Ex-Premier's Vietnam Trip: A Mistake for Both Bush and Hanoi
Pacific News Service, Commentary, Thi Q. Lam, Posted: Feb 17, 2004
Editor's Note: Protests are already underway in anticipation of the return of former South Vietnamese premier Nguyen Cao Ky, who left his Southern California home recently to visit Vietnam on a peacemaking mission. A former South Vietnamese Army commander describes Ky as comedic traitor, and explains why the Vietnamese American community is so furious.
This week, Nguyen Cao Ky, former prime minister and vice president of South Vietnam, is due to return to Southern California from his "peace mission" to communist Vietnam. Already, protesters are parading effigies of him in the streets of Los Angeles' Little Saigon.
As a former South Vietnamese Army field commander who spent much of his adult life fighting against communist aggression, I and many other Vietnamese Americans consider Ky's visit a despicable desertion to the enemy. By returning to Vietnam to offer his services to his former foe, Ky has betrayed the cause of freedom for which many of my men and hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese soldiers gave their lives.
I remember Ky well. Before 1975, he was my frequent tennis partner in South Vietnam. He's always been more comedian than wise leader.
In 1966, Ky threatened to sever diplomatic relations with France after President Charles de Gaulle proposed a neutral solution for the States of Indochina, including South Vietnam. When told of Ky's threat, De Gaulle famously barked, "Qui est Ky?" (who is Ky?) This interview, widely reported in French media at the time, greatly embarrassed the government of South Vietnam. Though General De Gaulle's remarks were intended to be a personal insult to the vain prime minister, as a Vietnamese, I resented the French president's arrogance.
In 1975, when North Vietnam Army divisions were tightening their knot around Saigon, Ky loudly proclaimed that he would stay and fight until the "last drop of his blood." Then he unceremoniously flew his helicopter to the U.S. 7th Fleet to evade the approaching communist army.
Last month, after almost 30 years of exile in the United States, marred by financial disasters (bankrupt liquor and shrimp businesses) and personal problems (divorce), Ky was allowed by the Vietnamese government to come home to glorify the autocratic and repressive regime he once vowed to destroy.
Not surprisingly, Ky has become the target of ridicule by the Vietnamese American press. One Vietnamese-language newspaper, for example, caricatured him as a dog with a communist flag tied to its tail. Former officers who endured humiliation and suffering in communist reeducation camps, as well as representatives of the Vietnamese American community in Orange County, where Ky lives, have already staged mass demonstrations against him.
By allowing Ky to return to Vietnam to praise its regime, Hanoi may have made a costly mistake. If the recent angry reaction of the Vietnamese community is any indication, the move has already backfired. Instead of fostering reconciliation and cooperation, Ky's trip has united the Vietnamese émigrés community and strengthened its resolve to fight for a free and democratic Vietnam.
According to U.S. media, including the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times, the Bush administration, hoping to improve relations with its former foe, nodded at Ky's trip. If true, that move could cost the president Vietnamese American votes in the upcoming presidential election. Fortunately for Bush, the Vietnamese American community views Democratic front-runner John Kerry as an anti-war activist and pro-communist.
In the eyes most Vietnamese Americans, Ky's reputation has been forever tarnished. He will go down in history as a traitor to his country, to his former comrade-in-arms, to the fallen heroes of the Vietnam War, and to 80 million Vietnamese people still suffering from communist oppression. He will live the rest of his life in infamy -- in whichever community he chooses to call home.
PNS contributor Thi Q. Lam is the author of the memoir "The 25 Year Century: A South Vietnamese General Remembers the Vietnam War." He resides in Milpitas, Calif., where he teaches high school.
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