Drawn Swords in a Distant Land South Vietnams Shattered Dreams (George J. Veith)

DRAWN SWORDS IN A DISTANT
LAND





© 2021 by George J. Veith

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FIRST AMERICAN EDITION

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: Veith, George J., 1957– author.

Title: Drawn swords in a distant land : South Vietnam’s Shattered Dreams by George J. Veith.
Description: First American edition. | New York : Encounter Books, 2021. Includes
bibliographical references and index. |

Identifiers: LCCN 2020039074 (print) | LCCN 2020039075 (ebook) ISBN 9781641771726
(hardcover) | ISBN 9781641771733 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Vietnam (Republic)—History. | Nguyên, Văn Thiêu, 1923-2001. | Vietnam War,
1961-1975. Vietnam (Republic)—Politics and government.
Classification: LCC DS556.9 .V45 2021 (print)
LCC DS556.9 (ebook) DDC 959.7/7043—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020039074

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020039075
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020008204

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020008205

Interior page design and typesetting by Bruce Leckie

For my children:
Analiese, Austin, Allegra, and Adia, the lights of my life

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Maps
Introduction

1 “The Best Days of My Life”
The Rise of the Republic of Vietnam

2 “If the Army Was Weak, the Regime Would Become Weak”
The Struggle for Supremacy

3 “Either Diem Changed His Policies, or We Would Change Diem”
Death of Diem

4 “Representing All Nationalist Tendencies”
Duong Van Minh Charts a New Course

5 “The Earth Is Round. We Will Meet Again One Day”
Nguyen Khanh’s Countercoup

6 “A Real Military Government Needed”
Reaping What They Sowed

7 “We Are Fed Up with Coups”
The Return to Civilian Rule

8 “I Want to Truly Change the Lives of the People”
New Leadership

9 “Only One Shot for Madness to Follow”
The Long First Year of Nguyen Cao Ky

10 “Rice Is as Important as Bullets”
Building the Country

11 “This Constitution Is Officially Adopted”
Showdown with the Directorate

12 “From the Moment I Take Office, I Belong to You”
Birth of the Second Republic

13 “This Is Our Country”
Defeating the Tet Offensive

14 “A Country that Cannot Organize Itself Is Not a Country”
Thieu Breaks His Chains

15 “This Conference Will Decide the Fate of My Nation”
Searching for Peace

16 “We Who Run This Country Are Not Warlords”
Thieu Offers Peace

17 “Long Haul, Low Cost”
Thieu Proposes a New Strategy

18 “We Seldom Understood the Financial Costs of Victory”
Finding Economic Security

19 “The War Will Fade Away”
Fanciful Notions and Other Thoughts

20 “Thieu Overreached Himself”
Laos, the Election, and the Beginning of the End

21 “Only a Step Between Me and Death”
The Easter Offensive and the Paris Accords

22 “We Must Keep Our Hands Firmly on Our Guns”
In the Shadow of Peace

23 “The War Has Begun Again”
South Vietnam Starts to Unravel

24 “I Will Draw Out My Sword”
Diplomacy’s Final Dance

Bibliography
Notes
Index

Minister of the Economy Pham Kim Ngoc. Photo courtesy of Pham Kim
Ngoc

Independence Palace. Photo courtesy of Hoang Song Liem

The author and Mrs. Nguyen Van Thieu, March 2013. Photo courtesy of
George J. Veith

Tran Quang Minh inspecting miracle rice in Long Khanh province, 1973.
Photo courtesy of Tran Quang Minh

Infantry Lieutenant Nguyen Van Thieu after graduating from the staff
course in Hanoi, September 1952. Photo attached to his official French
transcript. Photo courtesy of the Vanuxem family

Ngo Dinh Nhu and his family at the Le Van Kim residence in Dalat in
1949. Photo courtesy of Le Van Minh

Bao Dai in Dalat in December 1949. Photo courtesy of Le Van Minh

Pham Duy Tat shortly after being promoted to Brigadier General. Photo
courtesy of Pham Duy Tat

PAVN 122mm artillery captured in Quang Tri province, 1972. Photo
courtesy of Nguyen Thu Luong

Lieutenant General Cao Van Vien, probably in 1965. Photo courtesy of Ly
Thanh Tam

Tran Van Huong, Nguyen Van Thieu, and Major General Lu Lan,
Pacification Conference, II Corps, 1969. Photo courtesy of Lu Lan

Campaign poster for the 1967 Thieu/Ky ticket. Photo courtesy of George J.
Veith

Official portrait of President Nguyen Van Thieu after the presidential
election of 1967. Photo courtesy of George J. Veith

Change of Command ceremony in I Corps, May 1972. From left to right:
Major General Ngo Quang Truong, Lieutenant General Hoan Xuan Lam,
General Cao Van Vien. Photo courtesy of Ly Thanh Tam

This is a copy of Thieu’s handwritten official request to be allowed to
leave Vietnam for Taiwan, and the approval given by Huong. The English
translation is on the opposite page. Documents courtesy of Nguyen Tan
Phan; translation by Merle Pribbenow



This was Huong’s handwritten response. Courtesy of Nguyen Tan Phan;
translation by Merle Pribbenow

Thieu and retired French general Paul Vanuxem visit the An Loc
battlefield on July 7, 1972. Photo courtesy of Ly Thanh Tam

People protesting in Saigon against the Paris Peace Accords. Photo
courtesy of Hoang Song Liem



Map of French Indochina. Photo courtesy of Ly Thanh Tam

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The African proverb “It takes a village to raise a child” applies
metaphorically to writing a book, particularly one that seeks to portray a
subject as vast and as historically remarkable as the rise and fall of a
country. I was incredibly fortunate to receive the generosity of two groups
of people: those who helped shape this volume, and those who contributed
to it by graciously answering my questions, no matter how painful the
memories.

The primus inter pares (first among equals) of those who assisted is
Merle Pribbenow. Just as he diligently molded the manuscript that became
Black April, he also profoundly influenced this one. Every Vietnam scholar
knows him as a superb translator. I am fortunate that he also applied his
other skills: correcting errors, pointing out new data, and providing
rational alternatives for the actions of governments and individuals alike.
No amount of gratitude can repay his generosity.

Two others provided great assistance. Dr. Chris Goscha’s insightful
commentary and relentless demands for clarity and deeper analysis
brought light out of a dark bog of confusing details. I am deeply thankful
for both his friendship and his teaching spirit. Dr. David Prentice also read
numerous chapters and was instrumental in keeping me focused on the
main themes. I am richer for their help. Lastly, my family and friends,
particularly Sally Omani, sustained me on the long journey I took to
complete this book. Their love and encouragement lightened my burden
immensely.

Naturally, the many South Vietnamese who agreed to speak to me form
the heart of this book. Many unfortunately passed on before its
publication. My failure to complete this manuscript before they died is a
wound I feel grievously. In no particular order they are Hoang Duc Nha,
Nguyen Xuan Phong, Bui Diem, Pham Kim Ngoc, Cao Van Than, Nguyen

Duc Cuong, Lan Cao, Mrs. Nguyen Van Thieu, Tran Quang Minh, Le Van
Minh, Le Van Phuc, Doan Huu Dinh, Nguyen Xuan Tam, Mai Van Triet,
and many others. Thank you all for your kind spirit. It is my fervent wish
that I have told your unsung story well. You deserve nothing less.

George J. Veith
June 25, 2020

ABBREVIATIONS

AFC — Armed Forces Council
ADB — Agricultural Development Bank
ARVN — Army of the Republic of Vietnam
CIA — Central Intelligence Agency
CIDG — Civilian Irregular Defense Group
CIO — Central Intelligence Organization
CIP — Commodity Import Program
CORDS — Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support
COSVN — Central Office for South Vietnam
CVT — Vietnamese Labor Union
DMZ — Demilitarized Zone
DP — Democracy Party
DRV — Democratic Republic of Vietnam
FULRO — Montagnard Rebel Faction
GSF — Greater Solidarity Force
GVN — Government of (South) Vietnam
HES — Hamlet Evaluation System
HNC — High National Council
JGS — Joint General Staff
LTTT — Land to the Tiller Law
MACV — Military Assistance Command, Vietnam
MRC — Military Revolutionary Council
NLF — National Liberation Front
NCNRC — National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord
NSC — National Security Council
NSDF — National Social Democratic Front
PAVN — People’s Army of Vietnam
PNM — Progressive National Movement

PRG — Provisional Revolutionary Government
PACM — People’s Anti-Corruption Movement
PSDF — People’s Self-Defense Force
RD — Rural Development
RDV — Revolutionary Dai Viets
RF/PF — Regional Forces/Popular Forces
RVNAF — Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces
SDA — Social Democratic Alliance
TDV — Tan Dai Viets
UBC — United Buddhist Church
USAID — United States Agency for International Development
VAT — Value Added Tax
VNA — Vietnamese National Army
VNAF — Vietnamese Air Force
VNN — Vietnamese Navy
VNQDD — Vietnam Quoc Dan Dang





INTRODUCTION

Early on the morning of November 2, 1963, a frantic Colonel Nguyen Van
Thieu jumped out of his jeep and rushed over to an armored personnel
carrier parked outside the South Vietnamese military headquarters on Tan
Son Nhut Air Base. For the last eighteen hours, he had led the military
forces within Saigon that had overthrown the government of President Ngo
Dinh Diem. Inside the vehicle were the mangled corpses of Diem and the
president’s brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu. Thieu had only joined the coup after
being assured that Diem and his family would not be harmed. Now he
needed to confirm the shocking news, to verify for himself that the
promises that had been made to him and his fellow plotters had indeed
been broken.

Colonel Thieu ordered the driver to open the back door. Years later, he
recalled that seeing the bodies of the two brothers lying in pools of blood
made him sick to his stomach.1 He saluted them, then took off his helmet
and bowed deeply in their direction. This terrible moment, while only a
tiny drop in the vast river of modern Vietnamese history, marked the
symbolic passing from Diem’s First Republic to the Second Republic and
President Thieu four years later. In that anguished instant, South Vietnam’s
political history was forever changed.

The saga of how the non-communist Vietnamese strove to build the
sovereign nation called the Republic of Vietnam, more commonly known
as South Vietnam, can be viewed as a four-act play: Bao Dai’s State of
Vietnam, Diem’s First Republic, the subsequent four-year interregnum,
and, finally, Thieu’s Second Republic. Historian Brett Reilly has reviewed
former emperor Bao Dai’s often stilted endeavor to create a non-
communist state.2 Other historians such as Mark Moyar, Edward Miller,
Geoffrey Shaw, and Jessica Chapman have explored Diem’s reign in
detail.3 What remains mostly unexamined is the four-year interregnum

that came after Diem’s murder, the subsequent election of Nguyen Van
Thieu, and the short life of the Second Republic.

My goal is to evaluate and append a deep appraisal of the last two
periods to the already existing scholarship. Larger patterns, changes, and
continuities emerge when avoiding the corseted narration of narrower
histories. This book examines the South Vietnamese’ tortured but failed
effort to achieve an independent state. It focuses on the struggle to secure
the countryside, the twists and plots of the political process, the attempt to
forge national unity, and the evolution of South Vietnam’s complex social,
ethnic, and religious relationships. The economy is afforded equal
treatment since it had far greater influence than is generally realized.
Scholars have similarly overlooked Thieu’s emphasis after 1969 to offer
peace and win an electoral contest against the Communists.

By necessity, I concentrate on affairs in Saigon rather than in the
provinces. Military aspects and political decisions made in Hanoi and
Washington are only included where necessary to highlight salient points
or to showcase how their assessments affected the evolution of the
republic. Many of Hanoi’s and Washington’s moves were in reaction to
events in Saigon, a causality that has surprisingly been forgotten. South
Vietnam was always at the heart of the war, and this book explains why.

Although my purpose is to survey the South Vietnamese experience, I
do not delve into questions like anti-colonialism, ecology, or the country’s
place in the Cold War geopolitical conflict. Other historians have reviewed
or are in the process of examining these important subjects.4 I have also
set aside the question of whether or not the U.S. government should have
joined battle in that distant land. Lastly, since there are no universally
accepted labels for the two contending parties, and given that the South
Vietnamese call themselves Nationalists (nguoi quoc gia), I will use that
description for the anti-communists, and I will use Communist (nguoi
cong san) to describe those following Ho Chi Minh.

While the confrontation between these foes was multilayered, chiefly
it was a clash between two virulently opposed visions of how to modernize
and build Vietnam. There was also a rancorous debate on this same topic
within the Nationalist camp, which will prove to be a principal element in
this story. The Nationalist quarrel was between those who wanted to rule
via a centralized model of governance against those who sought a

Vietnamese form of democracy that enabled more local control. The issue
for the Nationalists was how to discard old ways and failed institutions
and replace them with new ideas and modern establishments to develop an
inclusive republican identity for an ethnically and religiously diverse
country.5 The war between the Communists and the Nationalists, and
between the Nationalists themselves, was about how to achieve that
political vision.

During the war, and for years afterward, South Vietnam was judged as
a stereotypical kleptocracy. The narrative was simple: Hanoi was the
anointed vessel of Vietnamese nationalism, and Saigon was destined to
collapse. Given the dramatic fall of the country in April 1975, those
judgments seemed proven and therefore unnecessary to revisit. The South
Vietnamese, however, have their own narrative, one largely ignored
outside the country. As one Vietnamese friend told me, “We had many
dreams: the dream of freedom, the dream of independence, and the dream
of lifting our people out of poverty. The Communists only had one dream:
win the war no matter the cost.”

The main argument presented here is that South Vietnam was not an
artificial American creation, nor was the Second Republic a dictatorship
like Diem’s First Republic. As we shall see, Thieu and his government
made significant efforts to build a modern democratic state that alleviated
the endemic poverty of its people, a process for which they have never
received credit. To accomplish this monumental task, they had to
overcome the debilitating legacy of French colonial rule alongside the
typical problems inherent in nation building: lack of national solidarity,
military-civilian clashes, undeveloped political institutions, and so much
more. Worse, they had to surmount these deficiencies with an implacable
enemy at their throats. Since contested legitimacy is the rule, not the
exception, in emerging states, the Nationalists faced an existential
question: how can an emerging democracy and an open society defeat a
totalitarian enemy, one skilled at infiltration, psychological and political
manipulation, and intelligence penetration? Equally important, could
South Vietnam survive the Communist threat on its own?

The answers require a deeper understanding of the Nationalists’
attempt to create a viable state. As the eminent military historian Michael
Howard contends, “to abstract the conduct of war from the environment in

which it was fought—social, cultural, political, economic—was to ignore
dimensions essential to its understanding.”6 This book covers those
dimensions. That the South Vietnamese were defeated does not mean they
failed to achieve political legitimacy. My contention is that they did, but
South Vietnam suffered similar growing pains as other new countries,
particularly those enduring long years of a deadly war. Ultimately, South
Vietnam could not build and fight at the same time.

It is well to remember that democracy is always a work in progress,
especially for a new country trying to find its footing during a difficult
war. America has also legislated discrepancies between its stated values
and reality during its own times of crisis. The Alien and Sedition Act of
1798 permitted the deportation, fine, or imprisonment of anyone deemed a
threat or publishing “false, scandalous, or malicious writing” against the
United States. During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln
suspended much of the Bill of Rights, including free speech and habeas
corpus. Moreover, post-9/11, full-fledged democracies have passed laws
that concern many civil libertarians.

Since even mature countries have had to recalibrate in difficult times,
South Vietnam was no exception. When the French refused to introduce
democratic institutions into colonial Indochina, concepts like “free
speech” and “loyal opposition” had only a small foothold in South
Vietnam, a place whose historical experiences were so different from ours.
Like other neophyte states emerging from colonial rule, republican
Vietnamese first had to craft a constitution to express their political intent.
The constitution defined the state apparatus—the legislature, the courts,
and the national security system—and they had to create one amid
violently competing social and religious interests.

Which brings us to the enigmatic man who will dominate these pages,
former South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu. Since his career
precisely matches his country’s life span, he provides the perfect vehicle
to examine the rise and fall of South Vietnam. This is not a biography of
Thieu but an acknowledgement that he played the central role in the
Second Republic. Yet despite this, Thieu is perhaps the least analyzed
major American ally of the twentieth century. In most U.S. publications,
he appears as a bit player within the larger American construct of the war
or more commonly as a military dictator whose policies and repression of

the South Vietnamese people led directly to the country’s defeat. Further,
this limited analysis of his tenure is often restricted to events such as the
negotiations that led to the Paris Peace Accords. For the man who sat at
the center of the Vietnam maelstrom from the inception of the U.S. combat
role to his country’s denouement, this neglect of his presidency has left a
gaping hole in the war’s historiography.

As we shall see, Thieu was the vital player in transitioning South
Vietnam from a military regime into a constitutional republic. But how did
Thieu react to internal groups, and how did he handle their challenges?
How did he differ from President Diem? What was his governing style,
how did he manage foreign policy issues, and what was his domestic
agenda? Could he create and then manage a military and economic
strategy to defeat a ruthless foe? For the most part, these questions were
unanswered until now.

Why have historians not scrutinized Thieu’s policies or appraised his
reactions to internal and external events? The answer lies in the judgments
made during the war. For over a decade, Vietnam was often the center of
the global Cold War conflict. Western commentators usually painted Thieu
in the same ideological hues that reflected their political outlook, and their
heated rhetoric about him mirrored the absolutes of the era. Antiwar
pundits typecast him as a corrupt, repressive dictator. The Communist
Vietnamese simultaneously vilified him as a traitor and an American
puppet. Internationally, his reputation was equally poor.

The South Vietnamese public, however, held more nuanced views. Like
other presidents, Thieu’s approval ratings rose and fell on the usual topics:
security, economic prosperity, or the latest political scandal. Such verdicts
often coalesced along traditional South Vietnamese fault lines: urban
dwellers versus peasants, religious denomination, or regional bias. He had
a base of supporters, a segment of fence-sitters, and a portion that viewed
him with disdain. The percentage of each altered over time, dependent on
the war’s fortunes or the price of rice.

Even with the fall of Saigon, it is still necessary to provide a historical
review of President Thieu. He was not the villainous and corrupt dictator
portrayed by the antiwar left, nor an American “puppet.” While he had the
typical political-military ethos extant among senior anti-communist
leaders in other Asian countries like Taiwan and South Korea, who viewed

strong leadership as the best counterweight to Communism, Thieu was
also determined to create a democratic, ownership-based society. These
two conflicting attitudes relentlessly tugged at him, never to be reconciled.
In particular, his democratic values were seemingly eviscerated when he
was the only name on the ballot for the 1971 presidential election.

Basically, Thieu sought two overarching aims. First, he was absolutely
determined to triumph over his adversaries. His view that any negotiated
settlement with the Communists was a slippery path to defeat was based
on firsthand experience, not any rigid and unrealistic ideology. Second, he
wanted to build his country into a modern state, alleviate the abject
poverty of his fellow citizens, and eventually lead them into something
resembling democracy. Crafting a functioning state that raised the material
standard of living while embedding into the nation’s DNA the essence of
democracy—not just the form—were his critical goals.

To achieve that, his policies were both evolutionary and revolutionary.
He maintained long-standing Government of Vietnam (GVN) policies in
certain areas such as peace negotiations. Conversely, he radically departed
from the policies of his predecessors, particularly in land reform and
restructuring the economy. Furthermore, he endeavored to remake South
Vietnam in the American mode by strengthening local autonomy and
revamping the stodgy bureaucracy. Equally important, he worked
diligently to improve village security by arming the people to guard their
dwellings, a radical risk in a country where peasant loyalty to the
government was often in doubt. In sum, Thieu wanted to create prosperity
among the rural peasants by providing the South Vietnamese people a
capitalistic environment that gave them a stake in their own development
via self-rule.

This is not to imply that Thieu was a liberal reformer. Some of his
governing cues were taken from other autocratic, anti-communist Asian
regimes. He had much in common with Chiang Kai-shek in Taiwan and
Park Chung-hee in South Korea. Like them, he pursued his domestic goals
while keeping a lid on political opposition, believing it only played into
Communist hands. Although he accommodated other non-communist
voices, and he recognized that the clamorous give and take of a democratic
society was essential to its existence, he saw overt dissent as a cancer
weakening the anti-communist body in its struggle against an unrelenting

adversary. For him, national unity projected national strength, the key
ingredient to convince Hanoi it could not win. Once Hanoi had accepted
that, then true peace negotiations could begin. Conversely, public dissent
equaled weakness, which only encouraged Hanoi to keep fighting.

Like other politicians, Thieu had personality foibles and managerial
quirks that influenced his policies. Yet so many of Thieu’s actions that
appalled Western critics had an entirely different meaning in the
Vietnamese context. For Thieu, the reaction of his domestic audience far
outweighed those of his international detractors. Additionally, he
approached his responsibilities with grim sobriety, infuriating those who
sought political compromise with his equally resolute foe. Yet despite his
flaws as a leader, many American officials believed no other Vietnamese
statesman possessed the same combination of maturity, toughness, and
intellect. He was, in their opinion, the best leader in South Vietnam.

Anyone who reaches the political pinnacle of their society is a
fascinating amalgam of ambition, intelligence, and unrelenting drive.7
Undertaking an analysis of a leader’s policies alongside a forensic
examination of their personality requires access to internal government
documents and the willingness of confidantes to divulge details about
private deliberations and their leader’s motivations. In the case of Thieu,
official U.S. military adviser records from the early years of U.S.
involvement were destroyed, leaving a blank slate for his earliest
interactions with Americans.8 French reports on him are also extremely
limited.9 GVN documents are now held by the Communist regime, and
access, while more open than in the past, remains more restricted than
U.S. archival holdings. Scholars who have examined the archives report
finding little on Thieu’s thinking on various policies and programs.10

Despite these drawbacks, one can still analyze his agenda as president.
The U.S. ambassadors meticulously reported his comments. However,
other American embassy officials who found him difficult to fathom and
cautious to a fault often based their opinions on information gathered from
South Vietnamese political representatives or other elites. Much of this
U.S. reporting, while often insightful, must be used carefully. Thieu was an
extraordinarily closed man, rarely offering his opinion. He kept his
internal decision-making circle extremely small, and the Vietnamese
outside the government’s upper echelon could only supply conjecture on

the reasons for his decisions. Or worse, they assigned conspiratorial
motives to his actions without any knowledge of how a policy was
devised.

Thus, a combination of Thieu’s speeches, GVN documents, U.S.
records, and interviews with some of his confidantes provides an
understanding of the dynamics of his foreign and domestic policies. South
Vietnamese memoirs also offer insight, but much like solely relying on
U.S. records, it is akin to dancing in a mine field. While an excellent
source of material, caution must be exercised. Not only is memory fragile,
many authors have a significant bias and are not afraid to display it.

Fortunately, I interviewed many senior South Vietnamese cabinet
ministers and other officials who were responsible for designing and
implementing government policies. These discussions revealed startling
new historical information, including how the Diem coup was almost
stopped, previously unknown details on the January 1964 countercoup, the
Faustian pact that anointed Thieu over Nguyen Cao Ky for president, the
true background on the Chennault Affair during the 1968 elections, and
explosive details on perhaps the last, great secret of the Vietnam War that
occurred in the final days.

While I believe a tremendous difference exists between President Ngo
Dinh Diem and President Thieu’s visions for modernizing the republic, it
is also important to concede that Thieu operated in a vastly different
political milieu and era than Diem. In the four years after the coup, South
Vietnam experienced enormous military, political, social, and economic
upheavals marked by the intensification of the war and the escalation of
U.S. involvement. Despite that chaos, largely thanks to the shepherding of
Ky and Thieu, South Vietnam created a constitution and formed a Second
Republic. Then major events like the Communist Tet 1968 attack, the
implementation of land reform, and the arming of local citizens to
improve security swung many previously neutral or antagonistic peasants
to his side. Hanoi’s offensive in 1972, however, damaged much of the
economic and local government development that Thieu had achieved. The
Paris Peace Accords and the subsequent U.S. withdrawal left behind a
wounded South Vietnam, one that fell prey to North Vietnam’s final attack
in 1975.

Fortunately, the current scholarship on the conflict, much like our
ever-changing culture, has evolved to embrace new perspectives on South
Vietnam.11 Hopefully, the ideological gulf that cleaved us then will not
straitjacket readers now. All too often, extraordinary circumstances force
imperfect men to make momentous decisions based on faulty information.
Thieu was no different. As one reads this manuscript, try to see him, like
most responsible heads of government, as a politician trying to do the best
for his country rather than as a dictator only interested in maintaining
power. With that concept in mind, quoting Shakespeare’s Chorus in Henry
V, it is now “your thoughts that must deck our kings” and what must judge
Nguyen Van Thieu and South Vietnam.12

1

“THE BEST DAYS OF MY LIFE”
The Rise of the Republic of Vietnam

The origins of the country that became the southern-based,

noncommunist Republic of Vietnam began with Japan’s collapse at the end
of World War II, the return of the French to reclaim their colony, and the
subsequent First Indochina War. When Ho Chi Minh declared the
Democratic Republic of Vietnam in September 1945, no one could have
imagined that two separate Vietnams would eventually emerge. Yet to
comprehend the labored birth of a non-communist Republic, a quick
history lesson is required. Our first section takes us swiftly through the
events that led to the Republic’s emergence, then a review of the early
career of Nguyen Van Thieu, and finally a primer on the unwieldy factions
that comprised this new country. Our main story will begin shortly, but
background supports understanding, and South Vietnam’s convoluted saga
is no different.

IN THE BEGINNING

The Vietnamese pride themselves on a long and storied history, one that is
notable for both internal strife and defense against numerous invaders,
including the Chinese and the Cambodians. After years of civil war, in
1802, Gia Long declared himself emperor of a united Vietnam. It would
not last. In 1858, the French, seeking colonial possessions, attacked
Vietnam and captured the town of Danang in the central part of the

country. Over the next two decades, the French conquered the rest of the
country. They divided Vietnam into three regions: two protectorates—
Annam in the center and Tonkin in the north—and a colony in the south
called Cochinchina. The French permitted the Nguyen Dynasty to continue
to rule from the imperial capital of Hue, but only on French terms. In
1888, the French cobbled together Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia into an
Indochinese Union often called French Indochina.1

The Vietnamese soon challenged the French occupiers. Two men, Phan
Dinh Phung and Phan Boi Chau, resisted colonial rule, the first on the
inside until his death in 1897, the second in the surrounding Asian region
until 1925, when the French arrested and returned him to Hue. The most
well-known of these men, however, was Ho Chi Minh. After World War I,
Ho traveled to France, Russia, China, and other countries, preaching his
gospel of independence. After asking the French to help him build a
colonial republic, he grew disenchanted by the French failure to keep their
reformist and republican promises. He turned to Marxism, enthralled by
Lenin’s promise to help liberate colonies from their oppressors. Ho
became an ardent Communist, and he slowly established a group of
followers, but French security forces kept them at bay. An idea, however,
does not recognize borders, and the notion of Vietnamese independence
continued to grow.

At the start of World War II, the Japanese occupied Indochina, but they
allowed the French to continue to rule, given the Vichy government’s
collaboration with Germany. On March 9, 1945, with Japan nearing defeat
and fearing an Allied invasion of Vietnam, the Japanese overthrew the
Vichy government in Vietnam. This action, as one scholar wrote, “dealt a
blow to [French colonial] authority from which it would never fully
recover.”2 Two days after the Japanese takeover, Vietnamese Emperor Bao
Dai proclaimed the Empire of Vietnam, independent of France but a part
of the Japanese empire. He asked a respected scholar, Tran Trong Kim, to
form a government and to serve as his prime minister.

Two days after the Japanese in Vietnam surrendered to the Allies on
August 15, 1945, a Vietnamese group called the Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong
Minh, widely referred as the Viet Minh, launched a revolution across the
country. Led by Ho Chi Minh, the Viet Minh were ostensibly a united front
of resistance movements dedicated to fighting the return of the French

colonialists. On August 19, the Viet Minh seized Hanoi, the capital of
northern Vietnam. Bao Dai abdicated in favor of Ho, and Kim’s
government resigned on August 25. When Japan completely surrendered
on September 2, 1945, Ho concurrently announced the Democratic
Republic of Vietnam (DRV), the first fully independent Vietnamese state
since the nineteenth century.

The U.S., the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union had held a
conference in late July to discuss postwar issues involving Germany and
the future of Asia. Anticipating the Japanese capitulation, the British were
assigned responsibility for occupying Vietnam below the sixteenth
parallel, while Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Chinese would occupy the
area above that line. France was excluded from the reoccupation because
they were not among the Allies in Asia.

The French, however, had different plans. French leader Charles de
Gaulle hustled his army to Indochina to reclaim the colonies, and on
September 23, the British allowed French troops to disembark in Saigon.
Fighting immediately broke out between the Vietnamese and the French.
Although Saigon fell quickly, in the north, the Nationalist Chinese denied
the French permission to reclaim their colony for fear that hostilities
might erupt as they had in the south. This gave Ho’s government a year to
consolidate itself in the northern section of Vietnam. That yearlong respite
proved crucial, giving the DRV time to organize itself and prepare for war.
The Viet Minh grew stronger in the northern part of the country but
remained weak in the southern part.

On March 6, 1946, the French and Ho signed an agreement to permit
the stationing of French troops in northern Vietnam for five years to
replace the Chinese, but Paris conceded to recognize the DRV as a free
state within the French Union. In July, the French and the DRV opened new
negotiations in Fontainebleau, France, to discuss Vietnam’s independence
and its role within the union, but the talks began under a cloud. Since the
southern part of Vietnam was under French control, the French had created
a separate Republic of Cochinchina (the start of South Vietnam) in June
1946. This rump government, with its capital in Saigon, was led by Dr.
Nguyen Van Thinh, a prominent physician. Thinh agreed to cooperate with
the French in exchange for self-rule within the French Union. Thinh
envisioned a republic separate from a Communist-inspired DRV in Hanoi,

although most of his compatriots favored a unified country. Paris,
however, was not interested in autonomy, only in creating a Vietnamese
government subservient to the French Union. Fearful that the French were
using him, on November 10, 1946, Thinh committed suicide. He was
replaced by Le Van Hoach, who continued to work with the French.

Despite the alliance between Ho’s Communists and the non-communist
political parties like the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang and the Dai Viets, the
Communists soon tried to dominate the coalition. They began targeting the
non-communist parties, who called themselves Nationalists and whom we
shall meet later in more detail. These two parties had also originated in
northern Vietnam, had launched an uprising in the 1930s and had been
crushed by the French military. Hunted by the Communists, the Viet Minh
alliance began to fracture.

Since Paris refused to give up its colonial hold on Indochina, the
Fontainebleau negotiations failed. War erupted between France and the
DRV in December 1946. To peel the Nationalists away from the Viet Minh,
Paris attempted to offer the anti-communists limited authority over the
country. Seeking a ruler with broad appeal, the French turned to former
Vietnamese Emperor Bao Dai, who had broken with Ho Chi Minh. In
September 1947, Bao Dai opened negotiations with the French to create a
separate anti-communist Vietnamese government. Bao Dai hoped to force
Paris to grant independence, but he only achieved a partial victory. On
June 5, 1948, the French and the former emperor signed the Halong Bay
Agreements, which granted Vietnam official status within the French
Union and unified the three Vietnamese regions (Tonkin, Annam, and
Cochinchina) under his rule. A Central Provisional Vietnamese
Government was formed that was separate from Ho’s DRV, and the
Republic of Cochinchina was subsumed within it.

After further negotiations, on March 8, 1949, Bao Dai and French
President Vincent Auriol concluded the Elysee Accords, which made
Vietnam an “associated state” of Indochina along with Laos and
Cambodia. All three countries, however, remained part of the French
Union. On July 2, 1949, Bao Dai officially proclaimed the Associated
State of Vietnam. The agreement fell short of granting independence but
allowed Vietnam to conduct its own foreign policy, control its finances,

and create an army. Ho and his followers immediately dismissed the
former emperor and his cabinet as “race traitors.”

The same day, the brand-new provisional government also established
the Ministry of Defense, and in August it formed the Vietnamese National
Army (Quan Doi Quoc Gia Viet Nam). For many Nationalists, fighting the
Communist threat was more important than combating the French, and
Bao Dai’s embryonic administration and the French moved swiftly to build
an indigenous military. They formed infantry battalions, and since Bao Dai
needed Vietnamese officers to command these units, the French created
the School for Regular Officers in Hue. The school became the forerunner
of South Vietnam’s National Military Academy. The first class began on
December 1, 1948, and was called Phan Boi Chau after the famous pioneer
of Vietnamese nationalism. One of the graduates of the first officer class
at Hue was Nguyen Van Thieu, the future president of the Second
Republic.

Meanwhile, events outside Vietnam exerted enormous influence over
happenings inside the country. The Chinese Communist victory in 1949
forced the Americans to dramatically alter how they dealt with the French
empire. As Chinese weapons began reaching Ho’s soldiers in 1950, the
French requested large-scale U.S. military assistance. America agreed, and
the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 only reinforced Washington’s
commitment. Military and economic assistance began to pour in, and
Washington diplomatically recognized the Associated State of Vietnam,
followed by the British and the rest of the “Free World.” The chief goal of
Paris and Washington became forming an anti-communist government in
Vietnam allied with France. The Associated State of Vietnam, however,
had to protect itself and extend its rule, and Bao Dai needed the
Vietnamese National Army (VNA) to accomplish that goal.

THE EARLY YEARS OF NGUYEN VAN THIEU

Since Thieu was one of the two most influential figures in South
Vietnamese history—Ngo Dinh Diem being the other—let us review his
early life. Since worldview is often an amalgamation of culture,
upbringing, personality, and experience, it is necessary to examine how

Thieu’s rearing and early military career influenced his personality and
future policies.

Unfortunately, our knowledge of his formative years is thin. Even basic
biographic information about him is conflicting. For example, a senior
news correspondent who spent years in Vietnam and who wrote Thieu’s
obituary for the New York Times repeated the popular misunderstanding of
his actual birthday. Fox Butterfield wrote, “Thieu was born in November
1924, but in accordance with a frequently used Vietnamese custom took
another date as his birthday—April 5, 1923—on grounds that it was better
luck. He was the youngest of five children, born in a village on the central
coast of Vietnam.”3 Others agreed that he had changed his birthday “on the
advice of an astrologer.”4

While true that rural Vietnamese occasionally changed their birthday
to a more propitious date for astrological reasons, Thieu’s wife claims that
he did not. Although many believed that his true birthday was November
12, 1924, this was a youthful mistake made from his uncertainty over the
correct date. According to Mrs. Thieu, when he was a young boy filling
out an examination for school, the teacher asked him his birth date.
Uncertain, he went home to query his mother. Not finding her, he returned
to school and made up the date of November 12, 1924.5 The teacher
dutifully recorded it, and this wrong date became part of an official record.
Although Thieu’s mother later corrected her son, whether she had changed
his birthday to something more astrologically significant is unknown.6

Thieu was born on April 5, 1923, in Tri Thuy, a picturesque village of
fishermen and farmers nestled on an ocean inlet a few miles from the city
of Phan Rang, the capital of Ninh Thuan. A coastal province about 150
miles northeast of Saigon, Ninh Thuan is roughly the dividing line
between the central and southern sections of South Vietnam. His parents
were not poor peasants tilling a rice field; they were a relatively
prosperous middle-class family that owned land and several businesses.
They instilled in him a strong work ethic and imprinted typical
Vietnamese cultural values that remained with him into adulthood. His
father, Nguyen Van Trung, and his paternal grandfather and great
grandfather were sailors who traveled up and down the coast selling goods.
After Thieu’s birth, his father took “another occupation. He went to Qui
Nhon and brought back animals and cows and so on, to sell in Phan Rang,

and he went to Saigon and bought and sold merchandise.”7 Thieu’s father
had been orphaned at age ten, and he impressed the tough lessons from his
difficult life onto his son. Thieu told a postwar interviewer that, “his father
always taught him that he must be careful and cautious and should never
be careless or reckless,” a lesson that became Thieu’s defining personality
trait.8

Thieu was the youngest of seven children. He had four brothers and
two sisters. As such, his nickname was “Tam” (Eight), as southerners use
Two as the name of the first child, since the father was Number One (Anh
Hai). Little is known about his sisters and two of his brothers, but his two
oldest brothers, Hieu and Kieu, would become ambassadors for the
Republic of Vietnam. However, his older brothers held little sway over
him, an unusual occurrence in a traditional Vietnamese family. The oldest,
Hieu, was born on April 4, 1906. The family sent him to France for a
college education, an impressive achievement for a Vietnamese during the
colonial period, as only several thousand Vietnamese attended French
secondary (high) schools. Hieu received his undergraduate degree in law, a
traditional entrance into the civil service, from the University of Paris in
1933. He returned to Vietnam and served as a magistrate in Hue until
1939.

Upon their father’s death on January 12, 1969, as the eldest son, Hieu
became the nominal leader of the family, but he had left Vietnam in 1956
for various diplomatic assignments. In 1966, he became South Vietnam’s
ambassador to Italy. When Hieu’s wife died of cancer in 1966, Thieu
generously adopted Hieu’s daughter and raised her. It was a closely held
family secret, known only to a few people. A Buddhist, Hieu was a quiet
man with no political ambition, and after his appointment to Italy, he
stayed out of Vietnamese politics and remained in Rome until the fall of
Saigon.

Kieu on the other hand, was much more politically active. He was born
in 1916, and at some point converted to Catholicism. Around 1940, Kieu
became one of the founders of the South Vietnamese branch of the Dai Viet
Quoc Dan Dang (Greater Vietnam Nationalist Party). The Dai Viets were a
Vietnamese political party that competed with another political party, the
Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (VNQDD, Vietnam Nationalist Party) for the
allegiance of the Nationalists. Kieu eventually became the ambassador to

Taiwan, but he also served as Thieu’s chief messenger and intermediary
with many of the South Vietnamese political and religious leaders.

Thieu’s parents focused on educating their children, particularly Hieu
and Kieu. To pay for their advanced schooling, a young Thieu helped his
mother, Bui Thi Hanh, sell goods in the local market. He notes:

While I was in school, I had to help my sisters sell rice cakes and sweet potatoes. Also,
every day I went to the market for my mother and helped my sisters make money. My
two brothers went to school and I stayed home and helped my sisters to bring goods
back and forth. I worked very hard. My mother had a small grocery in the village, and I
helped my mother in that store too. At that time, my father and my mother had to raise
my two brothers and send them to school in Saigon. My father always tried to give us a
good education. He worked very hard [as did] my mother and my two sisters to provide
money to send my two brothers to primary school and then to high school, and then to
send me to school.9

One Vietnamese who knew Thieu for many years agrees that Thieu
came from a good family. He wrote: “Back then I particularly respected
Thieu because Thieu’s parents were good, moral elders who always made
sure that their family followed the traditions of our Three Religions.”10
The three traditional Vietnamese religions are Buddhism, Taoism, and
Confucianism. Ancestor veneration also plays a prominent role in
Vietnamese worship. Thieu’s values reflected his Confucian upbringing, a
philosophy that guided one’s life and place in society, but its precepts only
partially explain his worldview. While he accepted Confucian concepts
regarding social matters, his education exposed him to French culture,
including concepts of liberty and democracy. His later visits to the United
States convinced him that Vietnam needed to embrace American
management and industrial techniques and reject centralized French-style
management. This embrace of U.S. modernization was a key difference
between Thieu and many other Vietnamese leaders. Military rituals
reinforced his strong belief in tradition, particularly as seen through the
prism of Vietnamese customs and mores. Later he would adopt the
religious tenets of Catholicism, but it was always a layer upon his core
Vietnamese values.

Since his parents emphasized learning as the path to success, Thieu
acquired a good education by the standards of colonial Vietnam. Schooling
honed his native intelligence, an advantage rarely granted to Vietnamese