Family friends and country Nguyen Thi Binh

The huge event on May 13 in front of Unification Palace was solemn
and monumental. On the long presidium sat the Provisional Revolutionary
Government’s most senior leaders—Nguyễn Hữu Thọ,[2] Huỳnh Tấn Phát,
[3] Trần Nam Trung,[4] and others—along with comrades from the
leadership of the Vietnamese Workers’ Party (now the Vietnamese
Communist Party). That group included Uncle Tôn Đức Thắng,[5]
Comrade Lê Duẩn,[6] Phạm Hùng,[7] and others. For the first time, the
people of Sài Gòn saw the Party and State leaders whose names and work
they had known for decades but only through newspapers and radio.

PRG Council of Government President Nguyễn Hữu Thọ spoke,
praising the troops and the people who had fought so heroically. They had
achieved a glorious victory as well as independence, freedom, and re-
unification for our magnificent Homeland. A parade followed. Our foot
soldiers carrying their weapons marched by, and then we watched a display
of the Liberation Army’s military equipment. Everyone in Sài Gòn was in
the streets during those historic days in the middle of May 1975. We all
understood that now we could really live in peace. The South had achieved
liberation, and we had re-united our Homeland from the northern tip at
Nam Quan to the southern tip at Cà Mau.

I was indescribably buoyant during that ceremony, as were the millions
of others who had lived through the two fierce Resistance Wars. At times,
I felt as if I were dreaming. I was endlessly moved to meet old friends
after decades of separation, particularly the brothers and sisters with
whom I had been in prison at Chí Hòa. We had all aged markedly. Many
comrades had passed on; they would never be among us again. We had
endless stories to share about our activities in the Resistance, the different
fronts where we had served, and our families.

*

**

My most pressing task was to search for my younger brother, Hà, whom
the Sài Gòn authorities had imprisoned on Côn Đảo Island in 1968, when I
began participating in the Paris Conference. At that time, Hà was an
activist in Sài Gòn.

The gang of informers knew he was the younger brother of Nguyễn Thị
Bình. The Sài Gòn police arrested him. Hà endured every type of corporal
punishment during the fierce questioning before they exiled him to Côn
Đảo. For nearly seven years, he lived there in a “tiger cage,”[8] a far
crueler cell than those of the Middle Ages.

Perhaps my younger brother’s pain was not just that he was tortured
from the outset but, rather, a deeper, far sharper pain. His wife, Tư Sương,
was also arrested, because she was Hà’s wife and because Hà was the
younger brother of Mme. Bình and a grandson of Phan Châu Trinh. Hà’s
wife had just given birth. Their baby, who was not yet two months old, was
also taken to prison. Tư Sương was in prison for six years, including two
years at Côn Đảo.

Theirs was the pain of so many families during the Resistance. With
mothers and fathers both in prison, the children also became prisoners, or
the children were sent to relatives for a time here, for a time there.

I knew that on May 1, 1975 (the day after Sài Gòn’s liberation), the
Revolutionary Administration sent boats to fetch the brothers and sisters
in the Côn Đảo Prison. Hải, my fourth younger sibling, and I went from

one reception camp to another to another, searching for Hà. We witnessed
countless reunions between close family members—the uncontrollable
emotions, people laughing, crying, laughing, crying. Finally, we arrived at
Hùng Vương Reception Center and found our brother, Nguyễn Đông Hà,
whom we had not seen for twenty-one years. He was pale but not gaunt.
Although he had aged terribly, his eyes were bright; although he looked
exhausted, he still could smile. While my father was still alive, his eyes
would fill with tears whenever anyone mentioned my younger brother in
prison.

Hà and I hugged each other as if we would never let go. Hà’s wife and
children had also arrived. We left for the house of Hà’s wife, Tư Sương,
who had been released earlier. As a District 1 official, she had received an
apartment on Phạm Ngũ Lão Street. It had been so long since we had been
together, although we still did not have with us our three younger siblings,
who were in Hà Nội. Several months later, we had a chance to have
everyone together at the shrine for Elder Phan.

By this time, most of our younger siblings had married. Hải was nearly
forty years old when he married, and so he had children late. Loan and her
husband had both graduated from Qing Hua University in China; they had
a son and then later, a daughter. Hồ had married and had faced difficulties,
but by this point, his family situation was tranquil. Only Hào had yet to
establish a family. A soldier for seven years, he had hiked down the Hồ
Chí Minh Trail. After our mother’s early death, I had tried to step into her
place and help my siblings as they grew to adulthood. Now, there remained
only Hào, the youngest, of whom I was terribly fond. I can say that he
probably bore the greatest loss in our family. I had yet to complete my
responsibility, for I still needed to help him secure family happiness.

*

**

Although I was busy with my family, I needed to return quickly to
professional responsibilities, since I was still the PRG foreign minister.
Several brothers and sisters in the PRG ministry took over the Sài Gòn
regime’s foreign-ministry offices and began working there. Soon, we
transferred the PRG’s foreign ministry from Cam Lộ in Quảng Trị
Province to Sài Gòn. I assigned Comrade Hoàng Bích Sơn,[9] our deputy
foreign minister, and several other officials to take direct responsibility in
Sài Gòn. I continued to work in Hà Nội until complete re-unification in
July 1976.

The major political issue was when to unite the State administration.
Some held that complete re-unification required no discussion since the
people in both sectors longed for a unified country and since independence
and re-unification had been the basic goals of our people’s continuous
struggle for decades. However, others thought we should preserve two
administrations for a time. These colleagues pointed to the two different
political systems that had been in place. The Democratic Republic of Việt
Nam (DRVN) was already established as a socialist state, whereas the
Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) of South Việt Nam was still
a nationalist, independent, and neutral state. The NLF-PRG platform was
carefully neither pro-socialist nor pro-capitalist. These colleagues urged
that we keep the South as it was in order to secure outside cooperation and
assistance from socialist, nationalist, and capitalist nations and their
organizations.

In the end, we unanimously accepted the proposal to implement
complete re-unification of the country and its ministries, departments, and
organizations as soon as possible. I raised my hand in agreement.

Now, looking back after many years, I know that this guideline was
correct. Prolonging the division and its differences might have given the
United States the advantages needed in order to meddle; the situation
might have become more complicated and difficult. We can look at other
divided countries and see that our decision was appropriate. Usually, when
we re-examine an issue, we might say this side or that side should have
been more flexible. However, this basic decision was correct and far-
sighted.

On June 17, 1975, a large, historic meeting took place at the Unification
Palace between the Fatherland Front of Việt Nam (the North) and the
National Liberation Front of South Việt Nam (the South).[10] The leaders
of both fronts attended. I was also there. The discussion was heated but
also serious and filled with a sense of responsibility. President Nguyễn
Hữu Thọ presented the NLF’s contributions during fifteen years opposing
the United States. Since the Front had now completed its historic
responsibilities, he proposed establishing a unified Front for the entire
country to facilitate early re-unification in all fields. This Consultative
Conference decided to establish a nationwide front—the Vietnamese
Fatherland Front. The newly forming, interim Fatherland Front then
proposed nationwide National Assembly elections for 1976.

In April 1976, candidates for the VIth National Assembly (counting
from the first National Assembly election in 1946) went to the localities to
mobilize the electorate. I was introduced to serve as a candidate for Sài

Gòn’s Districts 4, 7, and 8 as well as Côn Đảo Island (which at that time
belonged to Sài Gòn City). Comrades Phạm Hùng, Trần Văn Trà,[11]
Nguyễn Hữu Thọ, and others were on the same list of candidates.

This was the first time in many years that I mingled with the people of
Sài Gòn. The voters came out in large numbers to see the faces of those in
the PRG whose names they had been hearing for a long time. Older
Brother Trà and I went to Côn Đảo. The population there was thinly
scattered. We toured the areas where the enemy had held our revolutionary
warriors, from the “cattle barn”[12] of French colonialism to the “tiger
cages” of US imperialism. The local authorities had cleaned up the area.
Nevertheless, we stared at the instruments used to intimidate and torture
the brothers and sisters whom the Sài Gòn authorities had held as political
prisoners. I felt keenly aware that I’d been the beneficiary of countless
lives sacrificed by the comrades who had gone before me.

The election results were announced in June 1976. I was one of the
candidates to receive the most votes. I served as a representative in the
National Assembly from the VIth session (1976-1981) continuously
through the Xth session (1997-2002).

*

**

In August 1976, I returned to Hà Nội. Comrade Lê Văn Lương,[13] then
a Politburo member and head of the Party’s Central-Level Organizing
Committee, came to see me. He suggested I accept the position of minister
of education in the new government. He said this responsibility was very

important in this next stage of building the country. The comrades had
noticed in my curriculum vitae that I had been a teacher.

I was completely surprised. I had gathered some experience during
more than fourteen years working in foreign affairs. It seemed to me that
continuing in foreign affairs would better use my capabilities. Yet faced
with Comrade Lê Văn Lương’s encouragement, I felt I should accept the
Party’s assignment.

After re-unification, one issue during 1977 and 1978 left me constantly
uneasy. The Party promulgated Directive Z.30 to transform the capitalist
industries and commerce in the former South to socialism. One of my
husband’s younger sisters and her family had opened a store selling
Western medicine in Chợ Lớn. Appearance of their names on the list for
transformation paralyzed them. All their pharmaceutical goods were
confiscated, and their store was sealed. I went to visit. Husband and wife
were terribly worried. I tried to explain the policy, but at the bottom of my
heart, I was very uneasy. I couldn’t understand: What good could come of
this? Surely, my family could not continue to run their drug store. I never
saw them again. Later, I learned that this guideline was re-examined, but I
wondered: Had the leaders drawn from deep experience? Had they realized
the depth of the negative results?

I continued my PRG diplomatic activities from 1975 until September
1976, when I moved to the Ministry of Education.

In July 1975, the Non-Aligned-Movement (NAM) foreign ministers
met in Lima, Peru, the first Latin American country I visited after Cuba.
The president of Peru gave our PRG delegation a warm welcome and
congratulated us on the Vietnamese people’s great victory. He presented

me with a precious gift, a bracelet made from a strand of gold. However,
during the conference, there was a “peaceful” coup in Peru and a new
president. We were worrying about the new administration’s attitude when
the Peruvian foreign minister passed along the new president’s message:
“Friends, be at ease. Although Peru has undergone an internal change, we
still support and esteem the Vietnamese people.”

A major agenda item for the NAM foreign ministers’ meeting was
discussion of new members to be admitted. Among the candidates were
the Democratic Republic of Việt Nam (DRVN, “North Việt Nam), North
Korea, South Korea, and the Philippines. At this time, the DRVN had not
participated in the Non-Aligned Movement, although the PRG was an
official member. Nguyễn Cơ Thạch[14] led the DRVN delegation. Of
course, the DRVN met no difficulty, since our two delegations each
encouraged the other countries to accept the DRVN.

The PRG’s prestige was high from the Vietnamese victory. Other
nations facing thorny problems often came to ask for our suggestions.
During this particular meeting, the most difficult issue was South Korea’s
possible admission into NAM. Of course, the PRG would support North
Korea and oppose South Korea. South Korea had supported US policies
during the war, even to the extent of sending soldiers to occupy South Việt
Nam. Those troops had perpetrated many atrocities against our people.
Thus, our delegation said, we could not call South Korea a “non-aligned
nation.”

Some NAM members supported the Philippines’ admission, but other
delegations refused their support after we informed everyone that US
airplanes had left airbases in the Philippines to bomb Việt Nam. One

DRVN delegation member questioned whether we should think of the
future and support the Philippines. Yet how could we forget the recent
past, when the tears of our compatriots—the mothers of sons sacrificed in
the war—had not dried?

Several months later, Nguyễn Cơ Thạch and I went with several other
comrades to Mexico, Venezuela, and other countries to research the
possibilities of exploiting Việt Nam’s natural reserves of oil. After
liberation, our first worry had been securing sufficient rice for our people;
[15] our second concern was petrol. The cooperation between Việt Nam
and the Soviet Union on development of Vietnamese oil reserves began
during this period. However, first we had to borrow oil for economic and
military activities, as well as for our people’s daily life.

In October 1975, three of us—Comrade Trúc from the Office of the
Government, an interpreter, and I—visited Algeria, Libya, and Iraq “to
borrow oil.” Even though these friendly countries supported Việt Nam,
addressing economic matters was not easy. Nevertheless, we were able to
borrow oil for immediate use with preferential interest rates.

The visit to Iraq left me with deep impressions. At that time, Saddam
Hussein,[16] whom many of the Iraqi people regarded as a hero, had just
become vice president of Iraq. Hearing Việt Nam’s urgent request, he
answered immediately, saying, “We will give Việt Nam four hundred
thousand tons of oil and lend 1.5 million tons with a preferred interest
rate.” I heard this, but I could not believe my ears; I asked the interpreter
whether he was sure this was true. We were so touched by this gesture
from our Iraqi friends. Later, Iraq suffered under the embargo and had to
exchange oil for food. Nevertheless, our friends continued to sign

commercial contracts favorable to us during the years when we had many
economic difficulties.

In 2002, I went back to Iraq to address our debt of more than twenty
years, which we still had not completely repaid. According to suggestions
from our government, we proposed transferring the debt into investment in
an economic project in Việt Nam. When I met Saddam Hussein to propose
this idea, he laughed and said, “You Vietnamese friends needn’t worry. I
know you face difficulties. We will view this debt as paid.” Once again, I
was so touched, for I knew Iraq was suffering from an American embargo
and experiencing its own difficulties on every front.

We all know how the situation in Iraq has changed. US President
George Bush mobilized a war against Iraq by accusing Saddam Hussein of
a relationship with the Al-Qaeda terrorist forces and the production of
weapons of mass destruction. Later the world learned that these
accusations were bold lies invented to implement a scheme for US profit.
Iraqi history will decide whether Saddam Hussein made mistakes
domestically, internationally, or against his own people.

Nevertheless, I think we Vietnamese should be grateful for his much-
needed assistance throughout the early years when our country was
recovering from war.

During the War Against the United States in Việt Nam, I had many
opportunities to travel to the Middle East. This region is wealthy because
large oil reserves lie beneath its dry sands. Yet perhaps these many seams
of “black gold” keep the people from having tranquil lives. I harbor deep
feelings about the fate of the Palestinian people and their struggle for an
independent Palestinian State. When will they achieve victory?

Palestinians must still live like “refugees” from their own ancestral
homes!

Once when I was visiting Iraq, our interpreter was an Iraqi married to a
Palestinian, who had sacrificed himself in the independence struggle.
Their twenty-year-old daughter, who was strong and beautiful, had just
finished university in Beirut, Lebanon. She said, “I don’t know what my
future will be. Like most of my friends, I will follow the call of our leader,
Arafat!”[17] Her soft, calm words moved me deeply. So many Palestinian
youth have fallen and will fall during the unequal struggle so they can
have their own country, their own Homeland!

After the re-unification of Việt Nam, I left the diplomatic service,
where I had been active for many years, and moved to education.

This was a huge step for me. Now, looking back, I can see that my
growth as a public servant continued. The lessons I had accumulated in my
diplomatic service were useful for my next assignment.

[1] …saw their fathers’ faces: After the 1954 Geneva Agreement, the southerners who had

been active in fighting the French genuinely expected that elections would re-unite their country
in 1956. Thus, in 1954, many young men who had fought on the Việt Minh side tied down their
sweet-hearts by marrying before they regrouped to the North. These couples were together
sometimes for only a few days, a week, or perhaps a month. The children conceived in that short
time before regrouping first saw their fathers’ faces twenty years later, if the fathers survived.

[2] Nguyễn Hữu Thọ: See Chapter 4, “Forged during the Resistance Against France,”

footnote 25, p. 84.

[3] Huỳnh Tấn Phát: See Chapter 4, “Forged during the Resistance Against France,”

footnote 29, p. 85.

[4] Trần Nam Trung: See Chapter 7, “Total Victory,” footnote 15, p. 241.

[5] Tôn Đức Thắng (1888-1980, a.k.a. Hai [Second] Thắng, Thoại Sơn, and Bác [Uncle]

Tôn) came from what is now An Giang Province in the Mekong Delta of the Southern Region.
He studied ship-building in Sài Gòn, was involved in labor issues in 1912, and went to France as
a laborer in 1913. He joined the League of Revolutionary Youth in Canton in 1927, the same
year Hồ Chí Minh (using the alias Lý Thụy) secretly established that organization. Tôn Đức
Thắng joined the Party in 1930, while he was a prisoner on Côn Đảo Island. Released with the
August 1945 Revolution, he became Party secretary for the Southern Region. He was vice
president of Việt Nam from 1960 until President Hồ’s death in 1969. Tôn Đức Thắng served as
president from 1969 to 1976.

[6] Lê Duẩn: See Chapter 4, “Forged during the Resistance Against France,” footnote 43, p.

98.

[7] Phạm Hùng: See Chapter 4, “Forged during the Resistance Against France,” footnote

45, p. 98.

[8] “Tiger cages:” France had secured ownership of the Côn Đảo (Côn Sơn) archipelago in

1783 with the Treaty of Versailles but did not take possession until 1861. The next year, the
French began turning the main island into a prison. They started Prison I in 1862 and finished it
in 1896, built Prison II next to Prison I in 1916, and Prison III about a kilometer away in 1928,
with Auxiliary Prison III built in 1941. They built the first “tiger cages” in 1940. These 120 cells
were hidden behind a stone wall. The two rows of cells had iron bars overhead and a walkway
for guards, who threw lime down on the prisoners. Four or five people lived in each cell, which
was so cramped the prisoners could not all lie down at once.

In December 1970, American journalist Don Luce secured a sketch-map drawn by a former
prisoner, Cao Nguyên Lợi, who had pin-pointed the door leading to the tiger cages. Using Lợi’s
map, Don led a delegation of aides from the US Congress onto the walkway over the cages. At
that time, the prison (including the tiger cages) was under the supervision of American officers.
The delegation’s photographs in Life, then the most popular US weekly magazine, shocked the
world. Major newspapers covered the story. Activists protesting US policy imprisoned
themselves in model tiger cages in front of the US capital. The tiger cages on Côn Đảo were
closed.

Or so the activists thought.

Despite the protests, within months, in 1971, US officers supervised the building of two new
camps of tiger cages, with 384 cages total. These cages were so secret that, today, very few
people—both Vietnamese and Americans and other nationalities who were activists at that time—
know of their existence. The American cages are open to the public, but tourists visiting Côn Đảo
usually “miss” them because the two camps were intentionally hidden outside of town and down
a dead-end road. The new tiger cages were even more cramped than the French model. US
advisors stopped building a third camp of tiger cages after the signing of the Paris Agreement.
However, the other two US-built camps of tiger cages remained full of prisoners until May 1,
1975.

[9] Hoàng Bích Sơn: See Chapter 5, “A Special Front Opposing the United States to Save

the Nation,” footnote 15, p. 125.

[10] The National Liberation Front of South Việt Nam had continued to function as a

coordinating body for mass organizations after formation of the Provisional Revolutionary
Government on June 6, 1969.

[11] Trần Văn Trà: See Chapter 7, “Total Victory,” footnote 9, p. 236.

[12] The “cattle barn” on Côn Đảo was indeed a cattle barn made of rocks split by

prisoners. The barn had a pipe, which carried manure down to a huge vat in a special building
also built of split rocks. Prisoners were thrown into the vat; they drowned in the manure.

[13] Lê Văn Lương (1912-1995) from Bắc Ninh Province in the Northern Region was a

member of the Politburo and party secretary for Hà Nội from 1976 to 1986.

[14] Nguyễn Cơ Thạch (1921-1998, given name: Phạm Văn Cương) came from Nam Định

Province in the Red River Delta of the Northern Region. He took part in revolutionary youth
organizations, was arrested during the French crack-down at the end of the French Popular Front,
and was in prison from 1940 to the August 1945 Revolution. He joined the Party while in Sơn La
Prison, one of the five major French centers for political detainees. During the French War, he
served with Party offices in the military and then, in 1954, moved over to foreign affairs. He was
special assistant to Lê Đức Thọ in the final year of the Paris Conference. Nguyễn Cơ Thạch was
foreign minister from 1980 to 1991 and established the preliminary relationships that facilitated
normalized relations between Việt Nam and the United States.

[15] Rice supplies for our people: Before the American War, Việt Nam’s Southern Region

exported rice. However, by the end of the war, the United States was flying daily shipments of
rice from Louisiana into Sài Gòn. All those shipments stopped at the end of April 1975.

[16] Saddam Hussein (1937-2006) was president of Iraq from 1979 to 2003.

[17] Yassar Arafat: See Chapter 7, “Total Victory,” footnote 23, p. 252.

10.

A United Front Opposing the United States and
the Sài Gòn Administration

After April 30, 1975, I was again able to meet close friends I had not
seen in more than twenty years. This was a great joy. I also met once more
many people whom I had known in different situations. Now, we were each
far older, and each had somewhat different views. Together, we reviewed
the experiences that had led us to follow different routes during those
difficult times under French colonialism and American imperialism.

We asked each other about our lives, sharing our innermost emotions
and private hopes. I heard many simple, heartfelt words expressing such
deep feelings, but also many secret, opposing, and worrisome thoughts.
Many times, I have returned to Hồ Chí Minh City on a work assignment
and in particular for anniversaries of the liberation of the South on April
30. I have taken the time when there to share stories with these brothers
and sisters, along with those whom I had known by name only but had not
met.

I had known lawyer Trần Ngọc Liễng[1] when we were activists with
lawyer Nguyễn Hữu Thọ. Now, he was living in a monastery, as he said, for
“peace of mind.” Others, such as Professor Lý Chánh Trung[2] and Priests

Huỳnh Công Minh[3] and Phan Khắc Từ,[4] had been representatives in
the Sài Gòn National Assembly several years before. Journalists Lý Quý
Chung,[5] Hồ Ngọc Nhuận,[6] and Ngô Công Đức[7] had been members of
the opposition in the Sài Gòn National Assembly’s lower house.

These days, when the Hồ Chí Minh City leaders speak at post-war
celebrations, they emphasize our people’s glorious victory in returning
independence and unification to our Homeland. They praise the important
contributions of the army and political leadership in the struggle to
liberate the country in general and Sài Gòn in particular. I have often
suggested that when they speak of the political forces in the South, they
should also talk about the Third Force and its role in national
reconciliation and concord. However, these comrades remain hesitant to
engage this issue. I think this situation is not yet as it should be. As an
“insider,” I’ve had the opportunity to know and understand some truths,
which perhaps have been forgotten. I feel it is my responsibility to speak
out about those points.

It is terribly difficult to gain complete clarity on all matters that
occurred during our people’s prolonged struggle. We had many secret
activities, in many different places, at many different times, with many
different lines of communication. We who held positions of responsibility
and who are still living must make the truth clear. We must be sure no one
is forgotten! This is a fundamental truth for me because I believe each of
us has only one life. Thus, we should never allow a person’s life to
languish in misunderstanding.

*

**

The National Liberation Front (NLF) of South Việt Nam came into
being in 1960. It lifted aloft the flag of solidarity, gathering many strata of
people together in order to end the war of aggression, liberate the South,
and re-unite our Homeland.

The Alliance of National, Democratic, and Peace Forces was
established after Tết 1968, the Year of the Monkey. If the National
Liberation Front of South Việt Nam is considered the First Force, then the
Alliance would be the Second Force. Following the Alliance, other
political and social organizations appeared in Sài Gòn, including the
Women’s Movement for the Right to Life[8] and the Movement to Protect
the National Culture. The Buddhists and Catholics also organized many
groups and actions to demand peace and national reconciliation. These
groups became the Third Force.[9]

Before the signing of the Paris Agreement in January 1973, Comrade
Lê Duẩn (the Party general secretary) sent a letter to the Party Central
Level for the South. He wrote, “You must hasten to pull together the
various groups advocating peace, independence, democracy, and national
reconciliation to form a Third Force in order to split and isolate the
oppositional forces even more and to direct a spearhead into Thiệu[10] and
the most warlike factions close to the United States. … You need to
research how to expand the National Liberation Front and the National
Alliance of Democratic and Peace Forces as appropriate to the new
situation. At the same time, you need to organize well and unite your
activities with the Third Force to oppose the US-Thiệu forces.”

As we all know, in 1973, after four years of negotiations, the balance of
forces between us and the enemy compelled the Americans to end their
war in the South, withdraw their soldiers and their satellite state from the
South, and end their air war against the North. During the negotiations, we
relaxed our position on the political administration in the South. We no
longer demanded that the Paris Agreement require Thiệu’s resignation and
the removal of the Sài Gòn administration. Instead, we required only a
National Council for Reconciliation and Concord with three sectors (the
PRG, the Sài Gòn administration, and the Third Force). This Council
would implement the Paris Agreement’s points leading toward a
nationwide election.

After the four parties signed the Paris Agreement, the Sài Gòn
administration refused to implement its provisions. Rather, it sent troops
to occupy our liberated areas, froze out the Reconciliation Conference, and
continued fighting to its final bullet and its last grain of rice.

Many political organizations, some associated with the Third Force,
demanded that President Thiệu apply the Paris Agreement and implement
national reconciliation and concord. Many also demanded his resignation.

Mme. Ngô Bá Thành,[11] an intellectual famous for her courageous
spirit in the struggle, was a leader of the Women’s Movement for the Right
to Life. She officially labeled herself as Third Force. The Thiệu
administration arrested Ngô Bá Thành, but then public pressure forced the
Sài Gòn regime to release her. On October 8, 1973, Ngô Bá Thành stood
before intellectuals, many representatives of the Sài Gòn National
Assembly, Sài Gòn administration officials, and foreign journalists. She
announced, “We are indeed the Third Political Force.”

Lawyer Trần Ngọc Liễng (whom I knew maintained close ties to the
NLF) had been on the same ticket with General Dương Văn Minh[12] in
the presidential elections and was a member of Dương Văn Minh’s group.
Dương Văn Minh returned to Sài Gòn from Thailand after the Paris
Conference. Mr. Trần Ngọc Liễng established the People’s Organization
Demanding Implementation of the Paris Agreement. He announced, “We
are part of the Third Force.”

At that time, young intellectuals serving on Dương Văn Minh’s staff
included Professor Lý Chánh Trung, Priest Nguyễn Ngọc Lan,[13] and
representatives from the Sài Gòn National Assembly, such as Hồ Ngọc
Nhuận, Dương Văn Ba,[14] Ngô Công Đức, Lý Quý Chung, and others. All
had direct or indirect relations with the NLF in Sài Gòn or Paris. Their
clear position “in the middle” stood for reconciliation between the first
and second parties [the NLF-PRG and the Thiệu administration]. These
men were patriots, but they were not communists.

During the Paris negotiations, we—particularly Sister Nguyễn Thị
Chơn[15] and Brother Phan Nhẫn[16]—educated and mobilized those who
supported our just position. This work included organizing with overseas
Vietnamese and Vietnamese who came from the South on visits to Paris.
We increased our base of action inside the country by encouraging
intellectuals to return home, among them, Tôn Nữ Thị Ninh,[17] Trần Hà
Anh,[18] Thái Thị Ngọc Dư,[19] Bùi Trân Phượng,[20] and others. Many
brothers and sisters who returned home were zealous activists in the Third
Force. Later, they held important positions to help rebuild the country.

After the Paris Agreement took effect, Mr. Nguyễn Hữu Châu[21]
(former minister of interior from the Ngô Đình Diệm administration), Mr.

Âu Trường Thanh[22] (former minister of economy in the Thiệu - Kỳ -
Khiêm administration) both held press conferences outside the country on
behalf of the Third Force. They requested the two sides in South Việt Nam
seriously implement the Paris Agreement and quickly establish the
National Council for Reconciliation and Concord with its three sectors.

On January 16, 1975, the Third Force in Paris organized “A Day for the
South,” demanding the United States oust Thiệu.

By April 26, 1975, our army was pressuring Sài Gòn. Comrade Đinh Bá
Thi was in Paris, serving as deputy head of the PRG representative
delegation at the Consultative Conference between the two sides in South
Việt Nam. He announced the PRG’s two position points:

The United States must strictly implement Provisions 1, 4, and 9 of the
Paris Agreement.

The Sài Gòn administration must be abolished; its neo-colonial and war
apparatus must be eliminated; and its system of domination over the
people of South Việt Nam must end.

At that time, French and international public opinion perceived this as a
call for the Sài Gòn administration’s surrender.

We invited Mr. Ngô Công Đức and Priest Nguyễn Đình Thi[23] to our
office in Paris to inform them of this announcement. On April 27, 1975,
Mr. Ngô Công Đức flew from Paris to Thailand (because Sài Gòn’s Tân
Sơn Nhất Airport was already closed to incoming flights) to inform Mr.
Dương Văn Minh.

*

**

I want to make clearer the role of Mr. Dương Văn Minh and his group
with regard to their position on implementing national reconciliation.

Why, on the very day our troops expanded our historic Hồ Chí Minh
Campaign, did Dương Văn Minh and his group switch from the Third
Force and stand up to replace the Thiệu administration and establish a
cabinet with Dương Văn Minh as president?

We must remember October 8, 1974, when the PRG promulgated its
position regarding the situation in South Việt Nam. We demanded that “the
United States terminate its military involvement and intervention in the
internal affairs of South Việt Nam; overthrow Nguyễn Văn Thiệu; and
establish in Sài Gòn an administration agreeing to peace and national
reconciliation as well to implementation of the Paris Agreement.”
According to many documents we now have, the events occurred as
follows:

After the signing of the Paris Agreement on January 27, 1973, the Sài
Gòn administration grew weaker on every front, making a coup possible.
Members of Dương Văn Minh’s staff decided that they must overthrow
Thiệu, establish a peace cabinet, and negotiate with the PRG to end the
war. They reasoned that no other group could do this. Further, they were
quite sure the PRG would accept negotiations because Dương Văn Minh’s
group had had direct and indirect relations with the PRG and had joined
the struggle against the US-Thiệu regime in the capital.

Nevertheless, the members of Dương Văn Minh’s group had to resolve
their internal, opposing ideas, a process that continued until the beginning
of April 1975. Almost a month before the collapse of the Thiệu
administration, this group announced its decision to replace Thiệu in order
to end the war, even if it had to “hold aloft the white flag of surrender.”

As for Dương Văn Minh’s role, a document from the Secretariat of the
Party’s Central Level provides this evaluation: “Although Mr. Dương Văn
Minh had not yet implemented all our requests, his announcement [on
April 30] and the order promulgated by Nguyễn Hữu Hạnh[24] contained
decisive content. It lessened the Sài Gòn army’s will to resist in the final
hours of the war, thereby creating the conditions for our armed forces to
accelerate the liberation of Sài Gòn...”

I think this evaluation is satisfactory. However, if we search more
deeply into Mr. Dương Văn Minh’s background and listen to the accounts
of the progressive people around him, then we can see that Dương Văn
Minh’s actions reflect his knowledge of the world and show that he was a
patriot.

On the morning of April 30, 1975, French General Vanuxem[25] asked
to see President Dương Văn Minh.

Mr. Vũ Văn Mẫu[26] was present at this meeting with General
Vanuxem. In 1963, when he was foreign minister, Mr. Vũ Văn Mẫu had
shaved his head in opposition to the Ngô Đình Diệm administration’s
oppression of the Buddhists. In early 1975, Mr. Mẫu (then serving as
president of the Ấn Quang Buddhists’ Movement for Reconciliation and
Concord) met in Paris with Phạm Văn Ba, director of our PRG Information

Bureau. At the end of April 1975, Mr. Mẫu was asked by President Minh to
serve as prime minister.

Mr. Vũ Văn Mẫu was amazed to hear General Vanuxem’s proposal.

General Vanuxem said to President Minh, “The situation is not at all
without hope. I have just finished making arrangements in Paris. You
should make a call for outside intervention from another country. That
country will intervene immediately! I can arrange to be the liaison. I
would liaise from here.”

Dương Văn Minh said, “I have no more time. I don’t have even a single
day.”

After General Vanuxem left, those who had attended the meeting with
Dương Văn Minh returned to their seats. Mr. Dương Văn Minh said, “We
sold our nation to France and then to the United States. Now he wants to
‘help’ us to sell our country a third time!”

In addition to selecting Vũ Văn Mẫu to serve as prime minister, Dương
Văn Minh made other important appointments:

Mr. Nguyễn Hữu Hạnh, a former ARVN general, had been an efficient
core agent (that is, a spy) for our secret Central-Level Agitation
Committee for the South. Mr. Dương Văn Minh appointed him chief-of-
staff of the ARVN General Headquarters.

As our army’s lightning offensive against Sài Gòn began, Mr. Minh
appointed lawyer Triệu Quốc Mạnh,[27] an underground member of the
Communist Party, as the city’s police chief with responsibility, among

other tasks, to free political prisoners immediately and dismantle the old
administration’s police forces.

Lastly, according to Huỳnh Tấn Mẫn,[28] former president of the Sài
Gòn Students’ Association, Mr. Dương Văn Minh had housed Mẫn,
thereby helping him avoid the secret police. Before that, from 1972,
General Dương Văn Minh had stood up in support of the Youth-and-
Student Movements opposing the Thiệu administration. Dương Văn Minh
referred to himself in an intimate, friendly way as “Qua” – “Cross-Over”
in his message to the youth: “Qua” knows the direction you youth are
taking. “Qua” supports you. The truth is that “Qua” supports establishment
of the Third Force, but “Qua” wishes to remain on the outside and change
the existing administration in order to speak about reconciliation and
concord with the National Liberation Front.

The actual events in Sài Gòn at the end of April 1975 prove that Mr.
Dương Văn Minh did indeed stand up, just as he had planned.

*

**

My colleagues and I who were active in the National Liberation Front
of South Việt Nam spent many years concentrating on the issue of national
reconciliation and concord.

Over time, imperialists and colonialists invading other countries have
employed a policy of “divide and conquer.”

The US administrations plotted to divide the land of eternal Việt Nam
in order to create the sector of “nationalist South Việt Nam” in opposition

to “communist North Việt Nam.” Then they could implement their
insidious policy of “Vietnamizing the war” by using Vietnamese to kill
Vietnamese. This created division between and hatred among Vietnamese.

Our people can never forget this.

During the American War, including the period after the Paris
Agreements, our Party countered the enemy’s “divide-and-rule” policy by
using the opposite strategy. We drew together all our patriotic, progressive
forces and individuals regardless of who they were in order to combine
their strengths into a national people’s front for widespread struggle. Our
policy of reconciliation and concord was a large, expansive policy with the
spirit of the Party’s strategy and our people’s Great unity.[29] This lesson
has value today for the struggle of our people as we “protect” and develop
our country.

By 1976, the NLF and the organizations associated with the armed
struggle in the South had completed their historic responsibilities. The
Vietnamese Fatherland Front and the Socialist Republic of Việt Nam came
into being. A number of NLF staff went to work in State offices. Later, the
Hồ Chí Minh City Fatherland Front and the Central-Level Fatherland
Front sought participation by people from the political forces previously
active in the South and allied with the Sài Gòn administration. These
included Nguyễn Văn Huyền[30] (who refused because of health reasons)
and Nguyễn Hữu Có[31] (a minister of defense for the former Sài Gòn
administration).

During recent years, the Vietnamese State has had many guidelines and
policies. We need even more supportive guidelines to help us address the

many deep wounds in our land and among our people. We must fully
implement a policy of reconciliation and concord for our people, not the
least because we Vietnamese arise from one source and from one
homeland, but also because of an even greater meaning—we Vietnamese
have one destiny and one future.

Every Vietnamese wants to have a Việt Nam, which is developed,
strong, and equal to any other country, a Việt Nam worthy of its awe-
inspiring history of several thousand years. To implement such a
substantial wish, we must mobilize all Vietnamese everywhere.

Musician Trịnh Công Sơn[32] wrote a song, “A Mother’s Legacy,” with
lines that rend my heart:

A thousand years of Chinese domination

A hundred years of Western occupation

Twenty years of civil war.

Our people have borne so much pain in order to achieve the peace,
independence, re-unification, and complete territorial integrity that we
have today. We will never allow that painful past to reoccur.

[1] Trần Ngọc Liễng (1923-2011) was the founder of the National Progressive Forces in

June 1969 together with Phan Văn Mỹ, and he was also the founder of the Popular Organization
for the Implementation of the Paris Agreement (February 1974). He was subsequently a member
of the Executive Committee of the Fatherland Front and vice president of the Hồ Chí Minh City
Fatherland Front.

[2] Lý Chánh Trung (1929-) graduated from Louvain University (Belgium) with a major in

psychology and political science. He headed the Public Higher Education Department under the
Sài Gòn regime and was later a member of the Central Committee of the Việt Nam Fatherland
Front. He is the author of many scholarly books.

[3] Bishop Jean Baptiste Huỳnh Công Minh of the Hồ Chí Minh diocese attended the May

2014 rally protesting China’s deployment of a massive deep sea oil rig off the Việt Nam’s coast.
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Vietnam had condemned the Chinese action and had called
upon Catholics to take actions to defend Vietnamese sovereignty.

[4] Phan Khắc Từ (1941-), was born in Hải Phòng in the Northern Region. He was vice

president of the Việt Nam Committee for Christian Solidarity and is currently vice president and
general secretary of the Catholic Solidarity Committee. Phan Khắc Từ was a representative of the
National Assembly, Sessions VIII (1987-1992), IX (1992-1997), and X (1997-2002). He is
currently a representative for Session XIII (2011-2016). Phan Khắc Từ is pastor of Vườn Xoài
Church in Hồ Chí Minh City.

[5] Lý Quý Chung (1940-2005, a.k.a. Chánh Trinh) was editor of Điện Tín (News

Telegraph) and a member of the opposition in the House of Representatives of the Republic of
Việt Nam (“South Việt Nam”).

[6] Hồ Ngọc Nhuận (1935-), former Editor of Tin Sáng (Morning News), was a member of

the opposition in the House of Representatives of the Republic of Việt Nam and, later, a member
of the Việt Nam Fatherland Front’s Central Committee. He is currently vice president of the Hồ
Chí Minh City Fatherland Front.

[7] Ngô Công Đức (1936-2007), a businessman and newspaper editor, was a member of the

opposition in the House of Representatives of the Republic of Việt Nam from 1967 to 1971.

[8] Women’s Movement for the Right to Life was a peace-action political group active

with the Third Force during the war. This movement had no thematic connection to “right to life”
as the phrase is used now in the United States.

[9] “Third Force” is ambiguous because the term is also used to refer to those in the South

who were neither allied with the US - Sài Gòn regime nor with the NLF-PRG.

[10] Nguyễn Văn Thiệu (1923-2001), who came from Ninh Thuận Province in the Southern

Region, was an army general and president of the Republic of Việt Nam (“South Việt Nam,”

allied with the United States) from 1967 to 1975. He left Sài Gòn in April 1975, as the former
South was collapsing, and lived in the United States until his death.

[11] Ngô Bá Thành (1921-2004) used her husband’s name; her given name was Phạm Thị

Thanh Vân. She was born in Hà Tĩnh Province in the Central Region north of the DMZ, which
later divided Việt Nam. A graduate of Columbia Law School in New York, she was an activist in
the Third Force and, after the American War, a member of the National Assembly, Sessions VI
(1976-1981), VII (1981-1987), VIII (1987-1992), and X (1997-2002). She also served as vice
president of the Việt Nam Lawyers’ Association and as vice president of the Việt Nam Women’s
Union.

[12] Dương Văn Minh (1916-2001, a.k.a. “Big Minh”) came from Mỹ Thọ (now Tiền

Giang), a province in the Mekong Delta of the Southern Region. A general of the army of the
Republic of Việt Nam (ARVN), he served as president for three days (April 28-30, 1975), thereby
facilitating a peaceful transition at the end of the war. He emigrated to France in 1983 and passed
away in California, USA.

[13] Nguyễn Ngọc Lan (1930-2007) was a professor of literature at the Huế Institute and a

professor at the Redemptorists Institute. He also served as editor of Đối Diện, (Opposition), Đứng
Dậy (Rise Up), and Đồng Dao (Children’s Song). He was a prolific writer under many pen names
and passed away in Hồ Chí Minh City.

[14] Dương Văn Ba (1942-) came from Bạc Liêu in the Southern Region. He studied

philosophy and was a journalist as well as a representative in the National Assembly of the
Republic of Việt Nam (“South Việt Nam) from 1967 to 1971. He served as minister of
information in Dương Văn Minh’s government at the end of April 1975.

[15] Nguyễn Thị Chơn: See Chapter 5, “A Special Front Opposing the United States to Save

the Nation,” footnote 27, p. 138.

[16] Phan Nhẫn: See Chapter 6, “The Longest Peace Negotiation in History,” footnote 83,

p. 226.

[17] Tôn Nữ Thị Ninh (1947-) graduated from the University of Paris (France) and earned

her masters at Cambridge University (England). She served as Việt Nam’s ambassador to the
European Union and, upon returning to Việt Nam, served simultaneously as a representative in
the National Assembly, Session XI (2002-2007) and as deputy head of the National Assembly’s
Committee on External Affairs.

[18] Trần Hà Anh (1938-), a scientist, was a representative at the National Assembly,

Session X (1997-2002). He has been active in developing research and scholarly relationships
between overseas Vietnamese and Vietnamese in Việt Nam.

[19] Thái Thị Ngọc Dư studied geography in France and teaches now at Hoa Sen

University in Hồ Chí Minh City, where she is the head of the Center for Research on Gender and
Society. Dr. Thái Thị Ngọc Dư was a member of the Vietnamese delegation to the NGO Forum
on Women in Beijing in 1995.

[20] Bùi Trân Phượng (1950-) graduated from Marie Curie School in Sài Gòn and was

studying in France during the Paris Conference. She taught at Marie Curie School from 1972 until
1975 and then at the Hồ Chí Minh Pedagogical School. Bùi Trân Phượng earned her doctorate in
history at the University of Lyon, France in 2008; she is currently rector of Hoa Sen University in
Hồ Chí Minh City.

[21] Nguyễn Hữu Châu earned his doctorate in law in France and was part of Ngô Đình

Diệm’s wider family as the husband of Madame Nhu’s older sister. In 1956, Nguyễn Hữu Châu
was simultaneously interior minister and head of the Prime Minister’s Office; in the second role,
he negotiated with the French for removal of French troops following the Geneva Agreement. He
broke with the Ngô Đình Diệm regime in 1958 and divorced his wife. After the American War,
Nguyễn Hữu Châu was a professor of law in France.

[22] Âu Trường Thanh (1925-2009) earned a law degree in Sài Gòn and then studied

economics in France. He left Việt Nam in 1968 and did not return before his death.

[23] Nguyễn Đình Thi (1934-2010) was a theologian and philosopher based mainly in

Paris. In the early 1970s, he established the National Christians’ Movement to call on the
Christians and others to join the struggle for peace and national re-unification.

[24] General Nguyễn Hữu Hạnh (1923-) came from Mỹ Tho (now Tiền Giang) Province in

the Mekong Delta of the Southern Region. Beginning in 1946, he served under Dương Văn Minh
in the French ranks. Nguyễn Hữu Hạnh was the last chief-of-staff for the Army of the Republic of
Việt Nam (ARVN). He called on the armed forces to set aside their weapons, thereby limiting
casualties in the final days of the American War.

[25] General Paul Vanuxem (1904-1979) was a French colonel in Việt Nam, serving as a

commander in the Battle of Ninh Bình during the Winter-Spring 1953-1954 Campaign, which
culminated in the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ. He was promoted to general following the 1954

Geneva Agreement for supervising the evacuation zones in the southern part of the Red River
Delta of North Việt Nam. At the time of the conversation described above, General Vanuxem was
the French ambassador to the Republic of Việt Nam (“South Việt Nam”).

[26] Vũ Văn Mẫu (1914-1988) came from outside Hà Nội and earned a law degree from

the Law School in Sài Gòn. He was prime minister of the Republic of Việt Nam (“South Việt
Nam”) for April 29 and 30, 1975.

[27] Triệu Quốc Mạnh graduated from law school in Sài Gòn and, at age twenty-three,

became the youngest judge in the city. By 1966, he was ranked third among the nine Sài Gòn
judges. That same year, Triệu Quốc Mạnh took a short leave of absence and went “across” to the
PRG side in Long An Province, where he joined the Party. He returned to serve undercover on
the Sài Gòn court.

[28] Huỳnh Tấn Mẫn (1942-) came from Sài Gòn, studied at Pétrus Ký School, and joined

his first revolutionary organization at the age of fifteen. He was an outspoken and famous activist
and student leader, resulting in the constant threat of arrest. He earned his medical degree and
was vice president of the Red Cross in Hồ Chí Minh City. Now retired, Huỳnh Tấn Mẫn
continues work on health projects for the poor.

[29] “Great unity”: According to General Võ Nguyên Giáp, commander-in-chief of the

People’s Army of Việt Nam during the French War and the American War, Hồ Chí Minh first
used the expression “Unity, unity, great unity / Success, success, great success” after the
founding of the Việt Minh in 1941. The slogan was a mantra during both wars.

[30] Nguyễn Văn Huyền had served as president of the Senate for the National Assembly of

the Republic of Việt Nam (“South Việt Nam”) from 1967 to 1973.

[31] Nguyễn Hữu Có (1925-2012) was born in Mỹ Tho (now Tiền Giang) Province in the

Southern Region. He took part in several coups in the Republic of Việt Nam and was minister of
defense and army chief-of-staff from 1965 to 1967. After the American War ended, Nguyễn Hữu
Có was in a re-education camp until 1987. In 2004, he was elected to the executive committee of
the Central-Level Fatherland Front, which requested that he concentrate on relations with
Vietnamese overseas. The government formally recognized him as a symbol of active
reconciliation.

[32] Trịnh Công Sơn (1939-2001), a famous musician and composer of popular love songs

and anti-war songs, lived most of his life in Huế. People from both sides of the war loved his

lyrics, while politicians on both sides censored his recordings at different times. Trịnh Công
Sơn’s music remains very popular today. Many say that singer Khánh Ly knows best how to
capture the pathos of Trịnh Công Sơn’s music.

11.

Entering the Field of Education

In September 1976, I was elected to the National Assembly and
formally asked to serve as education minister for the Socialist Republic of
Việt Nam.

One day that autumn, I met for the first time with the deputy ministers
and department heads at the ministry. My friends had joked with me.
“Sister,” they said, “you’ve landed in an ants’ nest. Those deputy ministers
are formidable.” Perhaps these views added to my own apprehension about
this assignment. I approached the ministry as if I were a solitary warrior
riding her horse into a strange battlefield. I was determined to do my best
and decided that whatever transpired would be fine.

Nguyễn Văn Huyên,[1] a prominent Vietnamese intellectual, had served
as minister for many years. He had passed away more than a year before,
leaving behind three deputy ministers: Võ Thuần Nho,[2] Hồ Trúc,[3] and
Nguyễn Cản Toàn.[4] Comrades Nho and Trúc had been at the ministry for
many years, while Comrade Toàn had just been promoted.

At that time, the Ministry of Education was located at 19 Lê Thánh
Tông in a large, French-designed building, which had previously been the

administration building for the Hà Nội Medical and Pharmaceutical
University.

A year after my arrival, two other deputy ministers were appointed—
Bùi Thanh Khiết,[5] a high-level political officer of the People’s
Liberation Army from the Hồ Chí Minh City’s military administration,
and Comrade Y Ngông Niêk Đam,[6] rector of Tây Nguyên University.

That day of my first staff meeting, nearly twenty comrades from the
senior leadership and various departments greeted me in the ministry’s
large room on the second floor. My first words came from my heart: “I’m
here on assignment from the Party. I can’t possibly address most matters
as well as you comrades. … I will try my best to hold your ideas in high
esteem. But in the end, I must make decisions and bear the responsibility. I
hope you comrades will be supportive.”

I think this reasonable and modest statement touched their sense of
comradeship.

Actually, the reality veered away from the jokesters’ predictions. My
ministry comrades were accustomed to friendly, collegial, professional
relationships. In particular Comrade Hồ Trúc (Party secretary at the
ministry for many years), Comrade Lê Huyến (head of the Organization
Department), Comrade Nguyễn Minh Quang (head of the Administration
Department), and others helped me a great deal during my first days.

Each person in the ministry’s leadership had his own idiosyncrasies,
strengths, and weaknesses, yet everyone worked together as a united
group. As a result, even though leading the Ministry of Education was a
complex assignment, I could complete my responsibilities because I had

these colleagues’ assistance. In general, during my time as minister of
education, I met no resistance or conflict worth noting within the ministry.
The difficulty lay in the work’s heavy weight and the fact that every aspect
of that assignment was entirely new for me. I tried my very best,
according to the lesson I’d been taught during childhood—Whenever you
accept a task, decide to complete it as best you can.

*

**

After liberation, like other State branches, the Ministry of Education
had to implement its management across the entire country. Education was
a huge ministry. The two regions had used different educational systems
for twenty years. Public education in the former North was ten years in
length, while it was twelve years in the former South. The curriculum and
textbooks were different. In particular, the two regions had different levels
of material covered in each grade.

Despite the cruel war, the educational system in the former North had
developed markedly. At that time, shortly after the war ended, everyone
spoke of the socialist garden’s two most beautiful flowers—education and
health. Friends from other countries admired Việt Nam’s achievements in
eradicating illiteracy and developing its educational system for the
people’s cultural attainment and professional capacity. We called our
soldiers “educated troops” since, at that time, youth joining the army had
finished seventh grade or above.

However, in the former South, schools had been developed only in the
cities and in scattered areas along the national highways. The level of

illiteracy was very high.

Our first responsibility was to unify the ministry’s management system
quickly, while simultaneously developing education in the southern
provinces, particularly in remote areas without schools. We organized a
major mobilization to send northern teachers to support the southern
provinces. We thought of this move as modeled on the March to the South
in previous years. During 1977 and 1978, several thousand teachers from
northern provinces answered the ministry’s appeal and volunteered to
serve in southern provinces. Nghệ An and Hà Tĩnh Provinces sent the
largest number of teachers to work in the former South.

At the end of July 1977, I went on an inspection tour in the Mekong
Delta. I traveled from the middle of Đồng Tháp Mười Province down to
Kiên Giang and Cà Mau and saw for myself the presence of many northern
teachers. The senior Party leaders and local administrators were delighted,
but some people also spoke frankly, saying, “These teachers are very
dedicated, but some of them speak with Nghệ An, Hà Tĩnh, and Quảng
Bình accents. At first, the children can’t understand them.” I met with the
teachers and encouraged them to speak slowly and adjust their accents.

Not only teachers but also management staff went south. We were
fortunate that many southern students had come to the North for training
during the war. They had matured during their years working in northern
provinces. They returned to their southern home provinces. With their
help, setting up an educational framework in southern provinces was less
difficult. After two years, we finished establishing the management
system across the country. About five years later, by 1983, the Ministry of

Education had a network of public schools in every southern province,
district, and commune.

Other major initiatives included eradicating illiteracy among workers
and supplementing cultural education for staff and youth. We completed
the Light-of-Culture Campaign across the former South on February 28,
1978, with illiteracy eradicated among 94 percent of people in the
program.[7]

This success followed the high-level Party leaders’ directives, but it
also stemmed from the participation of the entire ministry, the educational
administration, and the people. The complementary work supplementing
cultural education for staff was completed at the same time.

We worked with great effort to improve the quality of pre-schools for
children entering the public schools. We built schools in remote and
mountainous areas, improved the curriculum and pedagogy for teaching
the youngest of our children, and established much-needed policies for
teachers and management staff.

*

**

After I joined the Ministry of Education, I saw early on that I must
concentrate on teacher training, for this was “the engine” of education and
the source of an educational system’s strength and quality. In 1946, Uncle
Hồ had established a system for teacher education when our country still
faced extreme difficulties. Even during the Resistance War Against French
Colonialism and then during the Resistance War Against American

Imperialism, the North organized pedagogical schools from the central
level to the regions and provinces and then continued widening that
system.

On the central level, we had the Hà Nội Pedagogical University, the
first university built during that period. It trained teachers up to standard
and graduated many scientists, who served in research institutes as well as
in Party and State offices. At that time, the State budget was severely
limited, yet demands were huge. The Hà Nội Pedagogical University and
the pedagogical universities in Vinh, Thái Nguyên, and other sites were
hard pressed for financial resources to support students’ learning and
living. We had an expression, “eat like begging monks, live like
prisoners.”[8]

In particular, we concentrated on establishing pedagogical schools to
train teachers on site. For this task, we once again assigned staff and
teachers from our northern normal schools. We began by building normal
schools for elementary school teachers. After a time, we built colleges for
secondary-school teachers. Finding staff and teachers for normal schools
was difficult, as was the task of finding students to become teachers.

The need to develop teachers for elementary and secondary schools was
pressing. In many localities, we trained people for just one or two years, to
a seventh-grade level but sometimes only to a fifth-grade level. Those
teachers then taught up to their same levels. We called this “rice dipped in
rice.” Later, teachers who had been trained in this abbreviated way
received additional education to bring them up to appropriately higher
levels. Unfortunately, some teachers could not manage the additional study

required, thus affecting the quality of public-school teaching in many
localities during subsequent years.

Cao Lãnh, Đồng Tháp Province had the first higher-level normal school
in the Mekong Delta. This model school graduated many classes of
secondary-school teachers, who served Đồng Tháp and other neighboring
provinces.

In general, students didn’t want to attend pedagogical school. They had
a saying, “Only a rat at the end of its tether enters pedagogical school!” I
visited the Hà Nội Pedagogical University’s dining hall and immediately
felt uneasy. The students’ situation was impossible. They had to eat
standing up, for there were no chairs. Each table had a pot of rice, a dish of
salted vegetables, and a bowl of “pilotless” soup.[9] Each student had a
bowl and spoon. That’s how they ate!

*

**

Our country faced a period of serious socio-economic crisis between
liberation of the South in April 1975 and Renovation in late 1986. The
government worried constantly about providing our people with food.

Then, in the midst of our economic difficulties came the genocidal Pol
Pot regime’s attacks from Cambodia into the southwest of Việt Nam. The
Cambodian Liberation Front appealed to us for help; Vietnamese soldiers
once again volunteered. And then, in February 1979, China attacked our
northern border “to teach Việt Nam a lesson.” But what mistake had we
made? I visited a number of northern provinces—Quảng Ninh, Hoàng Liên

Sơn, and so on. I saw our ravaged cities and our people suffering. The
invading Chinese had destroyed Lạng Sơn Province’s tertiary school. I was
so moved to see our youth zealously setting off to defend our Homeland’s
border.

These youth fought bravely, just as their fathers and older brothers had
before them. We and perhaps the entire world were stunned, asking: “Why
would one socialist country invade another socialist country?” Indeed,
here was true sorrow! Nevertheless, I understood that each nation—even
among socialist nations—held its own interests paramount.

I remembered an anecdote from eight years before (around 1971)
during a meeting in Kiruna, northern Sweden. It was near midnight, and
snow was falling heavily. Even though the area was thinly populated,
people arrived in large numbers, including the elderly.

After I described the situation in Việt Nam, an elderly woman stood up
and asked, “Have you Vietnamese friends thought about what you will do
after you’ve chased out the Americans and then the Chinese arrive?” We in
our delegation looked at each other: How could she ask such a question? I
explained that no such incident could transpire between socialist countries,
for we socialists shared the comradely feeling of brothers and sisters. Yet
now, in 1979, hearing that China had invaded Việt Nam, I wondered: What
would that elderly woman think? She had been truly profound, with an
experienced person’s range of sight. As for us, we had been so naive!

The Border War with China was incredibly cruel, with more than a
hundred and twenty thousand Chinese troops assaulting the six northern
provinces of Việt Nam, bringing so many casualties and so much material

loss. Several tens of thousands of our children and younger siblings once
again poured out their blood to protect our country.

For so many years, we have not wanted to tell the stories of that pain in
the relationship between Việt Nam and China. But it is disturbing that even
today in Chinese public discussion there are cruel distortions, where our
interlocutors say that the events of February 17, 1979 occurred because
Việt Nam provoked China, that Việt Nam was ungrateful and had no sense
of gratitude.

How could Việt Nam, having just passed through thirty years of cruel
war and still having to address so many unbound war wounds, attack
another country? Why would Việt Nam provoke China, a huge, socialist
country, which had helped us liberate and re-unite our nation? How could
protecting our own people from Khmer Rouge genocide and saving the
Cambodian people from genocide be considered a crime?

A subsequent situation helps us see the truth.

On March 14, 1988, China sent its naval forces to occupy Gạc Ma
(Johnson South Reef), which belongs to Việt Nam’s Trường Sa
Archipelago (the Spratlys). Sixty-four Vietnamese troops died in combat.

Then, in 2009, China announced its “Cow’s Tongue”[10] with nine
points in an assault aimed at occupying all the East Sea, regardless of
international law. Using that absurd premise, China has been constantly
engaged in actions invading the territory of other nations, in particular
territory belonging to Việt Nam. This threatens the region’s peace and
security. Indeed, China has exposed its expansionist intentions recently, as
it did in 1979.

Life during 1979 and early 1980 was especially hard. In general, Party
and State officials had to do additional work, such as making handicrafts
and tending chickens or pigs to supplement their meager wages. People
would say, “Teaching is the ‘additional work’ of teachers.” Tens of
thousands of teachers asked to quit. The State had to lay off some of its
staff. The Ministry of Education lost many of its best teachers.

In April 1980, I discussed with comrades from the Việt Nam Educators’
Union the idea for a national congress in Yên Dũng District (Hà Bắc
Province) to discuss ways to improve teachers’ lives. Yên Dũng had
developed some good models. We wanted to mobilize a movement, “Study
and Practice like Yên Dũng.”

Educational leaders in Yên Dũng had asked the local authorities for
land to plant Hải Dương lychees. They calculated that ten lychee trees
planted at an educational office could improve the teachers’ livelihoods.
Other local educational offices followed this movement; Hải Dương
lychees spread across many northern provinces. After two years, many
districts and communes had “growing” symbols of their concern for
teachers’ welfare. Many other sites organized special funds to assist
teachers.

These sacrifices and this dedication impressed me. I was particularly
touched by the teachers who left their homes in the cities and the deltas to
work in our mountainous provinces, such as Cao Bằng, Lai Châu, and Lạng
Sơn. Working conditions were strenuous. The teachers had to motivate
families in order to have students. Each class had only a few students,
often at different grade levels. Teachers’ living conditions in the
mountains were primitive, and they were isolated from the country’s

general development. Their greatest hardship was to spend decades in the
mountains without the chance to return home to the delta.

One woman spoke to me in confidence, saying, “For sure, I’ve lost my
chance to find a husband.”

I think we do not yet know all the silent sacrifices of those brothers and
sisters.

My comrades and I in the ministry leadership understood clearly the
crucial role of teachers. Our troops had been decisive on the battlefield.
Now, our teachers were warriors on a new front. Their task was rebuilding
the nation to bring about a highly educated, skilled, and spirited populace.
We examined our system and policies regarding teachers and saw that our
ministry’s management was weaker than staff in other governmental
branches. We researched quality and professional status to implement a
policy of salaries and allowances.

Persuading the government, the other ministries, and branches was
difficult because the educational system included so many people!
Education was the country’s largest branch after the army, in terms of
personnel. (These days, the situation is different.) Finally, at the end of
1983, the State decided to readjust educational salaries and address other
systemic policy issues, with the most important question being seniority.
Many working in the educational system still mention this as the “turning
point” in educational reform.

To honor teachers and encourage their spirit, the ministry and the Việt
Nam Educators’ Union proposed that the Council of Ministers choose
November 20 each year for Việt Nam Teachers’ Day. We also suggested

the State create titles—“People’s Teacher” and “Merit Teacher”—for those
who had taught for many years and had made significant contributions to
the educational system.

*

**

When I arrived at the Ministry of Education, the Politburo was
finishing Decision 14 about education. Prime Minister Phạm Văn
Đồng[11] had educational expertise and a commitment to the profession,
as did Comrade Tố Hữu.[12]

The Politburo announced its decision on January 11, 1979. We in the
ministry’s leadership spent considerable time studying Decision 14, which
contained basic guidelines for building a progressive, socialist educational
system.

Even now, to my thinking, that decision’s major points still have value.
To implement Decision 14, we had to examine the actual situations on site
and then establish appropriate objectives, content, and methodologies. To
date, we still have not yet properly achieved that major point, for some
areas of our educational system remain heavily “dogmatic” and “willful.”

Education is a difficult and complicated field because its realm
encompasses an individual’s development from early years to maturity.
For this reason, to establish correct guidelines (in particular, curricula and
methodologies), we relied on the Institute of Educational Science and
assigned to it additional, highly trained professionals. Comrade Võ Thuần
Nho was responsible for the Institute along with Phạm Minh Hạc[13] and

Phạm Tất Dong,[14] who had doctorates in psychology, and Hà Thế
Ngữ[15] and Phạm Văn Hoàn,[16] who also had doctorates.

Later, in 1985, some comrades criticized this work of educational
reform and declared it a failure. I think that evaluation was unfair,
inaccurate, and partisan. Comparing the earlier curriculum and textbooks
with the reformed ones makes clear the later materials’ progressive
qualities.

On the other hand, Decision 14’s salient point was that the system
needed to find ways to internalize its guiding principles—study in
combination with practice; comprehensive education in intellectual areas,
morality, physical abilities, and aesthetics; and vocational training for
workers and professionals. We still have not properly implemented these
important principles of Decision 14.

In 1981, I was introduced and elected to the Party’s Central
Committee. This acknowledged my contribution to the nation’s work in
general and simultaneously added to my responsibilities.

In 1982, Deputy Minister Bùi Thanh Khiết passed away, and Comrade
Y Ngông Niêk Đam left to become president of the Đắc Lắc People’s
Committee. The ministry was assigned two new, young deputy ministers,
Comrades Lương Ngọc Toản[17] and Trần Xuân Nhĩ.[18]

*

**

In the summer of 1983, representatives from across the educational
system met at Sầm Sơn, Thanh Hóa Province. We agreed on the “Sầm Sơn
Announcement,” which introduced educational points into actual school
activities, particularly into vocational training. After that meeting, an
ebullient atmosphere spread across the educational system. Every region
established a technical center for general vocational training, built factory
schools, and planted experimental agricultural fields as well as gardens for
traditional medicine. All teachers and students both studied and did
manual labor.

The State undertook a major initiative of tree planting called “Green
Cover for Bare Hills.” In 1984, the Ministry of Education worked with the
Ministry of Forestry to plant fourteen million trees (one tree for each
student), achieving our goal within a year. I went on a tour of schools in
Quảng Trị Province, where the war’s destruction had been momentous. I
was delighted to find Cồn Tiên and Tân Lâm Schools surrounded by
forests of young trees, which the students and teachers had planted.

In addition to production, we instituted a savings movement—
“Contribute Bits of Paper,” “Collect Bottles and Cans,” and “Gather Duck
Feathers.” The country’s economic situation was dire. This program
educated our students in community spirit and assisted the schools’
economic viability. Administrators and parents were supportive. Yet with
such a widespread movement, how could we avoid shortcomings?

Unfortunately, instead of seeing the movement’s larger meaning, some
people intervened and stopped the students’ activities because these
initiatives were “beyond” the very strict socio-political-economic limits

enforced by the “economic police” at a time when we had an extremely
rigorous model of socialism.

In 1985, we finished preparations for instituting basic educational
reform, although some tasks remained, in particular pedagogical training.
This step required early intervention. Since we needed to move fast, we
decided to take a step-by-step approach in switching textbooks for the
primary level and the beginning of the secondary level.

Implementation of educational reform began in 1985 and was to last
until 1991 for the first full cycle. We planned to complete and consolidate
the work in a second cycle. Of course, the situation in Việt Nam changed
markedly at the end of 1986 with Renovation and the shift to a socialist
market economy. Education faced new tests and new demands.

*

**

During my ten years as minister, I paid constant attention to education
in industrial areas. I felt we must train the workers’ children in order to
maintain a strong class of industrial laborers. I visited the Hòn Gai and
Cẩm Phả mines as well as the Thái Nguyên steel factory to guide and
encourage expansion of the Ministry’s education guidelines. I was also
attentive to ethnic-minority areas.[19] During my tenure, the ministry
established directives for a system of on-site boarding schools for ethnic
minorities in provinces, districts, and communes. These schools saved
ethnic-minority students from walking dozens of kilometers to school
each day.

I also concentrated on the role of women within the ministry. More than
80 percent of the teachers in the general school system were women.
Shouldn’t we also have a large number of women administrators? Thus,
the Ministry of Education announced a directive: “Every level of
administration—from local schools to school systems to universities—
must have women in the leadership.” Through this decision, women
administrators became eligible for appointments and had access to further
self-development.

The educational emulation movement[20] was one of the most effective
and enduring emulation movements for enhancing patriotism. In 1964,
President Hồ had instituted the emulation model, “Teach well. Study
well.” Later, in his last letter to the educational system, Hồ Chí Minh
counseled, “Even when facing difficulties everywhere, you must continue
the emulation campaign to teach well and study well.” President Hồ had a
deep understanding of education’s social function. He would mention the
ancient saying, “For a legacy in a decade, plant trees; for a legacy in a
century, nourish the people.”

I often visited Bắc Lý, a poor area of the midlands with a model school
in the nation’s emulation movement. Bắc Lý’s school had two levels,
elementary and general, in a simple building. The students were gaunt, yet
their attention to their studies and the seriousness of the school’s activities
touched me. Many teachers from this school received additional training
and became staff in the Ministry of Education and the Institute for
Scientific Education, while its students became staff and workers in their
ancestral villages.

*

**

During our work to expand education, we relied on experience from
other socialist countries, in particular the Soviet Union and the
Democratic Republic of Germany (“East Germany”), where we sent many
staff for training in scientific areas, including pedagogy and psychology. I
had a special, collegial relationship with Mme. Margot Honecker, the
minister of education for the Democratic Republic of Germany. She was a
skilled, committed educator. We Vietnamese drew from the German
experience in vocational training for our workers’ educational program.

For curricula and textbooks, we relied primarily on Soviet experience
and, in part, on that of France. Cuba was a new socialist country. Our
Cuban friends had a progressive outlook. They had decided that the Party
and State’s first task was to emphasize education. Visitors to Cuba often
went to Youth Island, where students both studied and worked. There,
thousands of Cuban youth continued their studies and planted fruit for
export. This was indeed impressive. Well-nourished pupils learned on site
in a wholesome school. Here was a pleasing point: Our Cuban friends said
they had picked up their educational model, “Study and Work,” from Việt
Nam. They brought the model home and spread it with good results.

We had established that model in 1974 and 1975, when the need for
older rural youth to study and work was enormous. Older rural students
lived too far from the tertiary schools in the provincial or district towns to
continue their studies. Students at the model tertiary Hòa Bình Province
Socialist Labor School both studied and learned a trade, thereby achieving
the technical skills they needed to make a living. This school concentrated
on production of cassava, the local agricultural crop appropriate to land in

that area. Older students lived at the site and returned home for the
summer.

These schools delighted me. I visited them often to observe the
students’ study-practice and living conditions. Many localities used this
model, including Phù Cừ School in Hưng Yên Province as well as Tân
Lâm and Cồn Tiên Schools in Quảng Trị Province. Students from these
schools became good workers. However, building and managing these
study-and-work boarding schools required huge efforts by local authorities
and the provincial educational system. I regret that we have abandoned
this excellent educational focus in what I worry will become a budget
move that saved money but compromised quality and distanced us from
the goal of equality in education.

*

**

In 1984, we were preparing to expand our educational reforms, but the
ministry’s budget had no line item for this activity. When I reported the
budget shortage to Premier Phạm Văn Đồng, he shook his head in
sympathy. “If you can do it without money,” he said, “you are truly smart.”

At this time, living conditions for the ministry’s office staff were
difficult. Many officials did additional paid work outside their official
responsibilities. Deputy Minister Trần Xuân Nhĩ noticed that these
secondary jobs dissipated our staff members’ energy so that they were not
concentrating on the ministry’s work. He and others in the ministry
discussed with me the idea of establishing the Educational Services
Company as a focal point for the schools’ production output according to

the directive, “Take productive labor into the schools.” These staff
members collected funds from other staff to provide part of the company’s
initial capital.

Trần Xuân Nhĩ established a program with ten points describing
appropriate activities for schools having the means and ability. The
ministry would provide guidance and assistance through the Educational
Services Company. The company built a kiln to produce pottery. Early
efforts were successful. Many comrades in the educational system and
other branches praised the products—pottery, educational materials,
kindergarten toys, etc. The atmosphere in participating schools was
effervescent.

Nowadays, people reading these sentences will say, “Why mention
activities, which are so petty?”

However, we must remember the circumstances at that time. Our
national economic policy was extremely strict and rigorous. We were
desperately poor. People had nothing. Anyone making even the smallest
profit from a creative enterprise suffered from police watchers and
became the topic of malicious gossip. Any ministries wanting to take
initiatives also met with difficulties and blockage.

The economic police noticed that the Ministry of Education was
extremely active in finishing one project and starting another. Police
officers would visit “to ask about our health.” Staff working in the
Educational Services Company and I lost a great deal of time “greeting
these visitors” and reporting on those student projects. The police visitors’
thinking was outdated. During inspections, these officers would remain