, a few days after the surrender described her situation candidly as ‘somewhat sour and somewhat sweet’ (chua-chua, ngot-ngot).17 _ _ She, like other religious people and Third Segment leaders in the South, was discovering that her role as a leader and spokesperson for ordinary people was coming to an end. Her order of mendicant nuns, who like the Theravada monks in Thailand and Cambodia begged for their food, would in the future have to support themselves and give up begging. But their retreat house remained an open and vibrant place to visit, serving exceptionally good vegetarian food on religious holidays.

Unification and the Building of Socialism There were some early signs after 30 April that the process of reconciliation would not be given the priority that many peace advocates had expected. One was the conquerors’ treatment of General Minh as a representative of the old regime. In fact, Catholic representatives of the Third Segment in Paris had been informed sometime in April by the PRG ambassador Ðinh Ba´ Thi that there was no longer any place for such a force in Vietnamese politics. Either you supported the revolution or you were an enemy. As they were preparing to head home to engage in relief work, Ambassador Thi advised them not to work with General Minh, so that they would be free to cooperate with the PRG when the government changed hands.18 But this policy change was not made

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explicit to any of the Third Segment leaders in Saigon, so far as I can determine. Another sign was the early merger of the armed forces of North and South, at the Victory Parade held in Saigon on 15 May. At that time the Việt Cộng divisions marched under the northern flag.19 Yet in his speech that day, Leˆ Duẩn declared that the South would build a ‘national democratic regime’, a confirmation that the newly liberated territory would preserve a separate political and economic system for the time being.20 But at a conference held in November, in what was now Hồ Chı´ Minh City, a new plan emerged for the rapid reunification of North and South, to be completed in 1976. This was a clear indication that the gradualist policies spelled out in various PRG peace programmes had been scrapped. The re-education of high-level officers and civil servants of the Saigon government was an example of the strange terrain that the southern population was entering: the officers ordered to report to meeting points in the city in mid-June were advised to bring clothing and supplies for one month. After a few weeks their wives were reassured that all was well, and that their husbands’ release date would depend on ‘their attitude’.21 When no one returned after the month was up, and the government made no clear explanation of its policy, people began to realize that they were living in a system where there were no clear rules. Roughly 200,000 men were affected by this open-ended system of imprisonment. The Hanoi government often explained that the policy on re-education was a humane one, since many of these men might otherwise have been tried as war criminals. (In contrast, the Diệm government’s treatment in 1955–6 of communist suspects, who were protected by the provisions of the Geneva Agreement, was far harsher.) But the round-up also included large numbers of men who had been apolitical civil servants, whose skills were lost to the nation. By June the student committees and other ‘spontaneous’ popular organizations were replaced by official communist party structures in all aspects of urban life. The student leader Nguyễn Hữu Tha´i remembers the situation in his neighbourhood, a modest housing development for military families. His friend, the engineer Nguyễn Tha´i Sơn, thought he had the approval of relatives in the NLF to set up a people’s self-management committee to run the quarter. But before long he was arrested, and his administrative committee was dissolved. Van Hanh University students who had organized the collection of ˙ ˙

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ARVN weapons on 30 April, when there was no civil or military authority on the streets of Saigon, were later criticized for exceeding their authority.22 Even communist party members in the city felt the heavy disapproval of certain guardians of revolutionary morality. One of the two sisters involved in the surrender in Gia Ðinh province ˙ eventually left the party after too many criticisms of her ‘petit bourgeois’ habits. One of these was listening to classical music. The final straw came when she was summoned to an urgent meeting of her party cell, just as she was returning home from a wedding. She was wearing one of her two good ao-dais, a rose-pink tunic dress, when she turned up at the meeting. One of the cell members, a woman who had come to the city from the resistance base, gave her a lecture for wearing the pink dress, saying it was petit bourgeois clothing.23 The influence of China’s Cultural Revolution had apparently seeped into some segments of Vietnam’s revolution. Nguyễn Hữu Tha´i, who had never managed to join the communist party, played his part in organizing the city’s young people in the first weeks of transition. But he, too, began to realize that he was part of the past. He received a message from Thı´ch Trı´ Quang advising him that ‘now the Revolution needs new people, and we must be conscious that we are no longer needed. Do not venture too much.’24 Still Tha´i continued to work as an organizer of young intellectuals in the front committee of the Communist Youth Organization. He took part in the campaign to eliminate ‘decadent capitalist culture’ – but even the youth leading the campaign had no understanding of what was expected of them or where the limits were. Tha´i admits that he did not know for sure if his own books and research documents would be the objects of the campaign. The government’s intention appeared to be to eliminate both Western propaganda and sources of information: the 15 May communique´ from the Military Management Committee had stated unequivocally that the ‘circulation, sale and lending of all publications printed during the American occupation and under the puppet regime must cease within a week’.25 Some overzealous volunteers started entering private homes and confiscating books they deemed unsuitable, even holding public book burnings. After many complaints from the public, the newspaper Sa`i Go`n Giải Pho´ng (Liberated Saigon) had to publish a clarification, listing what publications could be kept. The 6 June statement gave the okay to

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scientific and technical books; novels and works of poetry used for purposes of study; books published before 1954 by revolutionary writers and poets; classical and modern French, American, Chinese and Japanese foreign publications that are not counter-revolutionary, except publications of an existentialist or corrupting nature; history books about our country that do not contain falsehoods about the Revolution; and foreign dictionaries. Happily, this attempt to control culture was doomed to failure in South Vietnam, where the remnants of Frenchinspired intellectual life still flourished in combination with many other influences, from all parts of Vietnam and neighbouring countries.

Rushing the Socialist Revolution in the South The declaration that Vietnam would be formally unified in 1976, as the ‘Socialist Republic of Vietnam’, was a surprise to most of us who had been following Vietnamese politics. (By then, I had returned to the USA.) Was the change of policy towards the South simply a normal transition to ‘a new phase’ in the life of the revolution (the term used by politburo ideologue Trường Chinh)? Or was the rush to rapid unification and socialism the unplanned result of Vietnam’s challenging geopolitical situation? By early 1975, relations with China and Cambodia may have been more worrying to the Hanoi leadership than they let on. Was insecurity leading them to keep the newly liberated south on a tighter rein than had been promised during the years of war? The attitude of the Chinese, who were moving closer to the Americans by then, was clearly a source of concern. Trương Như Tảng describes the eagerness of Chinese leaders to court the southerners in the PRG during an April 1975 trip to Beijing. Tảng was leading a PRG delegation to the funeral of Queen Sihanouk’s mother in Beijing. As Tảng explains, ‘Throughout our stay the Chinese had treated us with a good deal more cordiality than they had the DRV delegation. They were plainly using this opportunity to express their feelings about Hanoi’s already serious romance with the Soviets. At the same time they were signalling to the PRG that they were open to independent contacts.’26 Of course such signals were ill-timed, as at the end of April the PRG diplomats were looking forward to their return to the South and the long-hoped for reunions with their families, in a country where freedom of movement had suddenly become possible.

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Figure 7.1 Communist soldiers walking past the US Embassy in Saigon, after 30 April. Photo by Paul Quinn-Judge.

The Vietnamese hoped to continue their wartime practice of balancing relations with their Soviet and Chinese allies in peacetime. But neither power would make this an easy task. Disputed islands in the South China Sea had already become a source of friction between the Vietnamese and Chinese at the end of 1973. On 19 January 1974, the Chinese occupied an island claimed by South Vietnam in the Paracels island group. The communist government would later claim that this was China’s ‘first act of armed aggression against Vietnam’.27 In 1975, the Vietnamese took great pride in ending the US role in Indochina, but to the Chinese government, this looked like a dangerous shift in the balance of power in South East Asia, one that would favour the Soviet Union. For the Hanoi leadership another destabilizing factor had appeared as the final victory neared. The Khmers Rouges had captured Phnom Penh on 17 April, winning their own battle against imperialism. Neither side in Vietnam could have expected what came next: on 19 April the commander of the Democratic Kampuchea navy, Khe Muth, began to shell the Vietnamese island of Phu´ Quốc in the Gulf of Siam, long claimed by the Cambodians as their territory. Muth then landed six boatloads of troops on a smaller Saigon-held island, along

Figure 7.2 Monk collecting discarded weapons of ARVN at Van Hanh ˙ ˙ University, 1 May 1975. Photo by Paul Quinn-Judge.

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Figure 7.3 Buddhist nuns, with Amerasian children left with nuns by fearful mothers. Photo by Paul Quinn-Judge.

with a smaller force on Phu´ Quốc. Although the Saigon forces recaptured the smaller island, the fighting continued as the government of South Vietnam changed hands. From 10 to 25 May the Khmers Rouges occupied another Vietnamese island, where they destroyed villages, according to Hanoi. The communist Vietnamese retaliated by capturing the Cambodian Wai Island.28 The Khmers Rouges had apparently miscalculated the speed with which the Vietnamese victory would follow their own – during negotiations in the summer of 1975 they took responsibility for the hostilities over the islands, saying their troops were ignorant of local geography.29 But the unthinkable had happened: blood had been spilled in fighting between the communist brothers. These events must have increased Hanoi’s awareness of the vulnerability of the newly won South. In South Vietnam the basic problem was how to replace the warmaking economy with a peacetime one. The South had become a food importer during the war, and depended on foreign aid, just as the DRV did. Saigon, now renamed Hồ Chı´ Minh City, was a special problem – it was a swollen urban area of five million people, full of old and new

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Figure 7.4 A student-turned-guerilla returning from the NLF zone on 1 May 1975. Photo by Sophie Quinn-Judge.

refugees from the years of fighting, demobilized soldiers, unemployed civil servants, stranded employees of the Westerners who had left, bar girls, journalists and thousands of small traders. Even before the war ended, in February 1974, the South Vietnamese Deputy Premier Phan Quang Ða´n had complained that there were from four to five million unemployed in the Saigon-controlled areas. As historian Ngoˆ Vı˜nh Long writes, ‘Hanoi acted more out of a sense of insecurity than from confidence that its development model was completely adequate in dealing with the situation in the South.’ The efforts to collectivize agricultural production in South Vietnam, which began in 1978, he also attributes in part to Hanoi’s desire to achieve greater political control and penetration in rural areas.30 Another element in the DRV’s eagerness to push ahead with political transformation in the South may have been the political tensions in the North itself. For years the efforts to collectivize agriculture in North Vietnam had been the subject of party debates. As of 1968 the peasants were still growing a large proportion of the nation’s food on their private plots, which furnished 40 per cent of their incomes, and as young men departed to fight, the country was increasingly dependent on Chinese

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Figure 7.5 A foot soldier from the NVA, chatting with boys in a Saigon park, May 1975. Photo by Paul Quinn-Judge.

food aid. In 1967– 8, as a more orthodox style of communism returned to the Soviet Union under Leonid Brezhnev, the hard-liners in the Vietnamese politburo appear to have been reinforced in their positions. In 1968, as described in Chapter 5, Trường Chinh gave a series of lectures on Marxism, which articulated a strong commitment to class struggle, the elimination of all vestiges of capitalism and to a full military victory in South Vietnam. That same year, we should recall, he had announced that experiments with family-based production within cooperative farms must be ended. As of 1970 the leadership was still debating agricultural policies and whether or not to accelerate the formation of large-scale cooperatives. Because of the DRV’s lack of modern technology, they delayed this step until 1973– 4.31 When it did begin, this effort to rationalize production and to create a more efficient modern agriculture only backfired, however. As one expert wrote, ‘the larger the cooperative, the poorer the economic results’.32 Yet the leadership resolved to implement their creaking and muchcontested model of economic transformation in the South. The party plenum held in Dalat in September 1975 announced that in its new phase the Vietnamese revolution had only one strategic task: ‘socialist

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Figure 7.6 Man on motorcycle: Looting of US post exchange at Newport, outside Saigon, April 1975. Photo by Paul Quinn-Judge.

revolution and socialist construction’. At a 15 November Political Conference held in Saigon’s Independence Palace, Trường Chinh announced that whatever differences still exist between North and South must be reduced and levelled.33 At some level this decision seemed to reflect an almost religious faith in Marxism – Leninism, of the sort Trương Như Tảng had noted during his time in the jungle bases of the NLF. Of course, on a pragmatic level, the party hoped that a merger with the southern economy would provide more resources to the struggling northern one; at the same time, on another plane, the ideologues hoped to prove to their domestic critics that their model was both effective and just. By 1978, these different factors – including both geopolitical insecurity and ideological intransigence – would come together in a truly disastrous way for Vietnam. Relations with Cambodia had fallen into a downward spiral of border conflict, which for Vietnam involved considerable loss of life and a decrease in food production. Tensions with China erupted into border clashes that year, and saw the beginning of an exodus of Chinese across the northern border. Then the campaign to ‘eradicate commercial capitalists’ (xo´a bỏ tư sản thương nghieˆp) that began that March in Hồ Chı´ Minh City led to accusations ˙

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Figure 7.7 Woman in Saigon (Ho`ˆ Chı´ Minh City) selling photos of Ho`ˆ Chı´ Minh on the street, after 30 April 1975. Photo by Sophie Quinn-Judge.

that Vietnam was discriminating against its Chinese population. (A large proportion of the affected urban population were of Chinese extraction, the Hoa-kiều. The measure was intended to convince traders to engage in productive activities.) This, in turn, led the Chinese to cut back their remaining aid to Vietnam and to make the dramatic and destabilizing gesture of sending a ship to Saigon to rescue any Chinese residents who desired to depart. In the end the ship left without picking up any passengers, but many Hoa had made known their wish to leave. A new semi-legal exodus of boat people began, which involved leaky freighters from Hong Kong and the sale of passage on these ships by corrupt southerners from the security organs. Altogether, from 1975 to 1979, over 400,000 Hoa would depart from Vietnam, both by ship and over the northern land border.34 In November of 1978, Vietnam signed a long-term friendship treaty with the USSR, which gave Moscow basing rights for its navy in what had once been the US Navy’s largest base in Vietnam, at Cam Ranh Bay. Throughout the year, the Vietnamese had been equipping an anti-Pol Pot army and preparing the structures of a rival government for Cambodia. Using the very thin cover of this Cambodian force, the

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Vietnamese army began an invasion of Cambodia in December 1978 that would turn into a ten-year occupation. In spite of moral condescension, unworkable cultural restrictions, censorship and downright lies from the communist party after 1975, some idealistic southerners continued to engage with their new socialist government in 1978 and the following years. It had been their hope in the months before and after 30 April 1975 that they would be able to act as a bridge between the southern populace and the government in Hanoi. Leftist Catholic priests such as the Redemptorist Father Chaˆn Tı´n, who had led the Committee to Reform the Prison System under the old regime, and his collaborator Father Nguyễn Ngoc Lan sympathized ˙ with the communist goal of eliminating poverty. Their belief in liberation theology had led them to welcome the change of government. Father Tı´n agreed to stand for election to the Fatherland Front (Mặt Trận Tổ Quốc Việt Nam) because, as he saw it, he could help ‘the revolutionaries to understand the Catholics better, and at the same time, help the Catholic community to understand the Revolution’. But by 1983, when he addressed a meeting of the Front’s Central Committee, he remarked that there was little mutual trust between the people and the party.35 The suspicion and discrimination against people with the wrong family background or religious beliefs meant that a large part of the southern population was living on the margins of society, unable to send their children to university or to find suitable work.36 Father Lan left the priesthood and married after 1975, to live as an ordinary citizen. A gaunt, intense intellectual, he continued to publish a monthly journal, which changed its name from Ðo´ˆi Dieˆn (In Opposition) ˙ to Đứng Daˆy (Rise Up) as the Saigon government crumbled. But he ˙ refused to continue publication after December 1978, when the government insisted that he allow a party ‘guide’ to serve on his staff. He and Father Tı´n eventually experienced house arrest and exile, and in 1998 a suspicious motorbike accident left Lan with a head injury and persistent health problems. He died in February 2007. Father Chaˆn Tı´n remained a stalwart of the movement for pluralism and freedom of opinion in Vietnam, living out his last years in the Redemptorist compound in Hồ Chı´ Minh City. He died in 2012. The group of former opposition deputies and newspapermen in General Minh’s group were able to play a limited role as intermediaries between the old and new worlds, by reopening Ngoˆ Coˆng Ðức’s old

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daily newspaper, Tin Sa´ng (Morning News) in August 1975. After 1978, however, they had to accept the presence of what amounted to a party censor on the paper. One of their successes was their report of 2 September 1980 on experiments in the Mekong Delta with new systems of agricultural production. This, they believed, led to the passage of a decree (Resolution 10) in 1981 by a party plenum, legalizing the family contract or ‘responsibility’ system within collective farms.37 But by the end of 1980 the government announced that Tin Sa´ng had ‘completed its mission’ and the last non-party newspaper in Vietnam ceased publication. As individuals, their lives took different paths. The publisher and editor-in-chief, Ngoˆ Coˆng Đức, had enough money to set up a cooperative to produce lacquer ware, which provided employment to many of the paper’s former staff. Later he branched out into ceramics, and began to supply ceramic pots to IKEA. Before his death in 2007, he was dreaming of opening a private boys’ school in his home province, but such ventures in private education have rarely succeeded in contemporary Vietnam. Ly´ Quı´ Chung, the Minister of Information for almost two days in 1975, was one of the few Tin Sa´ng writers who continued to work in journalism after 1980. After writing for the much-quoted Hồ Chı´ Minh City Party youth newspaper, Tuổi Trẻ, he went to Hanoi in 1994 to become the general manager of the labour union paper, Lao Ðoˆng. ˙ As an experienced sports writer, he found plenty of outlets for his articles on soccer, a passion among Vietnamese sportsmen and gamblers. He claims in his memoirs that he could make as much as US$2,000 per month this way. But one casualty of his loyalty to the communist regime was his relationship with his father. This was a man who had been fired from his post as an administrator in the Thiệu government, because of his son’s political activities. While Chung was still working for Tin Sa´ng, he heard the news that his parents’ house had been sealed, and his father taken off to the local police station, on the grounds that he was a highranking officer in the ARVN. The district authorities had decided to confiscate the house as the property of a ‘capitalist’, because his mother owned a small shop. (Chung gives no date for these events, but they probably occurred in 1978, the time of the anti-capitalist campaign.) The worst insult was that the local people were invited to visit the ‘palace’ of Ly´ Quı´ Pha´t, which in fact was an unremarkable but old

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three-storey house near the Nguyễn Tri Phương market in District 10. No one showed up for the tour, as his parents had lived in the neighbourhood for several decades and were known as decent people. Although in the end his parents were allowed to stay in the house, the authorities continued to pressure them to move to a ‘New Economic Zone’ and turn over the house to the government. His father developed high blood pressure, suffered a major stroke, and for a time was unable to speak. When he did regain some speech, his first words to his son were, ‘I don’t want to see you again. Look what has happened to your family, and to your father. And you are still a journalist for the communists!’38 His father remained paralysed for the last ten years of his life, while seven out of Chung’s ten younger siblings became boat people. ‘Mistakes’ and excesses became a part of the daily routine of Hồ Chı´ Minh City and Ly´ Quı´ Chung’s family was not the only one to suffer at the hands of abusive cadres. Within less than a year, a number of the worst offenders in District 10 were removed, after an investigation by the People’s Court. There were clearly differences of opinion in Hanoi as to who and what constituted a threat to the new order. Yet all too often the security forces had a way of winning these arguments. The memoirs of journalist and politician Hồ Ngoc Nhuận depict the ongoing struggle ˙ for tolerance and justice in the South. Nhuận was one of a small number of former opposition politicians who in 1975 was permitted to take part in a special ‘re-education’ course with the powerful younger brother of Leˆ Dức Tho, known as Mai Chı´ Tho or ‘Na˘m Xuaˆn’. (Mai Chı´ Tho served as ˙ ˙ ˙ Chief of Security in the South, and later moved to Hanoi to become Minister of the Interior and a Politburo member.) Nhuận, who worked as a political writer for Tin Sa´ng and a member of the Fatherland Front, attempted to use his relationship with Mai Chı´ Tho to free some of his ˙ old colleagues from their open-ended re-education. Two of these were the former publishers of well-known opposition newspapers in Saigon. In the case of Vo˜ Long Triều he did not have much luck. Triều, publisher of Ðai Daˆn Toˆc (The Great Nation), a paper that engaged with the ˙ _ opposition to Thiệu and the Americans in 1972–5, was rearrested after a short period in re-education. He then did ten more years in prison and finally left legally for Paris in 1993. The publisher of Ðieˆn-Tı´n, the ˙ leading voice of the Saigon opposition from 1973 until 1975, was also unlucky. Hồng Sơn Ðoˆng was a retired colonel and former Senator, which in Hanoi’s eyes made him an actor in the old regime. Nhuận and

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others worked to get him released, and finally they were informed that Pham Va˘n Đồng had intervened on his behalf. But he wouldn’t be ˙ coming home directly – he was being sent to Hanoi for a few days’ vacation. His friends guessed that this ‘vacation’ was a way of improving Ðoˆng’s nutritional state before he returned to his family.39 When the reform process known as Đổi Mới was getting underway in 1987, Hồ Ngoc Nhuận would find that the system of justice remained ˙ arbitrary. After the closing of Tin Sa´ng, he and a number of former colleagues formed a trading company in collaboration with the far southern province of Minh Hải. One of their most successful ventures was purchasing timber in Laos. The leader in this enterprise, Dương Va˘n Ba, was another of the former opposition deputies associated with Dương Va˘n Minh. In the final years of the US – Vietnam War he had taken refuge in Minh’s house, to avoid an arrest warrant for draft dodging issued by Thiệu’s police. The success of the Laotian venture apparently alarmed the Ministry of the Interior – they created a flimsy case against Dương Va˘n Ba and some of his collaborators from Minh Hải, charging them with carrying out a CIA plot against the Vietnamese government. When these accusations failed to hold up, the charge was changed to a variety of economic misdeeds, which resulted in a seven-year prison term for Ba.40 His friend Nhuận’s relationship with Mai Chı´ Tho was no longer effective; in fact Nhuận himself discovered ˙ that he was under suspicion as part of a US ‘stay-behind’ network. The charges were proven to be unfounded in 1996; neither economic malfeasance nor political crimes had been committed. Nhuận, who returned to his work with the Fatherland Front, has assembled a dossier of documents on this case, which he has had to publish himself. But no restitution or public apology has been made to those who lost years of freedom and their good names.

Conclusion The Western creation, the Republic of Vietnam, died amid high drama in the spring of 1975. One can call those events a liberation in the sense that millions of people were liberated from what had become an apparently endless ‘hot war’. But the Cold War did not release Vietnam from its grip in 1975 – that would happen in the years between 1989 and 1992, as the Sino – Soviet split ended and the United States began

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discussions to normalize relations with its former enemy. For the people of South Vietnam, the liberation from suspicion only truly began after the full normalization of US– Vietnamese relations in 1996. The communist policies implemented after 1975 were in my view not inevitable; had a peaceful political solution been implemented earlier, had there been a serious effort to make the Paris Agreement work, the end of the Vietnam War might have been much different. The southern general Trần Va˘n Tra` said as much in an essay published in 1993: If the withdrawal of US troops had not been coupled with the maintenance of the Thiệu regime and a strong army . . . the history of Vietnam might certainly have taken a different course. The prospects would have been numerous: the restoration of peace in South Vietnam as early as 1973; a three-component coalition government in power; the possibility that the United States would shift from a military assistance programme to one of economic aid; and, in the end thereafter, gradual reunification of Vietnam by peaceful means . . . Such a peace would certainly have brought honor to all sides; there would have been no victors or losers. Justice would have been the sole victor.41 But by 1975, the unstable international situation made political control of the South the primary concern of the DRV. The early period of economic reform, beginning with timid changes in agricultural production in 1981 and continuing through the late 1980s, was a time of alternating encouragement and restrictions on reformers, especially in southern Vietnam. The fundamental lack of trust shown by Hanoi towards the South appeared again and again, and in the late 1980s may have been exacerbated by the rapid changes in the communist world. The spectre of a US plot against the socialist world may or may not have been taken seriously in the Vietnamese security organs. But they took no chances, and in the end made sure that the northern establishment remained firmly in control of the reform process. This seems to have been at the root of the destruction of the flourishing economic venture linking Minh Hải province and Laos. Although the Vietnamese were spared the horrors of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, the new government in southern Vietnam

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categorized its population in a way that echoed the divisions in Khmers Rouges society: there were those who had been with the revolution for many years, in KR parlance, the ‘base people’, and those who had lived under the capitalist, US-backed governments, the ‘new people’. The role of a ‘Third Segment’ as a bridge between these two groups was not valued in Hanoi because the communist government viewed itself as the unique source of wisdom and rectitude. Urban areas, in particular Saigon, were viewed by some in the politburo as dangerous remnants of the old capitalist system. Saigon represented Western decadence: war profiteers, prostitutes, parasitical urban traders and existentialist fence-sitters. Anyone who had served the southern government was officially considered an enemy, in spite of the fact that many families had had members fighting on both sides of the conflict. This denigration of the urban was linked to real post-war social problems caused by the forced depopulation of much of the countryside. But at the same time it reflected Confucian and Maoist ideas of the purity of the peasantry and rural life. In the last decade of reform, however, as investment in manufacturing, construction and the service sector has brought wealth and employment to Vietnam’s cities, the leading role of Hồ Chı´ Minh City in Vietnam’s economy has put those anti-urban prejudices to rest. As Vietnam gradually becomes a spiritually as well as politically unified nation, looking back at the long years of war, one can only feel that the whole phenomenon was, as Robert McNamara finally admitted, ‘wrong, terribly wrong’.42 Our geopolitical fears have changed so much since 1956, or 1964, or 1973, that the original reasons for the war become harder and harder to fathom. The thoughts of the final US CIA chief as he helicoptered over Saigon on his way to an aircraft carrier on the South China Sea show that even a committed Cold Warrior could see the futility of the US attempt to leave its imprint on this distant country: ‘in the end, seeing how it ended, I thought that we really did a miserable job for these people and they would have been much better off if we had never gone there in the first place’.43 While working on this manuscript, I have become convinced that some variation on the formula of coalition government and neutrality was possible in the south of Vietnam until late 1974. A negotiated peace backed by US guarantees would have brought better results than the long war that the USA inflicted on this nation. Throughout the years of

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division, from 1954 to 1973, it is true that most programmes for peace were intimately linked to the communist party. During the early years after 1954, the communists and their allies clearly would have preferred a political settlement, as they badly needed peace to restore their economies. Trade and freedom of movement would have benefitted both parts of divided Vietnam. But once US troops had entered the war, those in the DRV leadership who advocated a negotiated peace saw their positions weakened by the stubborn brutality of US policy. The USA must bear some responsibility, along with the Chinese and Soviet mentors of the DRV, for shaping our enemy over the years. By refusing to negotiate seriously with moderates in the DRV, we doomed them to a loss of credibility and influence. By 1968, although negotiations were just beginning in Paris, the chief ideologist of the Workers’ Party, Trường Chinh, announced that a negotiated settlement was not the party’s goal. The realities of the balance of power, however, meant that the DRV had to make a settlement in 1972 – 3. At that moment both parts of Vietnam were hungry for peace. However, the obduracy of the US government, unwilling to desert an unpopular ally who supported our war aims, preordained a violent end to the conflict. The Vietnamese were left a nation of winners and losers, instead of a nation where everyone had a stake in the peace. Those who had sought a middle way were marginalized by the winners and forgotten by the losers.

NOTES

Introduction 1. From a personal letter from Jean Lacouture to Dr Trần Thi Lieˆn. ˙ 2. Fredrik Logevall, Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999, 2001. 3. This information comes mainly from Vol. II of Norman Sherry’s The Life of Graham Greene, 1939– 1955. London: Jonathan Cape, 1994, pp. 412– 34. On Lansdale’s role, see his memoir, In the Midst of Wars: An American’s Mission to Southeast Asia. New York: Harper & Row, 1972, pp. 196– 9. 4. See The Pentagon Papers, Vol. I (Gravel Edition). Boston: Beacon Press, 1971, pp. 72 – 5. 5. Some examples: Ilya Gaiduk, The Soviet Union and the Vietnam War. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1996; Qiang Zhai, China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950– 1975. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2000; Mari Olsen, Changing Alliances: Moscow’s Relations with Hanoi and the Role of China, 1949– 1964. Oslo: Faculty of Arts, University of Oslo, 2005. 6. Robert S. McNamara, James Blight and Robert Brigham, with Thomas Biersteker and Col. Herbert Schandler, Argument without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy. New York: Public Affairs, 1999; Lloyd C. Gardner and Ted Gittinger, The Search for Peace in Vietnam, 1964– 1968. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2004; James G. Hershberg, Marigold: The Lost Chance for Peace in Vietnam. Washington, DC and Stanford, CA: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Stanford University Press, 2012. 7. McNamara et al., 1999, p. 241, citing Chester Cooper, The Lost Crusade, p. 308. 8. See Gaiduk, The Soviet Union and the Vietnam War, for a documented history of Soviet involvement. He underlines the fact that the Soviets were in part motivated by a need to defend themselves against Chinese charges that they were ‘revisionists’ (pp. 37 –8).

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9. See Chen Jian, Mao’s China and the Cold War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2001, pp. 214– 15. The effects of Mao’s domestic and international policies on the DRV leadership is a complex issue, which requires further study. There are two articles in the journal Cold War History, November 2005, which touch on Chinese influence on the DRV leadership: Martin Grossheim, ‘“Revisionism” in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam: New Evidence from the East German Archives’; and Sophie Quinn-Judge, ‘The Ideological Debate in the DRV and the Significance of the Anti-Party Affair, 1967– 8’. 10. Trần Ngoc Chaˆu and Ken Fermoyle, Vietnam Labyrinth: Allies, Enemies, & Why ˙ the U.S. Lost the War. Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech University Press, 2012, p. 327.

Chapter 1 The Vietnamese Response to Colonialism: Early Twentieth-Century Transformations 1. Laˆp Trường [Point of View], 1 August 1964. ˙ 2. Charles G. Cogan, ‘“How Fuzzy Can One Be?” The American Reaction to De Gaulle’s Proposal for the Neutralization of (South) Vietnam’, in The Search for Peace in Vietnam, 1964– 1968, ed. Lloyd C. Gardiner and Ted Gittinger. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2004, p. 154. 3. Frances Fitzgerald, Fire in the Lake. Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1972, p. 86. 4. David G. Marr, ‘The Rise and Fall of “Counterinsurgency”: 1961– 1964’, in The Pentagon Papers: Critical Essays (Gravel Edition), Vol. V, ed. Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn. Boston: Beacon Press, 1972, p. 204. 5. Ibid, p. 206. 6. Two outstanding historians of Vietnam, Alexander Woodside and David Marr, published books on Vietnamese colonial history in 1971 and 1976: David G. Marr, Vietnamese Anticolonialism. Berkeley: University of California, 1971; Alexander B. Woodside, Community and Revolution in Modern Vietnam. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1976. The work of French sociologist Paul Mus also became available in English in 1970 in John T. McAlister and Paul Mus, The Vietnamese and their Revolution. New York: Harper, 1970. 7. See David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest. New York: Ballantine Books, 1969, 1971; Frances Fitzgerald, Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1972; Jonathan Schell: The Real War: The Classic Reporting on the Vietnam War. New York: Pantheon Books, 1988 – this last is a compilation of two earlier books published in the 1960s. 8. On the OSS link see Archimedes Patti, Why Viet Nam? Prelude to America’s Albatross. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980. 9. Pe´ralle, ‘De la diffusion de la me´dicine europe´ene en cochinchine’, Bulletin de la Socie´te´ des Etudes Indo-chinoises de Saigon, 1895, no. 30, p. 22. 10. The Catholic scholar Nguyễn Trường Tộ was the rare exception of a scholar educated in French mission schools who made lengthy proposals for

NOTES

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18.

19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

31. 32.

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government reform and modernization after travels in Europe in the 1860s, all of which were rejected. See Sources of Vietnamese Tradition, ed. George E. Dutton, Jayne S. Werner and John K. Whitmore. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012, pp. 284– 9. Marr, Vietnamese Anticolonialism, p. 157. Ibid., p. 99. Joseph R. Levenson, Liang Ch’i-Ch’ao and the Mind of Modern China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967, pp. 96–7. Huỳnh Thu´c Kha´ng, Phan Taˆy-Hồ Tieˆn sinh lich sử. Huế: NXB Anh Minh, 1959 _ (text written in 1926), p. 15. Nguyễn Q. Thắng, Phong Tra`o Duy Taˆn: Ca´c Khuoˆn Ma˘t Tieˆu Biể u. Hanoi: NXB _ Va˘n Hoa´ Thoˆng Tin, 2006, pp. 607– 8. Ibid., pp. 55 – 7. Phan Chaˆu Trinh, A Complete Account of the Peasants’ Uprising in the Central Region (Trung Kỳ Daˆn Bieˆ´n Thỉ Mat Ky´), trans. Peter Baugher and Vu˜ Ngự Chieˆu. _ Madison: University of Wisconsin, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, 1983, p. 91. Pierre Brocheux, ‘Elite, bourgeoisie, ou la difficulte´ d’eˆtre’, in Saigon 1925– 1945, De la ‘Belle Colonie’ a` l’e´closion re´volutionnaire ou la fin des dieux blancs. Paris: Editions Autrement, 1992, pp. 138– 40. Marr, Vietnamese Anticolonialism, p. 164. Phan Chaˆu Trinh, A Complete Account, pp. 89– 91. Ibid., p. 20, ‘Introduction’ by Peter Baugher. Ibid., p. 94. For information on Hồ Chı´ Minh in France, see Sophie Quinn-Judge, Ho Chi Minh: The Missing Years. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003, chapter 1, pp. 11 – 42. David Marr, Vietnamese Tradition on Trial: 1920– 1945. Berkeley: University of California, 1981, pp. 145– 6. Ibid., p. 150. Ibid., p. 110. Ibid., p. 163. Nguyễn Hiền Ðức, Lich Sử Phaˆt Gia´o d¯a`ng trong. Ho Chi Minh City: NXB ˙ _ t.p. HCM, 1995, p. 46. Li Tana, Nguyeˆ˜n Cochinchina: Southern Vietnam in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, SEAP, 1998, p. 108. See George Dutton, The Tay Son Uprising: Society and Rebellion in EighteenthCentury Vietnam. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2006, pp. 202 – 3, on the Tay Son pogrom in Saigon. L. Jammes, ‘Quelle est la religion des Annamites?’ Bulletin de la Socie´te´ des Etudes indochinoises, 1895, n. 30, pp. 32– 5. Pascal Bourdeaux, ‘Les e´ve´nements de 1930–1931 en Indochine et leur porte´e sur le mouvement de renovation du Bouddhisme en Cochinchine’ [‘The events of 1930– 1931 in Indochina and their influence on the Buddhist

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33.

34. 35. 36.

37. 38. 39. 40.

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23 – 36

renewal movement in Cochinchina’], unpublished article from EuroSEAS 2004, Paris, p. 9. Nguyễn Lang, Vieˆt Nam Phaˆt Giao Sử Luaˆn [A Historical Discussion of ˙ ˙ ˙ Vietnamese Buddhism], III. San Jose´: La´ Bối, 1993 (first printed in Paris 1985), pp. 51 – 2. Ibid., pp. 53 – 4. Bourdeaux, ‘Les e´ve´nements de 1930– 1931’, p. 22. Jayne Susan Werner, Peasant Politics and Religious Sectarianism: Peasant and Priest in the Cao Dai in Viet Nam. Monograph Series No. 23; New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, 1981, p. 7. Werner, Peasant Politics, pp. 12 –13, and note 50 on p. 76. Nguyễn Lang, Vieˆt Nam, pp. 64– 5. There is a strong belief that, in fact, Nguyễn ˙ Lang is Thı´ch Nhất Hanh. ˙ Ibid., pp. 65 – 6. Ibid., p. 71.

Chapter 2 Giving Peace a Chance: First Efforts to Build a Neutralist Political Movement, 1954 –64 1. The Pentagon Papers (Gravel Edition), Vol. I. Boston: Beacon Press, 1971, p. 211. 2. Paris, Ministe`re des Affaires e´trange`res [hereafter MAE], Asie, se´rie CLV, Sud Vietnam, dossier 10; Lalouette to Couve de Murville, 24 February 1960. 3. George McTurnan Kahin and John W. Lewis, The United States in Vietnam. New York: Dial Press, 1967, pp. 77 – 8. 4. Seth Jacobs, Cold War Mandarin: Ngoˆ Ðinh Dieˆm and the Origins of America’s War ˙ _ in Vietnam, 1950– 1963. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006, p. 86. ´ 5. Vương Va˘n Ðoˆng, Binh Bieˆn 11 – 11 – 1960 [Revolt of 11 November 1960]. California: NXB Va˘n Nghệ, 2000, p. 55 – 6. 6. Bernard Fall, ‘Vietnam in the Balance’, Last Reflections on a War. New York: Schocken Books, 1972, p. 184. 7. Thı´ch Nhất Hanh, Lotus in a Sea of Fire. New York: Fellowship of Reconciliation, ˙ 1967, pp. 36–7. 8. Leˆ Cung, Phong tra`o Phaˆt Gia´o Mieˆ`n Nam Vieˆt Na˘m 1963 [The South Vietnamese ˙ ˙ Buddhist Movement in 1963]. Huế: NXB Thuận Ho´a, 2003, pp. 69–71. 9. Thı´ch Trı´ Quang, ‘Tư Rach Ca´t tới Toa` Ðai Sứ Mı˜’ [‘From Rach Cat to the US ˙ ˙ Embassy’], Die˜ˆn Ða`n [Forum ], October 2003, no. 133, p. 25. 10. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hanoi, 1976, ‘The Diplomatic Struggle as a Part of the People’s National Democratic Revolution (1945– 1954)’, Vol. II, trans. Merle L. Pribbenow; p. 36. Cited with the permission of the Cold War International History Project, Woodrow Wilson Center. 11. Ba´o Ca´o Tai Hoˆi Nghi laˆ`n thứ sa´u của Ban Chaˆ´p Ha`nh Trung Ương Ðảng, Kho´a II, _ ˙ _ 15 July 1954 in Va˘n kieˆn d¯ảng toa`n taˆp (Tập 1 – 25). Hanoi: NXB Chı´nh Tri ˙ ˙ ˙ Quốc Gia, p. 168.

NOTES

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197

12. Georges Chaffard, Indochine: dix ans d’inde´pendance. Paris: Calmann-Le´vy, 1964, pp. 116– 19. 13. Nehru’s Speech to the Indian Parliament, February 1953, cited in La Tribune (Phnom Penh), 26 October 1956, p. 3. 14. Mike Mason, Development and Disorder: A History of the Third World since 1945. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1997, pp. 30 – 4. This is a useful discussion of the early use of the term ‘Third World’. 15. Sukarno speech, 18 April 1955, quoted in Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, p. 100. 16. Claire Trần Thi Lieˆn, ‘Nguyễn Manh Ha`: A Voice for a Neutral Solution in ˙ ˙ South Vietnam (1954 – 1957)’, paper presented at the Association of Asian Studies annual conference in Chicago, 25 March 2001, pp. 3 – 6. I am deeply indebted to Claire for introducing me to Nguyễn Manh Ha` and La Tribune. She ˙ has published her research in French in: ‘Aux origines de la “Troisie`me force”: Nguyễn Manh Ha` et la solution neutraliste pour le Sud Vietnam’, in Indochine ˙ entre les deux accords de Gene`ve, 1954– 1962, ed. Christopher Goscha and Karine Laplante. Paris: les Indes savants, 2008, pp. 347– 70. 17. State Archive II, Ho Chi Minh City, PTT First Republic, file 4314, telegram 18-2-1956, p. 2a. 18. Trần Thi Lieˆn, ‘Nguyễn Manh Ha`’, pp. 3 – 6. ˙ ˙ 19. Ibid., p. 10. 20. State Archive II, Ho Chi Minh City, PTT First Republic, file 4070, pp. 2 – 3, telegram from Ngoˆ Trong Hiếu, representative of Republic of Vietnam to the ˙ Royal Cambodian Government, to Minister of Foreign Affairs, government of the Republic of Vietnam, 14 November 1956. 21. Trần Thi Lieˆn, ‘Nguyễn Manh Ha`’, p. 9, n. 21. ˙ ˙ 22. Ibid., p. 9. 23. Ibid., p. 12, note 29. 24. State Archive II, HCM, PTT First Republic, file 4314, pp. 1 – 2; report from Haussaire Vietnam Paris on article of 16 February 1956 in France Observateur. 25. State Archive II, HCM, PTT First Republic, file 4115, Reports of the General Staff on activities of Viet Cong and other forces and religious sects, 1955– 6, p. 9 (6 March 1956); pp. 135–6 (30 April 1956). 26. Pentagon Papers, I, p. 210. 27. General Nguyễn Va˘n Hinh, Chief of Staff of the Vietnamese National Army in 1954, plotted to overthrow Diệm in the autumn of 1954, but was removed from his post by Bảo Ðai (Pentagon Papers, I, p. 219). ˙ 28. State Archive II, HCM, PTT First Republic, file 4070, on the Activities of the communist (sic) newspaper La Tribune in Phnom Penh in 1956; p. 4. 29. Ban Bieˆn Soan Lich Sử Taˆy Nam Bộ Kha´ng Chiến, Lich Sử Taˆy Nam Bộ Kha´ng ˙ ˙ _ Chieˆ´n [History of the Resistance War in the Western Mekong Delta], Vol. II, 1955– 69. Hanoi: NXB Chı´nh Tri Quốc Gia, 2010, p. 123. ˙ 30. Pentagon Papers, I, p. 305.

198

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31. State Archives II, PTT First Republic, file 4127, Chỉ thi, kı´nh gởi ca´c anh _ (Tı`nh hı`nh Cao-Ða`i từ Te´ˆt d¯e´ˆn na`y), p. 78. 32. State Archives II, PTT First Republic, file 4115, Political Activities in Nam Bộ 6 July 1956, p. 6. 33. Trần Hải Phung and Lưu Phương Thanh, eds, Lich Sử Sa`i-Go`n, Chợ-Lớn, Gia ˙ _ Ðinh Kha´ng Chie´ˆn [The Resistance History of Saigon – Chợ Lớn – Gia Dinh] _ (1945 – 1975). Hồ Chı´ Minh City: NXB TP Hố Chı´ Minh, 1994, pp. 297– 8. 34. William J. Duiker, The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam (2nd edn). Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996, pp. 199– 201. 35. Excerpts from ‘Dường Lối Ca´ch Mang Miền Nam’ (‘The Path of Revolution in ˙ the South’) are reprinted in Gareth Porter’s Vietnam: The Definitive Documentation of Human Decisions, Vol. II. Stanfordville, NY: Earl M. Coleman Enterprises, 1979, pp. 24 – 30. Porter’s translation was made from the document captured in Long An province, South Vietnam, in 1957. 36. Lich sử Taˆy Nam Boˆ Kha´ng Chieˆ´n, Vol. II, p. 134. ˙ _ 37. Lich sủ Sa`i-Go`n, Chợ-Lo´n-Gia Ðinh Kha´ng Chie´ˆn, pp. 300– 1. _ _ 38. Lich sử Taˆy Nam Boˆ Kha´ng Chie´ˆn, Vol. II, pp. 171–2, Chỉ Thi chống Luật 10/59. ˙ ˙ _ ´ 39. MAE, Asie, serie CLV, Sud Vietnam, dossier 11, tel. 21 June 1960 n. 633/634 from Lalouette. 40. MAE, Asie se´rie CLV, Sud Vietnam, dossier 12, Note, 12 December 1960. 41. MAE, Asie se´rie CLV, Sud Vietnam, dossier 12, conf. Telegram 11 December 1961 to MAE. 42. Robert McNamara et al., Argument without End (New York: Public Affairs, 1999), p. 107. 43. Ibid., p. 107. 44. Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) 1961, Vol. I, doc. 209, 3 November 1961. 45. Duiker, The Communist Road, pp. 222– 3. 46. Gareth Porter, A Peace Denied: The United States, Vietnam and the Paris Agreement. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975, p. 18, quoting Journal de Gene`ve, 29 August 1963. 47. State Archives II, PTT First Republic, file 9376; Paris, 6 February 1963, letter to Minister of Foreign Affairs from Dr Pham Khắc Hy, RVN Ambassador in Paris. ˙ 48. FRUS 1961– 3, Vol. XXIV, Laos Crisis, Document 410. 49. In July 1962, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was told in Honolulu that there had been ‘tremendous progress’ in the past six months of counterinsurgency operations. As late as September–October 1963, he saw ‘little danger of the political crisis affecting the prosecution of the war’. See Pentagon Papers, II, p. 164. 50. Author’s interview with Lưu Ðoa`n Huynh, Hanoi, 29 October 2003. 51. Trần Thi Hoa`i Traˆn, Lực Lượng Chı´nh Tri [The Political Forces]. Saigon: Ðai Hoc ˙ ˙ ˙ _ Luật Khoa, Ðai Hoc Van Hanh, 1974, pp. 155– 6, 164. It is often said that the ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ three main religious traditions in Vietnam are so intermingled that it is impossible to say precisely what elements belong to which tradition.

NOTES

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51 –57

199

52. Thı´ch Trı´ Quang, ‘Tiểu truyện tự ghi’ [‘A taped autobiography’], Die˜ˆn Ða`n [Forum ], October 2003, no. 133, pp. 24–5. (This issue of the Paris-based journal Dieˆ˜n Ða`n includes excerpts from what seems to be a longer autobiography.) 53. Archive No. II, PTT 18071, về tổ chức Hội Phật Gia´o 1952– 63. 54. MAE, CLV Sud Vietnam 47, from M. Jean-Felix Charvet, Charge´ d’Affaires a.i., to M. Couve de Murville, 15 August 1961. 55. Thı´ch Trı´ Quang, ‘Từ Ra´ch Ca´t tới Toa` Ðai sứ Mı˜’ [‘From Rach Cat to the US ˙ Embassy’], p. 25. 56. Hoa`ng Nguyeˆn Nhuận, Kỷ nieˆm 40 na˘m Phaˆt gia´o nhaˆp cuoˆc 1963– 2003 ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ [Commemorating Forty Years since the Buddhists Entered the Picture], pp. 7 – 8, accessed online at ,giaodiem.com//hnn-phudong63.htm.. 57. Edward Miller, in a departure from earlier scholarship, gives credit to French Col. Roger Trinquier, a French counter-insurgency specialist, as the main influence behind Nhu’s Strategic Hamlet programme. See Edward Miller, Misalliance: Ngo Dinh Diem, the United States and the Fate of South Vietnam. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013, pp. 232– 3. 58. Pentagon Papers, II, p. 225. 59. Hoang va˘n Gia`u, Laˆp Trường, ‘Gia´o Chức Ðai Hộc Ði’ [Point of View, ˙ ˙ ‘The University Teachers’ Trip’], two-part series, 21 and 28 March 1964, part II, p. 10. 60. Miller, Misalliance, p. 234. 61. Porter, A Peace Denied, p. 18. 62. Charles G. Kogan, ‘American Reaction to De Gaulle’s Proposal for Neutralization’, in The Search for Peace in Vietnam 1964– 1968, ed. Lloyd C. Gardner and Ted Gittinger. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2004, p. 146. 63. Paris, MAE CLV, Sud Vietnam, file 78, 10 September 1963 note confidentielle a.s. Directeur d’Asie, conversation avec le Professeur Bửu Hội, 5 September 1963. 64. Porter, A Peace Denied, p. 19; on New Delhi negotiations he cites an interview with Trần Va˘n Dı˜nh, in 1963 Diệm’s acting ambassador in Washington. 65. Cao Huy Thuần, ‘Toa`n tri va` Ngoai thuộc’ [‘Totalitarianism and Dependency’], ˙ ˙ Die˜ˆn Ða`n Forum, May 2003, no. 129, pp. 17 – 22. 66. MAE, CLV – Sud Vietnam, file 78, Lalouette letter to Couve de Murville, 4 September 1963, p. 4. 67. Ibid. (File 78), p. 5. 68. Personal conversation in Hanoi, February 2010, with Dr Ha` Hoa`ng Hợp, the emissary’s son. 69. Personal conversation in Hanoi, February 2010, with Mr Nguyễn Va˘n Khoan. 70. State Archive II, Phủ Thủ Thướng [Prime Minister’s Office], file 1310, Phieˆn hop nga`y thứ ba, 10 December 1963, p. 80. ˙ 71. State Archive II, file 1304, p. 47, 3 December 1963 to Maitre Jacquemart, Avocat. 72. George McT. Kahin, Intervention: How America Became Involved in Vietnam. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986, p. 195. 73. ‘Sau cuộc Chinh Ly´’ [‘After the Reshuffle’], Laˆp Trường, 30 January 1964, p. 3. ˙

200

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58 – 63

74. State Archive II, Prime Minister’s Office, file 1304, p. 133, 11 November 1963, from Major General Dương Va˘n Minh to Prime Minister. 75. Pentagon Papers, II, p. 307. 76. Ibid., pp. 307– 8. 77. Kahin, Intervention, pp. 186–7. 78. Ibid., p. 188. 79. The Pentagon Papers, II, p. 308. 80. ‘Hồ sơ về Tướng Dương Van Minh’, Ho`ˆn Vieˆt, May 2009, no. 23, pp. 8– 9. ˙ 81. Ibid., p. 9. 82. Kahin, Intervention, pp. 185–6. 83. MAE, CLV Cambodge file 86, communique´ a` Saigon n. 1210/1211, 6 November 1963, signed ‘Beausse’. 84. Gareth Porter, ed., Vietnam: The Definitive Documentation of Human Decisions, Vol. II. Stanfordville, NY: Earl M. Coleman Enterprises, 1979, pp. 229– 30; ‘Memorandum from Senator Mike Mansfield to President Lyndon Johnson’, 7 December 1963. 85. Porter, Vietnam: The Definitive Documentation, pp. 239– 40, telegram from Lodge to Johnson, 22 February 1964. 86. George M. Kahin and John W. Lewis, The United States in Vietnam (New York: The Deal Press, 1967), pp. 152–3.

Chapter 3

Hanoi: Between Mao and Khrushchev, 1956 –65

1. William J. Duiker, The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam (2nd edn). Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996, p. 200. 2. Ibid., p. 213. 3. Vietnamese memoirs that mention these events include Vu˜ Thư Hieˆn, Ðeˆm giữa ban nga`y [Darkness in the Daytime]. Germany: thiện chı´ xuất bản, 1997, pp. 276– 7; and NguyễnVa˘n Trấn, Vieˆ´t cho Me & Quoˆ´c Hoˆi [Writing for Mother ˙ _ and the National Assembly]. California: Va˘n Nghệ, 1995, pp. 326– 31. The East German documentation is discussed by Martin Grossheim in ‘“Revisionism” in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam: New Evidence from the East German Archives’, Cold War History, Vol. V, no. 4, November 2005, pp. 451– 77. 4. Marie Olsen, Soviet – Vietnam Relations and the Role of China, 1949– 1964: Changing Alliances. Abingdon: Routledge, 2006, p. 129. 5. Grossheim, ‘Revisionism’, p. 454. 6. Duiker, The Communist Road, p. 222. 7. Roderick MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, part 3: The Coming of the Cataclysm 1961– 1966. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, Columbia University Press, 1997, p. 368. 8. Grossheim, ‘Revisionism’, p. 453. 9. Personal interview with Hoa`ng Minh Chı´nh in his home, Hanoi, 1995.

NOTES

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201

10. Edwin E. Moise, Land Reform in China and North Vietnam: Consolidating the Revolution at the Village Level. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983, p. 231. 11. Moise, Land Reform, pp. 246–7, quoting speech by Vo˜ Nguyeˆn Gia´p to a public meeting in Hanoi, 29 October 1956, printed in Nhaˆn Daˆn, 31 October 1956, p. 2. 12. Nhaˆn Daˆn, 25 March 1951. 13. Ngoˆ Ða˘ng Tri, 80 na˘m (1930 –2010) Đảng Coˆng Sản Vieˆt Nam, Những cha˘ng ˙ ˙ ˙ đường lich sử. Hanoi: Nha` Xuất Bản Thoˆng tin va` Truyền Thoˆng, 2010, p. 362. _ By 1960 neither man would be listed as a Secretariat member. 14. Frank Dikotter, Mao’s Great Famine: The History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958– 1962. New York: Walker and Company, 2010, p. 7. 15. Kim N.B. Ninh, A World Transformed: The Politics of Culture in Revolutionary Vietnam, 1945– 1965. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002, pp. 152– 3. 16. Qiang Zhai, China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950– 1975. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, p. 123. 17. Benedict J. Tria Kerkvliet, The Power of Everyday Politics: How Vietnamese Peasants Transformed National Policy. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2005, p. 68. 18. Grossheim, ‘Revisionism’, p. 453. 19. Qiang Zhai, China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950– 1975. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2000, p. 48, citing Gareth Porter. 20. Grossheim, ‘Revisionism’, p. 453. 21. Qiang Zhai, China and the Vietnam Wars, p. 124. 22. Ibid. 23. Nguyễn Va˘n Trấn, Vieˆ´t cho Me, p. 326. _ 24. Grossheim, ‘Revisionism’, pp. 454– 5. 25. In my interview with Hoa`ng Minh Chı´nh in 1995, he said that Hồ Chı´ Minh had been ‘voˆ hiệu hoa´’ – ‘made powerless’ or ‘ineffective’. 26. The quotations from Decree 68 are from ‘Chỉ Thi của Ban Bı´ Thư, Số 68-CT/TW, ˙ 19 November 1963, ‘Về việc mở cuộc vận động naˆng cao tinh thần cảnh gia´c ca´ch mang, vv’ [Secretariat Decree number 68, ‘On beginning mobilization to raise ˙ the spirit of revolutionary vigilance, etc.’]; in Va˘n Kieˆn Đảng toa`n taˆp, 24, 1963. ˙ ˙ Hanoi: Nha` Xuất Bản Chı´nh Tri Quốc Gia, 2003, pp. 655–6. ˙ 27. Decree 68, p. 656. 28. Ibid., p. 657. 29. Ibid., p. 658. 30. Ibid., p. 660. 31. Party veteran NguyễnVa˘n Trấn gives a second-hand description in his memoir Vie´ˆt cho Me, pp. 326–9. He says that Hồ Chı´ Minh was prevented from speaking _ on several occasions, and that a number of participants abstained when it came time to cast their ballots for or against Resolution 9. 32. Hoa`ng Minh Chı´nh’s ‘Open Letter’ of 27 August 1993, reprinted in a number of Vietnamese e´migre´ publications, including Die˜ˆn Ða`n (Forum).

202

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33. Gaiduk, The Soviet Union and the Vietnam War, pp. 6 – 7. 34. Hoa`ng Va˘n Hoan’s memoirs, A Drop in the Ocean (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1988), pp. 317–20, criticize Leˆ Duẩn for taking a more nuanced attitude towards the Soviet Union than some others in the Politburo, and for agreeing to sign a joint communique´ with the Russians at the close of the early 1964 visit. 35. Lien-Hang T. Nguyen’s portrayal of Trấn Quốc Hoa`n as beholden to Leˆ Duẩn for his power is an assumption without any real evidence to support it. Hoa`n was already ensconced in the northern power structure by 1945, as head of the Northern Regional Committee, while by 1953 he was Minister of the Interior. See Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, Hanoi’s War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012, pp. 55 – 6. 36. See Sophie Quinn-Judge, ‘The Ideological Debate in the DRV and the Significance of the Anti-Party Affair’, Cold War History, November 2005, Vol. V, no. 4, pp. 479–500. 37. Lien-Hang T. Nguyen’s claim that in 1963 ‘Leˆ Duẩn and his faction simultaneously began to neutralize the moderate opposition in the North and to marginalize the indigenous revolutionary leadership in the south’ has no basis in any documentation that I know of, so far as Leˆ Duẩn’s role is concerned. Leˆ Duẩn was himself an indigenous southern revolutionary, known to support the national democratic revolution. See Hanoi’s War, p. 63. 38. Lich sử Taˆy Nam Boˆ Kha´ng Chie´ˆn, tập 2, 1955– 69. Hồ Chı´ Minh City: Nha` Xuất ˙ _ Bản Chı´nh tri Quốc Gia, 2010, p. 299. David Elliott’s study, The Vietnamese ˙ War: Revolution and Change in the Mekong Delta, 1930– 1975, Vol. II. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2003, supports this version of events in its broad outlines, although he specifically covers Ðı`nh Tường province in the Eastern Mekong Delta. See pp. 776– 7. 39. Duiker, The Communist Road to Power, p. 212. 40. Leˆ Duẩn, Thư va`o Nam [Letters to the South]. Hanoi: Nha` Xuất Bản Sự Thật, 1985. The following quotes are from the letter ‘To Anh Mười Cu´c va Trung Ương Cuc Miện Nam’, pp. 50 – 67, July 1962. ˙ 41. The following quotes are from Burchett’s typewritten notes, recently made available by Wilfred Burchett’s son. My thanks to David Marr for passing these on. 42. Elliott, The Vietnamese War, p. 771. 43. Kahin, Intervention, p. 183. 44. Leˆ Duẩn, Thư va`o Nam, pp. 68–93. Page citations below are from this document. 45. Douglas Pike, Viet Cong: The Organization and Techniques of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 1966, p. 107, and p. 360 for the extended quote.

Chapter 4 The Buddhists and the Urban Anti-War Movement, 1964 –7 1. David Marr, ‘A Study of Political Attitudes and Activities among Young Urban Intellectuals in South Vietnam’, unpublished MA dissertation, University of

NOTES

2.

3.

4. 5. 6.

7. 8.

9. 10.

11.

12. 13. 14.

15.

16.

TO PAGES

79 –83

203

California, Berkeley, 1965. In Yale library Special Collections, archives and manuscripts, Group 743, Box 1, folder 2, p. 79. George McTurnan Kahin and John W. Lewis, The United States in Vietnam. New York: The Dial Press, 1967, p. 153. Robert Topmiller says that Khanh told him in 1996 that the US Embassy gave the ‘green light’ for the coup to go ahead. See his Lotus Unleashed, Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2002, p. 156, note 42. Document 158, ‘Memorandum for the President’, Secretary of Defense, 16 March 1964, Pentagon Papers, III, pp. 499–510. David Marr notes that all such estimates, up or down, relied on very shaky data and methodology. Kahin and Lewis, The United States in Vietnam, pp. 154, 156. Texas Tech Vietnam Archive online, CIA Weekly Report, OCI no. 1294/64, ‘The Situation in South Vietnam (21 – 26 August 1964)’, p. 3. Nguyễn Hữu Tha´i, unpublished memoir, My Vietnam Journey: An Insider’s Account of Revolution, War and Peace in Vietnam, p. 44. A Vietnamese version of this memoir has been published as Ha`nh Trı`nh của Moˆt Sinh Vieˆn Sa`i Go`n từ ˙ Chie´ˆn Tranh d¯e´ˆn Hoa` Bı`nh. Hanoi: Nha` Xuất Bản Lao Động, 2013. ´ Nguyễn Hữu Thai, My Vietnam Journey, pp. 48 – 9. MAE, CLV Sud Vietnam, file 47; Georges Perruche, Charge´ d’Affaires de France a` M. Maurice Couve de Murville, Paris, Direction des Affaires Politiques (AsieOce´anie), 30 May 1964. Ibid. MAE, CLV Sud Vietnam, file 47; from Serge Lebocq, Consul de France a` Tourane a` M. Georges Perruche, Charge´ des Affaires de France au Viet-Nam, Saigon; 17 December 1963. Takashi Oka, Letters on Vietnam, letter of 31 May 1966. These letters were written from December 1964 to 1967, when Oka was a fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs in New York. A bound collection of these letters is in the SOAS library, University of London. Ibid., p. 4. ‘Politician from the Pagoda’, Time Magazine, 22 April 1966, p. 4. See James McAllister, ‘“Only Religions Count in Vietnam”: Thich Tri Quang and the Vietnam War’, Modern Asian Studies, 2008, 42, 4, pp. 751 – 82. This well-researched article cites many documented conversations between Trı´ Quang and US personnel, in all of which Trı´ Quang expresses anti-communism and appreciation for the US role in South Vietnam. In this reading, Trı´ Quang’s motivation was to achieve a major Buddhist share in the government, if not control. But his disillusionment with US actions in the spring of 1966 seems to have dampened his trust in the USA. MAE, CLV Sud Vietnam, file 77; from Georges Perruche, Charge´ d’Affaires a` Maurice Couve de Murville, a/s ‘Bouddhisme Vietnamien’, Saigon, 3 July 1964, p. 8. Ibid., p. 17.

204

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84 –96

17. See Robert J. Hanyok, ‘Skunks, Bogies, Silent Hounds, and the Flying Fish: The Gulf of Tonkin Mystery, 2 – 4 August 1964’, Cryptologic Quarterly, Winter 2000/Spring 2001 Edition, Vol. XIX, No. 4/ Vol. XX, No. 1. 18. New York Times, 25 August; Nguyễn Hữu Tha´i, My Vietnam Journey, p. 48. 19. Nguyễn Hữu Tha´i, My Vietnam Journey, p. 50. 20. Topmiller, The Lotus Unleashed, p. 21. 21. MAE, CLV Sud-Vietnam, file 47, Communique´, 31 August 1964. 22. Texas Tech online archive, CIA, ‘The Situation in South Vietnam (21– 26 August, 1964)’, p. 3. 23. Jack Raymond, ‘CIA Aide Suggests Saigon “Settlement”’, New York Times, 23 August 1964, pp. 3, 5. 24. Peter Grose, ‘Ill Will in Vietnam’, New York Times, 26 December 1964, p. 2. 25. Trương Như Tảng with David Chanoff and Đoa`n Va˘n Toai, A Vietcong Memoir: ˙ An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and its Aftermath. San Diego and New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985, p. 93. 26. Ibid., p. 96. 27. New York Times, 25 February 1965. 28. Kahin and Lewis, The United States in Vietnam, p. 175. 29. Bu`i Diễm with David Chanoff, In The Jaws of History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987, p. 131. 30. Ibid., p. 137. 31. Ibid. 32. Henry Kamm, ‘Paris Again Asks Neutral Vietnam’, New York Times, 26 August 1964, p. 4. 33. MAE, CLV Cambodge 227, cable de Charles Malo, Charge´ d’Affaires a.i., 19 March 1965. 34. MAE, CLV Cambodge 277, anonymous cable from Phnom Penh, 17 March 1965. 35. Saigon Daily News, 20 May 1965. Decree Law 004/65. 36. Nguyễn Hữu Tha´i, My Vietnam Journey, p. 69. 37. Thı´ch Nhất Hanh, Lotus in a Sea of Fire, p. 48; Soeur Chaˆn Khoˆng, La force de ˙ l’amour. Paris: La Table ronde, 1995, pp. 99 – 104. 38. Interview with Đoa`n Thanh Lieˆm, Media PA, 27 October 2007. 39. Interview with Hồ Ngoc Nhuận, Hồ Chı´ Minh City, 11 November 2003. ˙ 40. Unless otherwise noted, this biography comes from a self-published memoir by Hồ Ngoc Nhuận, Đời hay Chuyeˆn về những người tu` của toˆi [Life or Tales of ˙ ˙ Prisoners I Have Known], Hồ Chı´ Minh City, 2003. pp. 388–91 cover his assignment with the Youth Ministry. 41. Interview with Hồ Ngoc Nhuận, 2003. ˙ 42. Nguyễn Hữu Tha´i, My Vietnam Journey, p. 69. 43. Oka, letter of 4 July 1966, p. 11. 44. Pentagon Papers, II, p. 373. 45. Ibid., p. 374.

NOTES

TO PAGES

96 –105

205

46. Topmiller (The Lotus Unleashed) provides a detailed description of these events, including the complex interactions among the US military in Danang and the forces loyal to Kỳ, pp. 112– 33. 47. Frances Fitzgerald, Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1972, pp. 289– 91. 48. Pentagon Papers, II, p. 371. 49. Leˆ Duẩn, Thư va`o Nam. Hồ Chı´ Minh City: NXB Sự Thật, 1985, pp. 181 – 2, Letter to Saigon – Gia Ðinh Regional Committee, 1 July 1967. ˙ 50. Professor Leˆ Cung, personal interview in Huế, 2003. 51. Oka, letter of 4 July 1966, p. 5. 52. Robert Shaplen, The Road from War: Vietnam 1965– 1970. New York: Harper & Row, 1970, pp. 77 – 8. 53. Ibid., p. 77. 54. Bu`i Diễm, In The Jaws of History, p. 166. 55. Soeur Chaˆn Khoˆng, La Force de l’Amour. Paris: Editions de la Table Ronde, 1995, p. 154. 56. Letter of 22 November 1966 from Thı´ch Nhất Hanh to Alfred Hassler, ˙ Swarthmore Peace Collection, FOR collection, Section II, series G-6, Box 16. 57. Soeur Chaˆn Khoˆng, La Force de l’Amour, p. 158. 58. Ibid., pp. 169 – 70. 59. David Wurfel, 21 September 1967, ‘Preliminary Report of Vietnam Election Observer’, p. 3. Swarthmore College Peace Collection, FOR, DG 013 G1, Box 1. 60. Letter of 22 November 1966 from Thı´ch Nhất Hanh to Alfred Hassler, ˙ Swarthmore Peace Collection, FOR collection, Section II, series G-6, Box 16. 61. Nguyễn Hữu Tha´i, My Vietnam Journey, chapter 5, ‘A Generation’s Illusion’. 62. Pentagon Papers, II, p. 402. 63. Ibid. 64. Trần Ngoc Chaˆu with Ken Fermoyle, Vietnam Labyrinth: Allies, Enemies, ˙ and Why the US Lost the War. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2012, pp. 285 – 6. 65. Aˆu Trường Thanh and VU˜ Va˘n Huyện, Declaration of candidacy, 30 June 1967. Swarthmore College Peace Collection, FOR DG 013, G1 Box 1. 66. David Wurfel, ‘Preliminary Report’, p. 7. 67. Trương Như Tảng, My Vietnam Journey, pp. 103– 4. 68. Ibid., p. 106.

Chapter 5 The Turning Point: The Te´ˆ t Offensive 1. Thı´ch Nhất Hanh address on ‘The Third Solution’, Center for the Study of ˙ Democratic Institutions, 15 December 1967, p. 2 in Swarthmore Peace Collection, DG 013, Section 2 Series G, Box 7. 2. Leˆ Đức Tho ‘Xaˆy dựng đảng kiểu mới mac-xit-le-nin-it vững manh’ [‘Building a ˙ ˙ Strong, New-style Marxist – Leninist Party’], Hoc Taˆp 2, 1968, pp. 32 –4. _ ˙

206

NOTES

TO PAGES

106 –115

3. Soeur Chaˆn Khoˆng, La Force de l’Amour, pp. 186– 7. 4. Ly´ Cha´nh Trung, ‘Những con vật co´ hai chaˆn’ [‘Two-legged Beasts’], Ða´ˆ t Nước, 1967, no. 2, p. 20; reprinted in Ðoˆ´i dieˆn với chieˆ´n tranh [Facing the War]. Hồ Chı´ ˙ Minh City: nxb Trẻ, 2000, pp. 9 – 20. 5. Civilian Casualty, Social Welfare, and Refugee Problems in South Vietnam, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Refugees and Escapees, US Senate Judiciary Committee, 10 May– 16 October 1967. 6. Thı´ch Nhất Hanh, ‘The Third Solution’, from a report by the Fellowship of ˙ Reconciliation, December 1967, p. 2, in Swarthmore Peace Collection, DG 013, Section 2 Series G, Box 7. 7. Ibid., p. 4. 8. Ibid., p. 10. 9. Soeur Chaˆn Khoˆng, La Force de l’Amour, pp. 200– 2. 10. Ngoˆ Vı˜nh Long, ‘The Tet Offensive and its Aftermath’, in The American War in Vietnam, ed. Jayne Werner and David Hunt. Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 1993, p. 35. The main Vietnamese source on the plans of the Saigon underground is Trần Bach Đằng, whose essay ‘Mậu Thaˆn, ˙ Cuộc Tổng Diễn Tập Chiến Lược’ [‘The Year of the Monkey: The General Strategic Rehearsal for the Campaign’] is published in Chung Moˆt Bo´ng Cờ: ˙ Ve`ˆ Ma˘t Traˆn Daˆn Toˆc Giải Pho´ng Mie`ˆn Nam Vieˆt Nam [Under One Flag: The ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ National Liberation Front of South Vietnam]. Hanoi: Nha` Xuất Bản Chı´nh tri ˙ Quốc Gia, 1993, pp. 316– 26. 11. Nguyễn Thuy Nga, Beˆn Nhau Tron Đời (Hoˆ`i Ky´). Hồ Chı´ Minh City: self_ ˙ p. 166. published, 2000, 12. Qiang Zhai, China and The Vietnam Wars, 1950– 1975. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000, pp. 179– 80. For more discussion of Chinese aid to the DRV see Chen Jian, Mao’s China and the Cold War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001, pp. 215– 29. 13. Trần Quỳnh, Ho´ˆi Ky´ ve´ˆ Leˆ Duuan ẩn (1960 –1986) [Memoirs of Leˆ Duẩn], p. 30 (unpublished draft manuscript). 14. Gaiduk, The Soviet Union and the Vietnam War, p. 94. 15. Roderick MacFarquar and John K. Fairbank, eds, The Cambridge History of China: The People’s Republic, Part Two, Vol. XV, ‘Revolutions within the Chinese Revolution’. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 232– 47. 16. PRO, FCO 15/535, Priority Washington to Foreign Office, Telegram no. 2233, 30 June 1967. 17. PRO, FCO 15/535, Secret, Immediate Hanoi to Foreign Office, tel. No. 421, 3 July 1967. 18. G.C. Herring, ed., The Secret Diplomacy of the Vietnam War (Austin: University of Texas, 1983), pp. 717– 25 on the meeting between the two French envoys, Pham Va˘n Dồng and HCM. On Hồ Chı´ Minh’s movements see William Duiker, ˙ Ho Chi Minh: A Life (New York: Hyperion, 2000), p. 556. 19. See Judith Stowe, ‘“Revisionism” in Vietnam’, a paper delivered at the AAS conference in Washington, DC, 1998, for a summary of the Anti-Party Affair.

NOTES

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

28.

29. 30. 31.

32.

33.

34. 35.

TO PAGES

115 –118

207

While I am not in agreement with all of her conclusions, she put together the first coherent account of these events that exists in English. Her paper was published in French in the journal Communisme, 2001, no. 65 – 6. Georges Boudarel wrote an earlier account of this affair in Cent Fleurs e´closes dans la nuit du Vietnam. Paris: Jacques Bertoin, 1991, pp. 256–64. See e.g. ‘Thư ngỏ của coˆng daˆn Hoa`ng Minh Chı´nh’ [‘An Open Letter from Citizen Hoang Minh Chinh’], Dieˆ˜n Ða`n [Forum ], October 1993, no. 23, pp. 27–32. Don Oberdorfer, Tet! New York: Doubleday, 1971, p. 66. PRO, FCO 15/481, 1/1/68 Conf. Brit Congen, Hanoi, 30 March 1968 to SEAD, FO, signed G.S. Hirst. VU˜ Thư Hieˆn, Deˆm giửa ban nga`y [Darkness in the Daytime] (Cộng hoa` Lieˆn Bang Đức: Thiện Chı´ xuất bản, 1997), pp. 271– 9 in particular. Ibid., p. 297. Ibid. Ibid. ‘Ta`i-lieˆu phổ bie´ˆn d¯e´ˆn Ðảng Vieˆn va` Ca´n Boˆ Ca´c Ðoa`n Thể ’, Theo Kế Hoach số 38/ ˙ ˙ ˙ KH-TU nga`y 7-4-1994 của thường vu Tha`nh ủy Hanoi [Documents Circulated to ˙ Party Members and Cadres, Project 38/KH-TU 7-4-1994 of the Hanoi City Committee Standing Committee]; document provided by Judy Stowe. David W.P. Elliott, The Vietnam War: Revolution and Social Change in the Mekong Delta 1930– 1975, Vol. II. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2003, chapter 19, pp. 1054 –71. Robert McNamara et al., Argument without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy (New York: Public Affairs, 1999), p. 227. PRO, FCO, 15/481, 1014/67, Confidential Report from Consul Brian Stewart to D.F. Murray, FO, Hanoi, 9 November 1967. Military History Institute of Vietnam, Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People’e Army of Vietnam, 1954 –1975, trans. Merle Pribbenow (Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 2002), p. 214. Documents from the Hungarian archives confirm Gia´p’s presence in Hungary, e.g., Memorandum: The Visit of Vietnamese Ambassador Hoa`ng Lương to Dep. Foreign Minister Erdelyi, Hungarian Foreign Affairs Archives, VTS 1967.93.doboz, 146,001025/19/1967. Thanks to Balazs Szolontai for his translation. A 2001 Hanoi source confirms that both Gia´p and Leˆ Duẩn were absent from the Politburo meeting of 20– 4 October 1967: this source claims that these ‘comrades were absent for health reasons, as both were receiving medical treatment abroad’. See Lich Sử Kha´ng Chie´ˆn Cho´ˆng Mỹ Cứu Nước, 1954– 1975, _ Taˆp V: Tổng Tieˆ´n Coˆng va` Nổi Daˆy Na˘m 1968 [History of the Resistance ˙ ˙ War against the Americans to Save the Nation, 1954– 75, Vol. V: The 1968 General Offensive and Uprising]. Hanoi: NXB CTQG, 2001, p. 32. My thanks to Merle Pribbenow for this reference. Hội Đồng Chỉ Ðao Bieˆn Soan Lich Sử Nam Bộ Kha´ng Chiến, ed., Lich sử Nam boˆ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ _ kha´ng chie´ˆn, Taˆp 2. Hồ Chı´ Minh City: NXB Chı´nh Tri Quốc Gia, 2013, p. 575. ˙ ˙ Ibid., p. 594.

208

NOTES

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118 –126

36. General Trần Va˘n Tra`, ‘Tết: The 1968 General Offensive and General Uprising’, in The Vietnamese War: Vietnamese and American Perspectives, ed. Jayne S. Werner and Lưu Ðoa`n Huynh. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1993, pp. 37 – 65. 37. Ibid., pp. 41 – 2. 38. Ibid., p. 45. 39. Hoc Taˆp [Study ], July 1964. Cited in Douglas Pike, Viet Cong: The Organization _ ˙ and Techniques of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 1966, p. 360. See also p. 107 for his discussion of the questioning of the doctrine of ‘the General Uprising’. 40. On Mao’s view of negotiations, see James G. Hershberg, Marigold: The Lost Chance for Peace in Vietnam. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Press, 2012, p. 158. 41. Hershberg, Marigold, p. 158. These comments by Zhou Enlai were made to Albanian leader Enver Hoxha. 42. Đảng Cộng Sản Việt Nam, Va˘n Kieˆn Ðảng Toa`n Taˆp, 29 – 1968 [Documents of ˙ ˙ Party History, 29 – 1968]. NXB Chı´nh Tri Quốc Gia, 2003, p. 32 (Leˆ Duẩn’s ˙ speech to the 14h Plenum, January 1968). 43. Lich Sử Nam Boˆ Kha´ng Chie´ˆn, Vol. II, chapter 7. The page number references ˙ _ below are to this text. 44. Va˘n Kieˆn Ðảng Toa`n Taˆp, 29 – 1968, Leˆ Duẩn’s speech, pp. 34 – 5. ˙ ˙ 45. Trương Như Tảng, Vietcong Memoir, p. 110. 46. Ibid., p. 138. 47. Ibid., p. 139. 48. Her name is always preceded by ‘Mrs’ or ‘Madame’ as she used her husband’s name. He was an oceanographer who supported her political activities and raised their four children when she went to prison. 49. For the trip of Father Nguyễn Ngoc Lan and Chaˆu Taˆm Luaˆn, see Paul Quinn˙ Judge, ‘Inside Saigon: Eyewitness Report’, Commonweal, 26 September 1975, pp. 429–32. 50. Elliott, The Vietnam War, Vol. II, pp. 1104– 6. 51. Trần Tuyết Hoa, ‘Tiếng goi Tết Quang Trung’ [‘The Call of Tết Quang Trung’], ˙ Tuổi Trẻ, 27 January 2008. 52. Trần Bach Đằng, ‘The Year of the Monkey: The General Strategic Rehearsal’, ˙ 1993, p. 325. 53. Trần Hồng Lieˆn, Ðao Phaˆt trong coˆng d¯ ồng người Vieˆt ở Nam Boˆ – Vieˆt Nam (tu` theˆ´ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ _ kỷ XVII đ ´eˆn 1975) [Buddhism within the Vietnamese Community of Southern Vietnam (from the Seventeenth Century to 1975]. Hanoi: NXB Khoa Hoc Xa˜ ˙ Hội, 1995, p. 216. 54. Thı´ch Đồng Bồn, Tiểu Sử Danh Ta˘ng Vieˆt Nam, Theˆ´ Kỷ XX [Biographies of ˙ Famous Twentieth-Century Buddhist Monks], Vol. I. Hồ Chı´ Minh City: Tha`nh Hội Phật Gia´o Tha`nh Phố Hồ Chı´ Minh, 1994, p. 888. 55. These figures were compiled by Don Luce for his article, ‘Where one day is 1,000 years’, National Catholic Reporter, 15 January 1969. 56. Don Luce letter to Al Hassler, 18 December 1968. Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) – USA, Section II, series G-3, Box 8.

NOTES

TO PAGES

126 –135

209

57. Tom Wicker, ‘In the Nation: The Wrong Horse in Saigon’, New York Times, 19 June 1969. 58. Ibid. 59. Trần Thi Lieˆn, ‘The Challenge of Peace within South Vietnam’s Catholic ˙ Community: History of Peace Activism’, in Peace and Change, October 2013, p. 462. 60. Nguyễn Va˘n Trung, The Communists, My Brothers: Roman Catholicism and Communism in Vietnam, translated by Don Luce and Pham Long Hoa. Saigon: ˙ Sống Ðao, 1968, p. 5. ˙ 61. Ibid., p. 97. 62. David Taylor, ‘The Lyndon Johnson tapes: Richard Nixon’s “treason”’, BBC News Magazine, 22 March 2013. 63. Ngoˆ Vı˜nh Long, ‘The Tết Offensive and its Aftermath’, in The American War in Vietnam, ed. Jayne Werner and David Hunt. Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 1993, pp. 23 – 4. 64. Qiang Zhai, China and The Vietnam Wars, pp. 173– 4. 65. Leˆ Đức Tho, ‘Xaˆy dựng đảng kiểu mới ma´c-xı´t-leˆ-nin-ı´t vững manh, của giai cấp ˙ ˙ coˆng nhaˆn’, Hoˆc Taˆp, 1968, 2, pp. 29 – 39. ˙ ˙ 66. Ibid., p. 31. 67. Ibid., p. 32. 68. Ibid., pp. 32 – 4. 69. LSNBKC, Vol. II, p. 592. 70. See the discussion of this issue in Ngoˆ Vı˜nh Long, ‘The Tet Offensive’, pp. 33–4. 71. Trương Như Tảng, Vietcong Memoir, pp. 234–6. 72. Hồ Sơn Ða`i and Trần Phấn Chấn, eds, Lich Sử Sa`i go`n – Chợ lớn – Gia Ðinh _ _ Kha´ng Chieˆ´n (1945 – 1975) [History of the Resistance War in Saigon – Chợ Lớn – Gia Ðinh (1945– 1975)]. Hồ Chı´ Minh City: Hồ Chı´ Minh City ˙ Publishing House, 1994, p. 574. 73. These excerpts come from a US analysis of the speech circulated by the French Embassy in London. Ministe`re des Affaires Etrange`res (MAE), Se´rie Conflit Vietnam, 11 (FNL), Extraits d’un rapport de Trường Chinh, diffuse´ par Radio Hanoi du 16 au 20 sept. 1968. 74. Đặng Phong, ed., Lich Sừ Kinh Te´ˆ Vieˆt Nam, 1945– 2000, tập II: 1955– 1975 ˙ _ [The History of the Vietnamese Economy, 1945– 2000, Vol. II: 1955– 1975]. Hanoi: NXB Khoa Hoc Xa˜ Hội, 2005, p. 158. ˙ 75. Đặng Phong and Melanie Beresford, Authority Relations and Economic Decisionmaking in Vietnam. Copenhagen: NIAS, 1998, pp. 61 – 2.

Chapter 6

Vietnamization and Saigon’s Political Opposition

1. George Herring, America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950– 1975 (4th edn). Boston: McGraw Hill, 2002, p. 259.

210

NOTES

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136 –150

2. Fred Branfman, Voices from the Plain of Jars: Life under an Air War. New York: Harper and Row, 1972, pp. 19, 20. 3. Marilyn Young, The Vietnam Wars, 1945– 1990. New York: Harper Perennial, 1991, p. 253. 4. Ibid., p. 238. 5. Norodom Sihanouk and Wilfred Burchett, My War with the CIA: The Memoirs of Prince Norodom Sihanouk. New York: Pantheon Books, 1973. 6. Rennie Davis, Richard A. Falk and Robert Greenblatt, ‘The Statement of Ngoˆ Coˆng Đức: The Way to End the War’, New York Review of Books, 5 November 1970. 7. Letter on ‘Torture in Saigon’, 24 April 1970 by Don Luce to the Fellowship of Reconciliation, pp. 1 – 5. Swarthmore College Peace Collection, FOR – USA, Section II, series G-3, Box 8. 8. Don Luce letter to FOR, ‘Statement on Visit to Con Son Prison, July 1970. Swarthmore Peace Collection, FOR – USA, Section II, series G-3, Box 8. 9. Trần Ngoc Chaˆu, Vietnam Labyrinth. Chapters 24, 25 and 26 detail Chaˆu’s ˙ actions in the Lower House, the arrest of his brother and his experience in prison. Pages 220–1 describe the first visit by brother Hiền. 10. Ly´ Quı´ Chung, Hoˆ`i Ky´ khoˆng teˆn [Memoir without a Name]. Hồ Chı´ Minh City: Nha` Xuất Bản Trẻ, 2004, p. 86. 11. Jean-Claude Pomonti, La Rage d’Etre Vietnamien. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1974, pp. 112 – 22. 12. Trần Ngoc Chaˆu, Vietnam Labyrinth, p. 320. ˙ 13. Ibid. 14. Ly´ Quı´ Chung, Memoir, pp. 88– 9. 15. Ibid., p. 208. 16. Hồ Ngoc Nhuận, Đời hay Chuyeˆn veˆ` những người tu` của toˆi [Life or Tales ˙ ˙ of Prisoners I Have Known]. Ho` Chı´ Minh City: self-published, 2003, p. 118. 17. Ly´ Quı´ Chung, Memoir, pp. 210– 11. 18. Ngoˆ Coˆng Đức, ‘Statement’, in Rennie Davis et al., New York Review of Books, 5 November 1970, reprint. 19. Ibid. 20. ‘South Vietnamese Students’ Declaration on the Five-Point Proposal of President Nixon’, Saigon, 18 October 1970; signed ‘Students of the Joint Universities of Saigon, Huế, Van Hanh and Cần Thơ, leaflet in my possession. ˙ ˙ 21. RGANI (Russian State Archive of Contemporary History), f. 89, op. 54, d. 8; pp. 9 – 10. 22. See Lưu Ðoa`n Huynh, ‘The Seven-Point Proposal of the PRG (1 July 1971) and the U.S. Reaction’, in The Vietnam War: Vietnamese and American Perspectives, ed. Lưu Ðoa`n Huynh and Jayne S. Werner. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1993, pp. 198 – 202. 23. Etienne M. Manac’h, Me´moires d’extreme Asie: La Chine, Vol. II. Paris: Fayard, 1980, p. 155.

NOTES

TO PAGES

150 –159

211

24. MAE, Direction des Affaires Politiques, Asie-Oce´anie CLV n. 75, Compte Rendu de l’Entretien accorde´ par le Ministre a` Madame Nguye˜ˆn Thi Bı`nh, le 15 fe´vrier a` _ 17 h. 15, p. 12. 25. Ibid., p. 13. 26. Ibid., p. 10. 27. Ibid., p. 7. 28. MAE, CLV, n. 126, Note 22 mars 1971; Entretien avec Mme. Nguyễ Thi Bı`nh, ˙ p. 4. 29. MAE, Direction des Affaires Politiques, Asie-Oce´anie, CLV n. 352. ‘Compte rendu de l’entretien accorde´ par le Ministre a` Monsieur Leˆ Đức Tho le 27 juillet ˙ 1971’, p. 2. 30. Ibid., pp. 3 – 4. 31. Author’s interview with Professor Ly´ Cha´nh Trung, 19 September 2002. 32. ‘The Trials of Ngo Cong Duc’, Time Magazine, 6 September 1971. 33. Interview with Professor Ly´ Cha´nh Trung, 19 September 2002. 34. Marilyn B. Young, The Vietnam Wars 1945– 1990. New York: Harper Perennial, 1991, p. 265. 35. Pomonti, La Rage d’Etre Vietnamien, p. 129. 36. George McT. Kahin, ‘The Fall of the Saigon Regime and Some of its Implications’, unpublished manuscript, 1 August 1975, p. 2. My thanks to David Marr for sharing this. 37. Arnold R. Isaacs, Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia. New York: Vintage Books, 1984, p. 18. 38. Ibid., p. 19. 39. Ibid. 40. Gareth Porter, A Peace Denied: The United States, Vietnam and the Paris Agreement. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1975, p. 144. 41. Isaacs, Without Honor, p. 39, mentions the capture of the DRV translation. 42. Porter, A Peace Denied, p. 161. 43. Ibid., pp. 259, 262. 44. Isaacs, Without Honor, p. 138. 45. Ibid. 46. ‘Tom Polgar Remembers’, Pushing On, 27 January 2013, p. 3, ,http://lde421. blogspot.com.au/2013/01/tom-polgar-remembers.html. . 47. John Prados, The Secret Wars of CIA Director William Colby. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, p. 287. 48. Ly´ Quı´ Chung, Memoir, p. 227. 49. ‘Thieu Forms Democracy Party’, New York Times, 29 March 1973. 50. Hồ Ngoc Nhuận, Tı`nh Ban hay Những la´ thư taˆm tı`nh ve`ˆ tı`nh hı`nh chı´nh tri tai ˙ _ _ _ Mie`ˆn Nam Vieˆt Nam trước 1975 [Friendship or Heartfelt Letters on the Political ˙ ´ Situation in South Vietnam before 1975]. Hồ Chı Minh City, 2003: selfpublished collection of letters and tapes, many of them to Ngoˆ Coˆng Đức in Paris. Letter of 21 March 1973, p. 4. 51. Hồ Ngoc Nhuận, Heartfelt Letters, p. 3. ˙

212 52. 53. 54. 55. 56.

57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62.

NOTES

TO PAGES

159 –174

Ibid., p. 4. Ibid., p. 26. NARMIC, The Third Force in South Vietnam. Philadelphia: AFSC, 1975, p. 9. Ly´ Quı´ Chung, Memoir, pp. 236– 7. In my two years in Saigon working for the American Friends Service Committee, I often visited this compound to collect news bulletins from Father Chaˆn Tı´n. Narmic, The Third Force. Philadelphia: American Friends Service Committee, 1975, p. 8. Ly´ Quı´ Chung, Memoir, pp. 302– 5. Daniel Southerland, ‘Conservative Priests blast corruption in Thieu regime’, Christian Science Monitor, 10 September 1974. David K. Shipler, ‘Vietnam Outlook: Still a Tunnel, Still a Light’, New York Times, 21 September 1974, p. 1. James M. Markham, ‘Without Nixon, Mr. Thieu’s World is Not What it Was’, New York Times, 6 October 1974. ‘Tom Polgar Remembers’, 2013, p. 4.

Chapter 7 The End of the Republic of Vietnam and Reunification 1. Ly´ Quı´ Chung, Hoˆ`i ky´ khoˆng teˆn [Memoir without a Name]. Hồ Chı´ Minh City: NXB Trẻ, 2004, p. 380. 2. Frank Snepp, Decent Interval: An Insider’s Account of Saigon’s Indecent End. New York: Random House, 1977, p. 253. 3. Trương Như Tảng, A Vietcong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and its Aftermath. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1985, pp. 224– 5. 4. Ibid., p. 225. 5. Snepp, Decent Interval, pp. 323–4. 6. General Hoa`ng Va˘n Tha´i, Những Nam Tha´ng Quyeˆ´t Ðinh [The Decisive Years _ and Months]. Hanoi: NXB Quaˆn Dội Nhaˆn Daˆn, 2001, pp. 180– 1. 7. Leˆ Duẩn, Thư va`o Nam [Letters to the South]. Hanoi: NXB Sự Thật, 1985, p. 385 (Gửi Anh Bảy Cường, Anh Sa´u, Anh Tuấn, 14 gio ngay 01 thang 4 nam 1975). 8. Snepp, Decent Interval, p. 326 (emphasis in original). 9. Trần Va˘n Ðoˆn, Our Endless War. San Rafael, CA: Presidio Press, 1978, pp. 245– 9. 10. Isaacs, Without Honor, p. 434. 11. Ly´ Quı´ Chung, Memoir, p. 381. 12. Ibid., p. 390. 13. Ibid., p. 403. 14. Conversation with Nguyễn Hữu Tha´i, November 2004. 15. ‘Tom Polgar Remembers’, p. 23.

NOTES

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175 –186

213

16. Trần Va˘n Tra`, Những Cha˘ng Đường Lich Sử của B2 Tha`nh Ðo`ˆng: Ke´ˆt thu´c cuoˆc chie´ˆn ˙ ˙ _ tranh30 na˘m, taˆp 5. Hồ Chı´ Minh City: NXB Va˘n Nghệ, 1982, p. 329. ˙ 17. Author’s conversation with Ni-Sư Huỳnh-Lieˆn, May 1975. 18. Nguyễn Va˘n Chin, ‘Coˆng Gia´o va` Daˆn toˆc những nga`y trước 30.4.1975’, Thư nha`, ˙ no. 8 [‘Catholics and the Nation in the days before 30.4.1975’, in Letter from Home ], March 2002, p. 30. This is a Catholic newsletter from Australia, which publishes articles by Catholic activists in Vietnam. 19. Trương Như Tảng, Vietcong Memoir, pp. 264–5. 20. Nayan Chanda, Brother Enemy: The War After the War. New York: Macmillan, 1986, p. 29. 21. Paul and Sophie Quinn-Judge, ‘Saigon, “A Big Nut to Crack”’, in Indochina Chronicle, October – November 1975, p. 15. 22. Nguyễn Hữu Tha´i, My Vietnam Journey, chapter 13, ‘In the Socialist Transformation Campaigns’. 23. Author’s conversation with Nguyễn Thi Ngoc Dung, 2003. ˙ ˙ 24. Nguyễn Hữu Tha´i, My Vietnam Journey, chapter 13, ‘In the Socialist Transition Campaigns’. 25. Tiziano Terzani, Giai Phong! The Fall and Liberation of Saigon. New York: St Martin’s Press, 1976, p. 208. 26. Trương Như Tảng, Vietcong Memoir, p. 256. 27. Chanda, Brother Enemy, p. 21. 28. Ben Kiernan, The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975– 79. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002, p. 104. 29. Ibid., p. 105. 30. Ngoˆ Vı˜nh Long, ‘The Socialization of South Vietnam’, in The Third Indochina War: Conflict between China, Vietnam and Cambodia, 1972– 79, ed. O.A. Westad and S. Quinn-Judge. New York: Routledge, 2006, pp. 128, 140. 31. Russian State Archive of Modern History (RGANI), collection 89, inventory 54, document 8, Report of CC Secretary Hoa`ng Anh to the twentieth plenum of the VWP, December 1970– January 1971 (in Russian translation), p. 27. (According to the Vietnamese count, this was the 19th Plenum. The Russians appear to have been unaware that a plenum was skipped somewhere between 1967 and 1969.) 32. Chu Va˘n Laˆm, ‘Đổi Mới in Vietnamese Agriculture’, in Reinventing Vietnamese Socialism, ed. William Turley and Mark Selden. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993, pp. 152 – 3. 33. Trương Như Tảng, Vietcong Memoir, pp. 284–5. 34. Sophie Quinn-Judge, ‘Chronology of Hoa Crisis in Vietnam’, in The Third Indochina War: Conflict between China, Vietnam and Cambodia, 1972– 1979, ed. Odd Arne Westad and Sophie Quinn-Judge. Abingdon: Routledge, 2006, p. 237. 35. Chaˆn Tı´n, Tham luaˆn với Hoˆi Nghi la`ˆ n thứ 8 Ủy ban Trung ương MTTQVN (25 – ˙ _ ˙ 7/1/1983) [Remarks at the 8th Central Committee Conference of the

214

36. 37. 38. 39.

40.

41.

42. 43.

NOTES

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186 –191

MTTQVN], in No´i Cho Con Người [Speaking for the People]. Broadway, NSW Australia, 2000, pp. 28 – 9. Ibid., p. 31. Conversation with Dr Vo˜ To`ng Xuaˆn, December 2006. Ly´ Quı´ Chung, Memoir, pp. 420– 2. Hồ Ngoc Nhuận, Dời, hay Chuyeˆn ve`ˆ những người u`u của toˆi [Life, or Stories of ˙ ˙ My Friends in Prison]. Hồ Chı´ Minh City: self-published memoir, 2003, pp. 167– 8 and 184– 6. Hồ Ngoc Nhuận, Chuyeˆn Moˆt Vu A´n: Ho`ˆ sơ ve`ˆ vu a´n Cimexcol – Minh Hải [The ˙ ˙ ˙ _ _ Verdict: the Dossier of the Cimexcol-Minh Hai Case]. HCM City: selfpublished, 1997, pp. 398– 401; on the accusation against Nhuận: Life, p. 177. Trần Va˘n Tra`, ‘The War That Should Not Have Been’, in The Vietnam War: Vietnamese and American Perspectives, ed. Jayne S. Werner and Lưu Ðoa`n Huynh. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1993, p. 241. Robert S. McNamara, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. New York: Times Books, Random House, 1995, p. xvi. ‘Tom Polgar Remembers’, p. 23.

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Shaplen, Robert, The Road from War: Vietnam 1965– 1970 (New York: Harper & Row, 1970). Sherry, Norman, The Life of Graham Greene, 1939– 1955, Vol. I (London: Jonathan Cape, 1994). Sihanouk, Norodom, and Wilfred Burchett, My War with the CIA: The Memoirs of Prince Norodom Sihanouk (New York: Pantheon Books, 1973). Snepp, Frank, Decent Interval: An Insider’s Account of Saigon’s Indecent End (New York: Random House, 1977). Stowe, Judith, ‘“Revisionism” in Vietnam’, Communisme, 2001, No. 65 – 6. Taylor, David, ‘The Lyndon Johnson tapes: Richard Nixon’s “treason”’, BBC News Magazine, 22 March 2013. Terzani, Tiziano, Giai Phong! The Fall and Liberation of Saigon (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1976). Thı´ch Đồng Bồn, Tiểu Sử Danh Ta˘ng Vieˆt Nam, Theˆ´ Kỷ XX [Biographies of Famous ˙ Vol. I (Hồ Chı´ Minh City: Tha`nh Hội Twentieth-Century Buddhist Monks], Phật Gia´o Tha`nh Phố Hồ Chı´ Minh, 1994). Thı´ch Nhất Hanh, address on ‘The Third Solution’, Center for the Study of Democratic ˙ Institutions, 15 December 1967, p. 2 in Swarthmore Peace Collection, DG 013, Section 2, Series G, Box 7. ——— Lotus in a Sea of Fire (New York: Fellowship of Reconciliation, 1967). Thı´ch Trı´ Quang, ‘Tư Rach Ca´t tới Toa` Đai Sứ Mı˜’ [‘From Rach Cat to the US ˙ Embassy’], Dieˆ˜n Đa`n ˙[Forum], October 2003, no. 133. Topmiller, Robert, Lotus Unleashed (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2002). Trần Bach Đằng, ‘Mậu Thaˆn, Cuộc Tổng Diễn Tập Chiến Lược’ [‘The Year of the ˙ Monkey: The General Strategic Rehearsal for the Campaign’], in Chung Moˆt ˙ Bo´ng Cờ: Ve`ˆ Ma˘t Traˆn Daˆn Toˆc Giải Pho´ng Mie´ˆn Nam Vieˆt Nam [Under One Flag: ˙ of South Vietnam] (Hanoi: ˙ Nha` Xuất Bản Chı´nh ˙ The National ˙Liberation Front tri Quốc Gia, 1993). ˙ ải Phung and Lưu Phương Thanh, eds, Lich Sử Sa`i-Go`n, Chợ-Lớn, Gia Đinh Trần H ˙ ´ˆn [The Resistance History of Saigon _ – Chợ Lớn – Gia Ðinh] (1945 _– Kha´ng Chie ˙ 1975) (Hồ Chı´ Minh City: NXB TP Hố Chı´ Minh, 1994). Trần Hồng Lieˆn, Đao Phaˆt trong coˆng d¯o`ˆng người Vieˆt ở Nam Boˆ – Vieˆt Nam (tu` the´ˆ kỷ ˙ within the Vietnamese ˙ ˙ ˙ _ [Buddhism ˙ XVII d¯e´ˆn 1975) Community of Southern Vietnam (from the Seventeenth Century to 1975)] (Hanoi: NXB Khoa Hoc Xa˜ ˙ Hội, 1995). Trần Ngoc Chaˆu and Ken Fermoyle, Vietnam Labyrinth: Allies, Enemies, & Why the U.S. ˙Lost the War (Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech University Press, 2012). Trần Quỳnh, Ho`ˆi Ky´ về Leˆ Duuan ẩn (1960– 1986) [Memoirs of Leˆ Duẩn] (copy of unpublished draft manuscript in my possession). Trần Thi Hoa`i Traˆn, Lực Lượng Chı´nh Tri [The Political Forces] (Saigon: Đai Hoc ˙ ˙ _ Luật˙ Khoa, Đai Hoc Van Hanh, 1974). ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˆ ` Trần Thi Lien, ‘Nguyễn Manh Ha: A Voice for a Neutral Solution in South Vietnam ˙ 1957)’, paper ˙presented at the Association of Asian Studies annual (1954– conference in Chicago, 25 March 2001, published in French as ‘Aux origines de la “Troisie`me force”: Nguyễn Manh Ha` et la solution neutraliste pour le Sud Vietnam’, in Christopher Goscha˙ and Karine Laplante, Indochine entre les deux accords de Gene`ve, 1954–1962 (Paris: Les Indes savantes, 2008).

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——— ‘The Challenge of Peace within South Vietnam’s Catholic Community: History of Peace Activism’, Peace and Change, October 2013. Trần Tuyết Hoa, ‘Tiếng goi Tết Quang Trung [The Call of Tết Quang Trung]’, Tuổi Trẻ, 27 January 2008.˙ Trần Va˘n Đoˆn, Our Endless War (San Rafael, CA: Presidio Press, 1978). Trần Va˘n Tra`, Những Cha˘ng Đường Lich Sử của B2 Tha`nh Đồng: Keˆ´t thu´c cuoˆc chieˆ´n tranh ˙ _ Impregnable B2 Theater: Concluding 30 na˘m, taˆp 5 [The ˙History of the the 30 Year War,˙ Vol. V] (Hồ Chı´ Minh City: NXB Va˘n Nghệ, 1982). ——— ‘Tết: The 1968 General Offensive and General Uprising’, in The Vietnamese War: Vietnamese and American Perspectives, ed. Jayne S. Werner and Lưu Đoa`n Huynh (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1993). ——— ‘The War That Should Not Have Been’, in The Vietnam War: Vietnamese and American Perspectives, ed. Jayne S. Werner and Lưu Đoa`n Huynh (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1993). Trương Như Tảng with David Chanoff and Đoa`n Va˘n Toai, A Vietcong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and its Aftermath (San ˙Diego and New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985). Vu˜ Thư Hieˆn, Đeˆm giữa ban nga`y [Darkness in the Daytime] (Germany: thiện chı´ xuất bản, 1997). Vương Va˘n Đoˆng, Binh Bieˆ´n 11 –11 – 1960 [Revolt of 11 – 11 – 1960] (California: NXB Va˘n Nghệ, 2000). Werner, Susan Jane, Peasant Politics and Religious Sectarianism: Peasant and Priest in the Cao Dai in Viet Nam (Monograph Series No. 23; New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, 1981). Westad, Odd Arne, The Global Cold War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). Woodside, Alexander B., Community and Revolution in Modern Vietnam (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1976). Wurfel, David, 21 September 1967, ‘Preliminary Report of Vietnam Election Observer’, Swarthmore College Peace Collection, FOR, DG 013 G1, Box 1. Young, Marilyn, The Vietnam Wars, 1945–1990 (New York: Harper Perennial, 1991).

Newspapers and Periodicals Christian Science Monitor Die˜ˆn Đa`n [Forum ] Ha`nh Trı`nh [The Journey ] Ho`ˆn Vieˆt [The Vietnamese Soul ] ˙ Chronicle Indochina Laˆp Trường [Point of View ] ˙ York Review of Books New New York Times Nhaˆn Daˆn [The People ] Saigon Daily News Thư Nha` [Letters from Home ] Time Magazine Tin Sa´ng [The Morning News ] Tribune, La (1956) Tuổi Trẻ [Youth ]

INDEX

Alliance of National Democratic and Peace Forces, 121, 122, 123 American Friends Service Committee, 165 ´ Aˆn Quang pagoda, 54, 83, 98, 161 Anderson, William, 139 Anti-Party Affair, 114, 115, 117, 130, 133, 134 Anti-Tax Demonstrations 1908, 15 Armed Forces Council, 87, 89 Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), 43, 59, 76, 96, 97, 110, 136, 147, 148, 149, 150, 157, 166, 170, 172, 173, 180, 187 Asia Foundation, 99 assimilation vs association, 11 Aˆu Trường Thanh, 102 Aubrac, Raymond, 115, 117 Ba Tra`, 121 Bandung Conference, 34, 37, 44, 67 Bảo Ðai, 2, 34, 35, 38, 125 ˙ Ba´o Quoˆ´c Buddhist Academy, 83, 92

Bı`nh Xuyeˆn, 42, 121 bloodbath theory, 124, 167, 172, 175 Blum, Robert, 2 ‘boat people’, 185 Bowles, Chester, 48 Brezhnev, Leonid, 133, 183 British Consul, Consulate in Hanoi, 115, 118 Bruce, David, 136 Buddhists, Buddhism, 4, 21–5, 33, 34, 47, 50, 52 –4, 60, 79, 81–9, 91, 93, 95 –9, 100, 102, 106–8, 119, 122, 124, 125, 140, 144, 146, 158, 161, 167, 173, 175 Institute (Society) for the Propagation of the Faith/Dharma (Vieˆn Hoa´ Ðao), 86, ˙ ˙ 98, 100 engaged Buddhism, 28, 106 renewed Buddhism, 23, 24, 51 Zen Buddhism, 21, 22, 23, 83, 92 Buddhist Studies Association, Institute, 51 Bu`i Diễm, 89, 90

Bu`i Quang Chieˆu, 25 Bu`i Quang Thaˆn, 173 ˙ Bu`i Tı´n, 174 Bundy, McGeorge, 8 Bundy, William, 75 Bunker, Ellsworth, 152, 153 Burchett, Wilfred, 75 Bửu Hội, 54 Bửu Sơn Kỳ Hương, 26 Cambodia, 37, 39, 40, 41, 48, 59, 90, 114, 129, 135, 136, 137, 144, 153, 175, 178, 179, 184, 185, 186, 190 ‘campaign to eradicate commercial capitalists’, 184 Ca`ˆ n Lao Nhaˆn vị Ca´ch Mang ˙ Ðảng (Personalist Labour Revolutionary Party), 43, 56, 81, 84, 85 Cao Ða`i (Ðai Ðao Tam Ky` ˙ ˙ Phổ Ðoˆ), 2, 25– 7, 29, 35, 40,˙ 42, 43, 47, 50, 58, 73 Cao Minh Chieˆ´m, 88, 107 Cao Ngoc Phượng (now ˙ Sister Chaˆn Khoˆng), 93, 98, 99, 106, 109, 110

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Cao Thị Queˆ Hương, 137, 138, 160 Catholics, Catholic Church, Catholicism, 4, 25, 32–4, 39, 47, 52, 79, 82, 83, 85, 89, 91, 93, 94, 106, 107, 126, 127, 128, 159, 160, 161, 175, 186 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 21, 98, 104, 105, 158, 178, 184, 187, 190, 207, 210 Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), 43, 58, 74, 119, 120, 122, 136, 157, 163, 168, 170 Cham, 23 Chaˆn Khoˆng see Cao Ngoc ˙ Phượng Chaˆn Tı´n, 138, 160, 186 Chaˆu Taˆm Luaˆn, 109, 110, 123 Chen Yi, 114 Chennault, Anna, 129 Chı´ Hoa` prison, 120, 160 Chiang Kaishek, 26 China, Chinese, People’s Republic of China 4, 6,12, 17, 27, 36, 37, 43, 49, 60–4, 67 –9, 70, 71, 73, 109, 111, 112, 114, 117–19, 130, 132, 133, 137, 149, 150, 151, 152, 154, 155, 178, 179, 184, 185, 189, 192 Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 26, 32, 71 Christianity, Jesus Christ, 25, 34, 39 class struggle, 66, 106, 183 Cloche Feˆle´e, La, 19 coalition government, 48, 59, 75, 107, 109, 119, 121, 123, 126, 133, 142, 151, 155, 171, 190, 191

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Colby, William, 158 Committee for Progress and Liberty, 46 Committee to Defend the Peace, 88 Committee to Reform the Prison System, 160, 186 Communist International (Comintern), 18 Communists, My Brothers: Roman Catholicism and Communism in Vietnam, The, 127 Coˆn Ðảo prison (Poulo Condore), 16, 126, 139, 140 Confucianism, Confucius, 21, 23, 25, 32, 34, 51, 191 Constituent Assembly (RVN), 96, 98, 100, 101, 141 Constitutionalist Party, 25, 29 Cooper, Chester, 4 Cultural Revolution, 112, 114, 117, 133, 177 Cường Ðể, Prince, 26, 27 Czechoslovakia, 142 Ðai Daˆn Toˆc, 188 ˙ _ Ðai Vieˆt party, 47, 81, 85, ˙ ˙ 87, 89 Daley, Richard J., 128 Ðaˆng Va˘n Ky`, 88 ˙ Ða´ˆ t Nước, 107 Day, Dorothy, 32 de Gaulle, Charles, 29, 30, 38, 40, 54, 56, 60, 82 De Lattre de Tassigny, Jean, 38 Ðeˆm Giữa Ban Nga`y, 116 Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), 88, 95, 154 Democracy Party (RVN), 158

Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), 4, 5,35, 40, 41, 47, 48, 49, 55, 59, 61– 4, 66–9, 71, 72, 77, 83, 84, 89, 106, 109, 110, 111, 112, 119, 122, 123, 129, 130, 131, 133, 134, 137, 144, 154, 156, 163, 178, 181, 182, 190, 192 Dieˆm see Ngoˆ Ðı`nh Dieˆm ˙ ˙ Ðieˆn Bieˆn Phủ (battle of), 31 ˙ Dieˆn Tı´n, 146, 147, 172, ˙ 188 Ðinh Ba´ Thi, 175 District 8 Saigon, 93, 94, 95, 100, 124, 145 Ðoa`n Kha´˘ c Xuyeˆn, 160 Ðoa`n Thanh Lieˆm, 93– 4 Documents of Party History, 44, 66 Ðo´ˆi Dieˆn, Ðứng Daˆy, 186 ˙ ˙ Ðổi Mới, 189 Domino Theory, 137 Ðoˆng du (Eastern Travel movement), 13 Ðoˆng Kinh Nghı˜a Thuc ˙ (Eastern Capital Free School), 15, 16 Ðoˆng Pha´p Thời Ba´o, 20, 24 Ðức Laˆm pagoda, 124 Duc Thanh school, 14 ˙ Duiker, William, 61 Dương Minh Ðức, 147 Dương Quynh Hoa, 122 ˙ Nhựt Dương Thanh (Mười Ty), 58, 59 Dương Thanh Sơn, 59 Dương Va˘n Ba, 172, 189 Dương Va˘n Giao, 25 Dương Va˘n Minh, 8, 56–9, 60, 62, 75, 80, 81, 85, 94, 101, 102, 126, 146, 147, 150, 152, 153, 159, 161, 168, 169, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 186, 189 ‘dứt d¯iể m’, 131

INDEX Easter (Spring) Offensive 1972, 130, 154 Elliott, David, 75, 117, 142 Ellsberg, Daniel, 142 Esprit, 32, 39 Fatherland Front (Ma˘t Tra˘n ˙ ˙ Tổ Quo´ˆ c), 43, 45, 47, 90, 186, 188, 189 Fellowship of Reconciliation, 99, 100 Fitzgerald, Frances, 8, 9 Fontainebleau negotiations, 38 Forces for National Reconciliation, 161 Freemasons, Masons, 18, 25 French–Vieˆt Minh or ˙ French–Indochina War, 31, 34, 38, 76 Froment-Meurice, Henri, 150, 151 Fukuzawa, Yukichi, 15 Galbraith, John Kenneth, 48 Gandhi, Mohandas; Gandhism, 36, 51 Gardiner, Lloyd C., 4 General Association of Buddhists, 51, 82 General Offensive and General Uprising (see also Te´ˆ t Offensive), 110, 115, 117, 119, 124 Geneva Agreement(s), Accords, 31, 33, 35, 38, 41, 42, 47, 48, 70, 151, 153, 157, 176 Geneva Conference 1954, 31, 35, 38, 59, 60, 67, 73, 149, 150, 155 Geneva Conference on Laos 1962, 49, 50, 64, 65, 74 German Democratic Republic (GDR), 62, 69, 70

Gia´c Laˆm pagoda, 22, 34, 124 Gia´p see Vo˜ Nguyeˆn Gia´p Gittinger, Ted, 4 Glassboro, New Jersey summit, 114 Great Leap Forward, 61, 67 Greene, Graham, 2 Grossheim, Martin, 62 Group of Vietnamese Patriots, 17, 18 Gulf of Tonkin, Incident; Resolution, 11, 101, 107 Guam, 154 Guomindang, 26 Ha` Va˘n Laˆu, 55 Halberstam, David, 9 Ha`nh Trı`nh [The Journey], 93 Harkins, Thomas, 139 Harriman, Averill, 48, 49 Hawkins, Augustus, 139 Herring, George, 135 Hershberg, James, 4 High Palace, the, 25 Hoˆ` Chı´ Minh, 5, 10, 13, 16–19, 26, 29, 35, 38, 41, 49, 51, 55, 62, 65, 66, 68, 69, 70, 71, 73, 109, 115, 118, 134 Ho`ˆ Chı´ Minh Trail, 136 Hoˆ` Chı´ Minh Youth, 174 Ho`ˆ Ngoc Nhuaˆn, 93, 94, ˙ ˙ 100, 141, 142, 145, 146, 147, 158, 159, 188, 189 Ho`ˆ Va˘n Minh, 93, 100, 145 Hoˆ` Vieˆ´t Tha˘´ng, 65 Hoa` Hảo, 27, 29, 42, 47, 50, 58, 73, 102 Hoa-kie`ˆ u, 185 Hoa`ng Anh, 64 Hoa´ng Manh Thu, 55 ˙ Hoa`ng Minh Chı´nh, 63, 68, 70, 71, 115, 116, 117 Hochstetter, Leo, 2 Hoˆc Taˆp, 76, 130 ˙ ˙ Hoˆ`ng Sơn Ðoˆng, 188, 189

225 Hugo, Victor, 20, 25 Humphrey, Hubert, 94, 128 Hungarian Uprising 1956, 65 Huy`nh Ba´ Tha`nh (Ớt), 172 Huy`nh-Lieˆn, Ni-sư, 141, 175 Huy`nh Taˆ´n Maˆ˜m, 6 Huy`nh Thu´c Kha´ng, 13, 14 Independence Palace, 120, 173, 174 India, 35, 39, 40, 41, 54, 60 Indochina People’s Conference, 90 Indonesia, 34, 35, 114 Institute of Marxism– Leninism, Hanoi (Nguye˜ˆ n A´i Quo´ˆ c school), 65, 68, 69 Intercolonial Union, 18 International Control Commission (ICC), 35, 39, 54, 55, 170 International Voluntary Service, 125 Isaacs, Arnold, 155, 157 Jacques, Father Emmanuel, 94 Japan, Japanese, 12, 14–6, 18, 27, 30, 40, 58 Johnson, Lyndon B., 1, 9,59, 60, 96, 105, 106, 114, 117, 126, 128, 129, 135, 154 Joint Chiefs of Staff, 58 Jones, Diane, 165 Kahin, George, 56, 58, 154 Keio Gijuku, 12, 15 Kennedy, Edward, 107 Kennedy, John F., 47, 48, 54, 60, 63 Kennedy, Robert, 128 Khamidulin, Rashid, 117 Kha´nh Hoa`, 23, 24 Khe Muth, 179

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Khmers Rouges, 136, 137, 179, 181, 191 Khrushchev, Nikita, 49, 61, 62, 63, 66–8, 71, 72, 111, 112 King, Martin Luther, 32, 93, 107, 108, 128 Kissinger, Henry, 117, 136, 137, 149, 150, 153, 154, 155, 156 Korea, Koreans, 12, 17, 18, 61 Kosygin, Alexei, 72, 112, 114, 134 Lalouette, Roger, 32, 47, 54, 55 Laˆm Va˘n Teˆ´t, 122 Land Reform, 64, 65, 66, 131 Lansdale, Edward, 2, 142 Lao Ðoˆng, 187 ˙ Lao Tzu, 25 Laos, 4, 48, 49, 50, 129, 135, 136, 149, 150, 189, 190 Laˆp Trường, 8, 57 ˙ Leˆ Cơ, 14 Leˆ Duẩn, 42, 43, 44, 50, 62, 63, 67, 68, 69, 71, 73, 74, 76, 110, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 131, 134, 169, 170, 176 Leˆ Ðức Tho, 69, 70–2, 105, ˙ 116 – 18, 130, 131, 133, 134, 150, 151, 188 Leˆ Thanh Nghị, 118 Leˆ Va˘n Lương, 64, 65, 66 Lebret, Father Jean, 94 Liang Qichao, 12, 13 Lịch Sử Nam Boˆ Kha´ng Chieˆ´n, ˙ 118 Lieˆ`n Thanh company, 14 ‘Linebacker I’, 154 ‘Linebacker II’ (Christmas Bombing), 156 Linh Sơn temple, 24

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Liu Shaoqi, 63, 69 Lodge, Henry Cabot, 53, 55, 58, 60, 96, 97, 142 Logevall, Fredrik, 1 Lon Nol, 136 Louvain, University of, 32, 39, 107 Luce, Don, 125, 126, 137, 139, 140 Luo Ruiqing, 63 Lưu Ðoa`n Huynh, 50, 118, 149 Lưu Hoa`˘ ng Tha´o, 138 Ly´ Cha´nh Trung, 107, 152, 153 Ly´ dynasty, 21 Ly´ Quı´ Chung, 141, 144, 145, 146, 158, 161, 172, 173, 187, 188 Ly´ Quı´ Pha´t, 187 Ly´ Thuy Long, 22 ˙ Magsaysay, Ramon, 2 Mai Chı´ Tho, 188, 189 ˙ Manac’h, Etienne, 149 Maneli, Mieczyslaw, 54, 55 Mansfield, Mike, Senator, 59 Mao Zedong, 5, 61, 67, 119, 133, 130 Marcovitch, Herbert, 115, 117 Marr, David, 8, 9, 13, 15, 79 Marrane, Georges, 38 Martin, Graham, 158, 169 Matthias, Willard, 87 Maurras, Charles, 20 McGovern, George, 155 McNamara, Robert, 4, 106, 191 Meiji restoration, 12 Mende`s-France, Pierre, 36 Me´rillon, Jean-Marie, 169 Military Management Committee (1975), 175, 177 Military Revolutionary Council (MRC), 69, 81, 85 Minh Chaˆu, 22

Minh Taˆn (New Light Society), 14 ‘missed opportunities’, 4 Mounier, Emmanuel, 32, 39 Movement to Exterminate Corruption and Reactionaries, 95 Movement for SelfDetermination, 88 Movement to Restore South Vietnam, 144 Nam Phong, 20 Nation Bloc (Khoˆ´i Daˆn toˆc), 146 ˙ National Assembly, DRV, 116 National Assembly, RVN, 125, 141, 144–7, 153, 172 National Council for Reconciliation and Concord, 156, 157, 159, 171 National Leadership Committee, 91 National Liberation Front (NLF), 6, 46–9, 50, 53, 55, 59, 60, 68, 74–6, 83, 88, 90, 91, 95, 97, 100, 103, 106–9, 111, 112, 120–7, 129, 131, 136, 142, 145, 147, 148, 166, 168, 170, 171, 172, 174, 176, 182, 184 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 36, 37, 39 neutralism, neutrality, neutral solution, 2, 3, 31, 347, 39, 40, 41, 42, 47, 48, 49, 50, 58, 59, 60, 74–6, 80, 82, 87, 90, 91, 98, 100, 103, 109, 120, 121, 144, 148, 149, 150, 151, 153, 155, 168, 172, 191

INDEX New Economic Zone, 188 New Society Group (Nho´m Xa˜ Hoˆi Mới), 145 ˙ New York Times, 84, 87, 126, 162 Ngoˆ Ba´ Tha`nh, Mrs, 88, 123, 141, 143 Ngoˆ Coˆng Ðức, 141, 145, 146–8, 153, 158, 160, 186, 187 Ngoˆ Ðı`nh Cẩn, 33, 81 Ngoˆ Ðı`nh Dieˆm, 2, 4, 8, ˙ 27, 32, 34, 35, 37–9, 40–7, 49, 51–9, 62, 73–5, 80–3, 88, 89, 91, 93, 94, 95, 102, 122, 145, 161, 176 Ngoˆ Ðı`nh Nhu, 32, 33, 52–5, 57, 75, 81, 94, 145 Ngoˆ Ðı`nh Thuc, 52 ˙ Ngoˆ Vı˜nh Long, 182 ´ ˜ Nguyeˆn Ai Quốc (see also Ho`ˆ Chı´ Minh), 17, 19 Nguyeˆ˜n A´i Quoˆ´c School see Institute of Marxism–Leninism Nguye˜ˆ n An Ninh, 19, 20 Nguyeˆ˜n Anh (Gia Long), 23 Nguye˜ˆ n Cao Ky`, 80, 87, 89, 91, 94 –6, 100– 3, 106, 107, 150, 152, 170 Nguye˜ˆ n Cha´nh Thi, 87, 91, 95, 115 Nguye˜ˆ n Chı´ Thanh, 73, 76, 115, 138 Nguye˜ˆ n Duy Trinh, 69, 118 Nguye˜ˆ n Hữu Tha´i, 81, 92, 100, 125, 174, 176, 177 Nguyeˆ˜n Hữu Tha`nh, Father, 161 Nguyeˆ˜n Kha˘´c Bı`nh, 172 Nguye˜ˆ n Kha´nh, 58, 60, 75, 80, 81, 83–7, 89, 90, 94, 95, 115 Nguyeˆ˜n Lang, 28

Nguye˜ˆ n Manh Ha`, 6, 38, ˙ 39, 41, 90 ˜ Nguyeˆn Manh Tường, 67 ˙ Nguyeˆ˜n monarchy, lords, 21, 22, 26, 50 Nguyeˆ˜n Ngoc Lan, 107, ˙ 109, 123, 140, 160, 186 Nguye˜ˆ n Ngoc Phương, 138 ˙ Nguyeˆ˜n Ngoc Thơ, 56, ˙ 57, 58 Nguyeˆ˜n Phan Long, 25 Nguye˜ˆ n Phu´c Chu, 22 Nguyeˆ˜n Phu´c Tra˘n, 22 Nguye˜ˆ n Ta´ˆ t Tha`nh (Nguyeˆ˜n A´i Quoˆ´c, Ho`ˆ Chı´ Minh), 17 Nguyeˆ˜n Tha´i Sơn, 176 Nguye˜ˆ n Thị Bı`nh, 136, 150, 151 Nguye˜ˆ n Thie`ˆ u, Hoa` Thượng, 22 Nguye˜ˆ n Thuy Nga, 110 ˙ Loˆi, 14 Nguyeˆ˜n Trong ˙ ˙ ˜ ˆ Nguyen Va˘n Bı`nh, 161 Nguyeˆ˜n Va˘n Hinh, 41 Nguyeˆ˜n Va˘n Huyeˆn, 161 Nguye˜ˆ n Va˘n Linh (Mười Cu´c), 74 Nguye˜ˆ n Va˘n Thieˆu ˙ (President), 89, 100– 3, 106, 107, 109, 120, 123–6, 128, 129, 135, 137, 144, 146–9, 150–9, 161–3, 169, 170, 171, 174, 187–9, 190 Nguye˜ˆ n Va˘n Tra´ˆ n, 72 Nguyeˆ˜n Va˘n Trung, 93, 95, 127, 160 Nguyeˆ˜n Va˘n Vı˜nh, 120 Nhaˆn Daˆn, 49, 50, 64, 116 Nhaˆ´t Chi Mai, 106, 107 Nhị-Lang, 40 Ninth Plenum (1963) see Vietnamese Communist Party Nixon, Richard, 9, 126, 128, 129, 135, 136,

227 137, 148, 149, 150–5, 157, 158, 161 Nolting, Frederick, 53 Noˆng Cổ Minh Ða`m, 15 Novotny, Antonin, 49, 68, 69 Office of Strategic Services (OSS), 10, 29 Oka, Takashi, 83, 87 Operation Enhance Plus, 156 Operation Frequent Wind, 172 Operation Menu, 136 Operation Rolling Thunder, 89 Oplan 34A, 59 Overseas Buddhist Association, 34 Pacific Stars and Stripes, 167 Paracel Islands, 179 Paria, Le, 18 Paris Peace Agreement (Paris Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam), 2, 134, 154, 155, 159, 160, 162, 165, 166, 169, 171, 180, 190 Paris Peace Conference 1919, 17 Paris Peace Negotiations, 123, 129, 133, 135–7, 147, 148, 149, 150–2, 155 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, 69 Pathet Lao, 136 Paul VI, Pope, 94, 127 peaceful co-existence, 40, 49, 62, 67, 68, 71, 115 ‘Pennsylvania’ peace initiative, 117 Pentagon, the, 49, 96, 136, 167 Pentagon Papers, 43, 101

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People’s Anti-Corruption Force, 161 People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), 118, 136, 154, 163 People’s Force to Defend the Revolution, 95 People’s Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF), 118 personalism, communitarian, 32, 33, 34, 53 Peyrefitte, Alain, 90 Pham Coˆng Ta´˘ c, 35, 40 ˙ Pham Hu`ng, 68, 131 ˙ Pham Quy`nh, 20 ˙ Pham Va˘n Ðoˆ`ng, 35, 38, ˙ 66, 70, 118, 179 Pham Va˘n Huyeˆ`n, 88 ˙ Pham Va˘n Nam, 39 ˙ Phan Boˆi Chaˆu, 12, 15, ˙ 16, 26 Phan Chaˆu Trinh, 12 –17 Phan Huy Qua´ˆ t, 89, 91 Phan Quang Ða´n, Dr, 46, 82 Phan Va˘n Trường, 17, 19, 20 Phan Xuaˆn Huy, 146 Pha´p –Vieˆt Ðeˆ` Hueˆ` ˙ (French–Vietnamese Fraternity), 17 Phaˆt Gia´o Vieˆt Nam ˙ ˙ (Vietnamese Buddhism), 92 Phaˆt Hoc Kieˆm Teˆ´, 28 ˙ _ Phouma, Souvanna, 48 Phu´ Quoˆ´c, 179, 181 Pike, Douglas, 76 Pineau, Father Bernard, 94 Pol Pot, 136 Polgar, Thomas, 157, 163, 174 Popular Front in France, 27, 28 Porter, Gareth, 45 Prague Spring, 132 PRC see China Progressio Populorum, 1967 Encyclical, 94

THE

VIETNAM WAR

Progressive National Committee, 126 Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG), 6, 123, 136, 146, 147, 149, 150 –2, 155 –7, 168, 171, 173, 175, 176, 178 PRG Seven Point Programme, 146, 147, 149, 151, 168 quo´ˆc ngữ (national script), 11, 14, 19, 20, 23–4 rectification of organizations, 64, 66, 131 re-education, 176, 188 Republic of Vietnam (RVN), 2, 6,7, 27, 37, 41, 43, 48, 49, 53, 58, 60, 84, 99, 100, 106, 121, 129, 136, 137, 144, 147, 154, 156–8, 161, 165, 171, 189 Republican Youth, 145 ‘revisionism’, ‘revisionist’, 49, 62, 63, 67– 9, 70, 71, 76, 77, 111, 114, 117, 119, 132 Revolutionary Military Council, 57 Rhee, Syngman, 46 Riverside Drive speech by MLK, 127 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 10 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 14, 20 Sa`i Go`n Giải Pho´ng, 177 Sainteny, Jean, 40 Sarraut, Albert, 17, 30 Schell, Jonathan, 9 Schlesinger, James, 167 School of Buddhist Youth for Social Service (BYSS), 93, 94, 99, 100 Schumann, Maurice, 150–2

Shanghai Communique´ (1972), 137 Shaplen, Robert, 2 Shcherbakov, Ilia, 117 Sihanouk, Prince Norodom, 37, 39, 59, 90, 91, 136, 178 Snepp, Frank, 167, 169, 170 Socialist Republic of Vietnam, 178 Society and Nation Bloc (Khối Xa˜ Hội – Daˆn Tộc), 146, 158 Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), 84 Souvanna Phouma see Phouma Soviets, Soviet Union (USSR), 5, 43, 44, 49, 61–9, 71, 72, 111, 112, 114 –17, 130, 132, 133, 137, 150, 155, 156, 168, 171, 178, 179, 183, 185, 189, 192 Special Operations Executive (SOE), 29 Spencer, Herbert, 14 Stalin, Joseph, 64, 66, 67 Stowe, Judy, 3 Strategic Hamlet programme, 53, 55, 58, 59 Struggle Movement 1966, 96, 97, 98, 100, 103, 119, 140 Sukarno, President, 37 Sự Thaˆt press, 70 ˙ Tam Bảo pagoda, 28 Taˆn Hieˆp prison, 160 ˙ Taoism, 21, 25, 51 Taˆp Chı´ Lịch Sử Quaˆn ˙ Sự, 118 Taˆy Soˆn brothers, 22 Taylor, Maxwell, 87, 89 Te´ˆ t Offensive 1968, 22, 72, 100, 103, 105, 106,

INDEX 109, 134, 142, 149, 154, 167 Te´ˆ t Quang Trung, 120, 124 Thailand, 154, 155, 157, 175 theosophy, 39 Theses on the Path to Revolution in South Vietnam, 43, 44, 45 Thı´ch Ðoˆn Hậu, 122, 124 Thı´ch Minh Chaˆu, 99 Thı´ch Nhất Hanh, 92, 99, ˙ 100, 105 –9, 125, 131 Thı´ch Nữ Thanh Quang, 96 Thı´ch Quảng Ðức, 52, 54, 70 Thı´ch Taˆm Chaˆu, 86, 98 Thı´ch Taˆm Gia´c, 82 Thı´ch Thanh Vaˆn, 100 Thı´ch Thiện Chieˆ´u, 24, 28 Thı´ch Thiện Hoa, 98 Thı´ch Tinh Khieˆ´t, 83 Thı´ch Trı´ Ðộ, 51, 83 Thı´ch Trı´ Quang, 51–4, 82, 83, 86, 92, 96–9, 106, 161, 173, 177 Thı´ch Vieˆn Quang, 22 Thieˆn Ðịa Hội, 26 Thiệu see Nguyễn Va˘n Thiệu Third Force, 1, 5, 37, 95, 103, 160, 161 Third Segment, 2–5, 48, 59, 73, 170, 171 –2, 175–6, 191 Third Solution, 11, 107, 108 Third Way, 1, 2, 32, 40, 100 Third World, 34, 37 Tiger Cages, 140, 141 Tieˆ´n Hoa´, 28 Tin Sa´ng, 7, 146, 147, 153, 187, 188, 189 To´ˆ Coˆng (Denounce the ˙ Communists) campaign, 43 Toˆ´ Hữu, 68, 69 Toˆn Thất Dương Ky, 88, ˙ 122, 124

Topmiller, Robert, 85 Traˆ`n Bach Ða˘`ng, 75, 103, ˙ 112, 122 –4, 131 –2 Traˆ`n Cha´nh Chieˆ´u (Gilbert Chie´ˆ u), 14 Traˆ`n dynasty, 21, 22 Tra`ˆ n Huy Lieˆu, 24 ˙ Traˆ`n Leˆ Xuaˆn (Mme Nhu), 52 Traˆ`n Ngoc Chaˆu, 5, 101, ˙ 141, 142, 144–5 Traˆ`n Ngoc Hieˆ`n, 142, 144 ˙ Tra`ˆ n Ngoc Lie˜ˆ ng, 126 ˙ Traˆ`n Phương, 134 ´ ` Traˆn Quoˆc Hoa`n, 72, 118 Traˆ`n Quy´ Ca´p, 14, 15 Tra`ˆ n Quy`nh, 114 Traˆ`n Thị Lieˆn (Claire), 39, 127 Traˆ`n Thieˆn Khieˆm, 85, 135, ˙ 171 Traˆ`n Thoˆng, 39 Tra`ˆ n Tuye´ˆ t Hoa, 124 Traˆ`n Va˘n Ðo, 46 Tra`ˆ n Va˘n Doˆn, 170 Tra`ˆ n Va˘n Hương, 87, 135, 171 Tra`ˆ n Va˘n Hữu, 35, 38–9, 40, 41, 47–9, 88, 90, 170 Traˆ`n Va˘n Tra`, 110, 118, 119, 175, 190 Tribune, La, 38, 39 Trịnh Ðı`nh Thảo, 122 Trotskyists, 27, 29 Tru´c Laˆm sect, 22 Trung Laˆp Ba´o, 20 ˙ Trường Chinh, 64–5, 68, 71, 72, 116, 118, 132–4, 178, 183, 184, 192 Trường, David (Ðı`nh Hung), 126 Trường Ðı`nh Dzu, 101, 102, 106, 126 Trường Như Tảng, 6, 88, 103, 121, 123, 125, 168, 178, 184 Từ Cung, 125

229 Từ Ða`m pagoda, 51 Từ Hieˆ´u pagoda, 92 Tuổi Trẻ, 187 Twentieth Party Congress of Soviet Union, 66, 67 U Thant, 4, 90 Ưng Va˘n Khieˆm, 49, 69 Unified Buddhist Association of Vietnam, 82, 83, 85, 92, 98 US Congress, 157, 168 US Embassy, Saigon, 120, 172, 173, 179 US Information Service Library, 96 USAID, 126 USSR see Soviets, Soviet Union Van Hanh University, 93, ˙ ˙ 99, 138, 174 Va˘n Kieˆn Dảng see Documents ˙ of Party History, 59 Va˘n Tieˆ´n Du˜ng, 118, 170 Vann, John Paul, 142, 144 Vanuxem, Franc ois, 173 Vatican, the, 127 Versailles Peace Treaty, 18 Vieˆn Hoa´ Ðao see Buddhists, ˙ ˙ Buddhism Vieˆt Coˆng, 40, 43, 52, 80, ˙ ˙ 86, 95, 96, 97, 103, 173, 176 Vieˆt Minh alliance, 29, 30, ˙ 34, 35, 38, 42, 56, 64, 66, 67, 75, 95, 125, 142, 145 Vietnamese Buddhist Force, 95 Vietnamese Communist Party, Vietnam Workers’ Party (Ðảng Lao Ðoˆng), 6, 27, ˙ 45–6, 50, 62, 64, 67, 69, 70 –5, 80, 97 –8, 101, 103, 109–11, 115, 130, 142, 149, 154, 157, 158, 162,

230

THE THIRD FORCE IN

169, 171, 173–4, 176–7, 186, 192 Control Commission, 71 Fifteenth Plenum (1959), 43, 61 Fourteenth Plenum (1968), 119 Ninth Plenum (1963), Resolution 9, 62, 64, 66, 68, 70–2, 77, 112 Second Congress (1951), 64–5 Tenth Plenum (1956), 65–6 Third Congress (1960), 62, 66, 68

THE

VIETNAM WAR

Vietnamization, Vietnamize war, 135, 147, 150 Vı˜nh Long Personalist Philosophy Centre, 33 Vo˜ Long Triều, 144, 188 Vo˜ Nguyeˆn Gia´p, 38, 51, 64–6, 68, 69, 115, 116, 118 Vo˜ Va˘n Kiệt, 42 Vu˜ Ðı`nh Huynh, 115, 116 Vu˜ Thư Hieˆn, 116, 117 Vu˜ Va˘n Mẫu, 54, 161, 174

Watergate, 158, 161 Werner, Jayne, 25 Westmoreland, William, 90 Wilson, Harold, 4, 90 Wilson, Woodrow, 10, 17 Wurfel, David, 102 World Council of Churches, 125 Xa´ Lợi pagoda, 53, 82 Xuaˆn Thuỷ, 69 Yao Tengshan, 114

Wai Island, 181 Walton, Frank E., 139

Zhou Enlai, 37, 119

It was the conflict that shocked America and the world, but the struggle for peace is central to the history of the Vietnam War. Rejecting the idea that war between Hanoi and the US was inevitable, the author traces a series of communist programmes for a peaceful reunification of their nation from the 1954 Geneva negotiations up to the final collapse of the Saigon government in 1975. She also examines the ways that groups and personalities in South Vietnam responded by crafting their own peace proposals, in the hope that the Vietnamese people could solve their disagreements by engaging in talks without outside interference.

Cover design by Arianna Osti

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Sophie Quinn-Judge

S o p h ie Qu i nn -Ju dge received her PhD from SOAS, University of London and is the author of Ho Chi Minh: The Missing Years. She first visited Vietnam as a volunteer in 1973–5.

The Elusive Search for Peace 1954–75

While most of the writing on peacemaking during the Vietnam War concerns high-level international diplomacy, Sophie Quinn-Judge reminds us of the courageous efforts of southern Vietnamese, including Buddhists, Catholics, students and citizens, to escape the unprecedented destruction that the US war brought to their people. The author contends that US policymakers showed little regard for the attitudes of the South Vietnamese population when they took over the war effort in 1964 and sent in their own troops to fight it in 1965. A unique contribution of this study is the interweaving of developments in South Vietnamese politics with changes in the balance of power in Hanoi; both of the Vietnamese combatants are shown to evolve towards greater rigidity as the war progresses, while the US grows increasingly committed to President Thiê.u in Saigon, after the election of Richard Nixon. Not even the signing of the 1973 Paris Peace Agreement could blunt US support for Thiê.u and his obstruction of the peace process. The result was a difficult peace in 1975, achieved by military might rather than reconciliation, and a new realization of the limits of American foreign policy.

The Third Force in the Vietnam War

‘T

he most careful, thorough and persuasive analysis of the often heartbreaking efforts of non-aligned Vietnamese to help bring about peace. The crushing of those efforts is a largely untold story – until now. Quinn-Judge’s brilliant book transforms our understanding of South Vietnamese politics and thus of the war itself.’ M ar ily n B. You n g , P r ofes s or of Mo dern Histo ry, NY U

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