Cold Wars and Flight Suits

From: "Mimi Nguyen" <mimin@uiuc.edu>

Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2006 05:13:56 -0600 (CST)

Subject: [Vsg] Cold Wars and Flight Suits

Dear list members,

I apologize if this is a bit incoherent (I'm writing this at 5 a.m.),

but a while ago during the "partition" debate, Tuan Hoang wrote, "My

impression is, most Vietnamese at the time, both communists and

noncommunists, were more preoccupied with postcolonial concerns than with the

Cold War. I think too that it may be more helpful to step away, at least

a little, from Cold War-centered perspectives that typically accompany

debates about the partition."

Not being a historian of the war, I was wondering, with this quote,

just how and when Cold War discourses (specifically, those Cold War

discourses most familiar to US audiences at the time) were mobilized by

southern Vietnamese state powers? The answer (if there is one), I'm sure,

has a lot to do with the previous debates about "partition" and so forth,

but I would be interested to read what Tuan Hoang and others on the

list had to say about the (possibly strategic?) uses or (possibly

constitutive?) impact of Cold War discourses among Vietnamese at the time.

My second question is much more random. I have a dim memory of an essay

I read years ago about an RVN leader's penchant for flight suits and

pith helmets. Does anyone know what I'm talking about, or have a

citation?

Best,

Mimi

Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2006 10:09:00 -0800 (PST)

From: "Joe Hannah" <jhannah@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] Cold Wars and Flight Suits

I find the first a very interesting question. I have often been struck

with the mid-sixties Saigon billboard representations of the Cong San

as evil devils and the like. It seems to me that this was a borrowing of

Cold War discourses to de-legitimize the DRV/NLF nationalism(s) in favor of

the RVN nationalism. In other words, I do not see these as distinct

phenomena, but as mutually constitutive. Were there similar uses of cold war

rhetorical/discursive formations in teh north during the war?

On the second question, could you perhaps be refering to Nguyen Cao Ky,

who was a pilot, wore flight suits and silk scarves? (I don't recall

pith helmets being mentioned, however...)

Cheers,

Joe Hannah

Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2006 13:10:10 -0500

From: "Tuan Hoang" <thoang1@nd.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] Cold Wars and Flight Suits

Dear Mimi,

I don't know which question is more interesting, Cold War or flight suits. But, sadly, I have answers to neither. On state mobilization, though, from the little that I've come across, I suspect it wasn't until at least the early or mid-1960s that the RVN really appropriated the American discourse to the degree that it's remained known today. (I'm thinking of Nguyen Ba Chung's comment in another post on how Americans as well as many overseas Vietnamese still perceive the war via Cold War prism.) Of course, the "Free World vs. Communist Bloc" dichotomy was already in place ever since the US got involved in the First Indochinese War. But I don't think it was a primary concern for noncommunists who were more occupied with surviving Viet Minh suppression at the time, while also navigating through French and American dominance. Then in the few years following

Geneva, they confronted a host of immediate postcolonial issues, from political organization to cultural building, from land reform to health to education. Of course, they did not necessarily have a consensus. But their preoccupation with those issues strikes me as more important to them than the Cold War discourse that was raging elsewhere.

As a side note, I think that the DRV was also preoccupied with postcolonial concerns - land reform, Marxist interpretation of the Tay Son and Nguyen dynasty, North-firsters winning over South-firsters, etc. But there might well be more to it, including a desire to expand communist revolutions in the region. Looking at a bunch of documents between the DRV and Mao's China in the 1960s and 1970s, Stein Tonnesson thought that the domino theory was both right and wrong, in that the two sides indicated intention to spread communism in the

region (the theory was right) but was constrained by external and internal realities (theory was wrong).

While I agree with the gist of Chung's point that many overseas Vietnamese interpret the war strictly in Cold War terms, I don't think that the they are totally unreasonable on communist expansion as a major point of narrative. But they seem to overlook the complex emotions during the war, as the fear of communist expansion ran parallel also to an implicit recognition that communists were also Vietnamese, if not also blood families and relatives of many anti-communists. Talk about tension abound, and still unresolved at that!

The essay and documents are on PDF at

http://wwics.si.edu/topics/pubs/ACFB39.pdf.

Back to the RVN, one of the best studies on related topics is Matt Masur's dissertation on cultural nation-building under the Diem regime. Matt surveyed a large amount of documents at Archives II in HCMC and the National Archives outside Washington, DC, and concluded that there was a huge discrepancy between cultural programs promoted by Diem on the one hand and the US Information Agency on the other hand. The discrepancy could well be indicative of the different Cold War discourses between the US and the RVN - though, again, my opinion is no more than impressionistic. There are other recent dissertations dealing with similar themes (Ed Miller, Jessica Elkind, Jessica Chapman, etc.) But I single out Matt's because it's available online for free from Ohio State University, though I don't have the link at hand.

~Tuan

Mimi Nguyen <mimin@uiuc.edu>

date Dec 8, 2006 12:30 PM

subject Re: [Vsg] Cold Wars and Flight Suits

Dear Tuan, Joe and other list members,

Thank you both for the thoughtful replies! And yes, it's because the Cold War prism does continue to have political salience (though arguably the degree to which it does still carry weight is debatable) for overseas Vietnamese that I'm wondering how and when Cold War discourses entered into southern Vietnamese political language and imagery during the war. But this was very helpful, and I'll definitely look into those dissertations you mentioned!

I'm still hoping for an answer on the flight suit essay, which I swear also included a discussion about pith helmets. It probably was about Nguyen Cao Ky, though!

Best,

Philip Taylor <philip.taylor@anu.edu.au>

date Dec 8, 2006 1:07 PM

subject Re: [Vsg] Cold Wars and Flight Suits

You might find something in Terry Rambo's essay "Black Flight Suits and

White Ao Dais: Borrowing and Adaptation of Symbols of Vietnamese Cultural

Identity" in Borrowings and Adaptations in Vietnamese Culture, ed. Truong

Buu Lam, 155-223 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1987).

Philip Taylor

quang@qxpham.com <quang@qxpham.com>

date Dec 8, 2006 1:19 PM

subject Re: [Vsg] Cold Wars and Flight Suits

http://www.qxpham.com/83rd%20SOG.htm

http://www.qxpham.com/American.Advisors.514.htm

Former Air Marshal and Premier Nguyen Cao Ky. See photos above. One of his ex-wives was a stewardess/flight attendant for Air Vietnam and she used to don black sunglasses and flight suits as well.

Best regards,

Mimi Nguyen <mimin@uiuc.edu>

date Dec 8, 2006 3:05 PM

subject Re: [Vsg] Cold Wars and Flight Suits

Philip,

That's it! I knew I had read an essay about flight suits somewhere. Thanks so much!

Best,

Nu-Anh Tran <tran_n_a@yahoo.com>

date Dec 9, 2006 6:29 PM

subject Re: [Vsg] Cold Wars and Flight Suits

Dear list,

I also find the question of American Cold War discourse used in the RVN very interesting. In my (admittedly limited) research using RVN newspapers from the latter half of the 1960s, I was struck by the repeated usages of terms such as “Free World,” “Iron Curtain,” “bastion of freedom in Southeast Asia,” “bulwark of freedom,” “nation-building,” and “communist bloc.” These terms were used in articles by regular writers as well as in letters to the editor (and they are used with surprising frequency among some overseas Vietnamese too). It seemed to me that they were considered by these writers and readers to be universally recognized terms rather than distinctively political terms or translated terms (linguistically or politically), but that does not necessarily mean of course that they meant the same things to southern Vietnamese as they did to Americans. Besides the question of when and how American Cold War discourse entered and filtered through the RVN, one might also ask if American Cold War discourse in effect became RVN Cold War discourse or if there was a distinctive RVN Cold War political rhetoric.

In my purely anecdotal experience, I have also noticed the importance of American Cold War discourse for the RVN. As a Vietnamese-American child, I was taught RVN-period songs – even children’s songs – that drew upon such language. I remember one about the Ben Hai River and the 1954 partition that encourages northerners to come to “the free southern land” (nuoc nam tu do). I also remember a children’s song exhorting the listener to be a good citizen, contribute to society, and help “build the country” (xay duong dat nuoc), which I think might be a more colloquial expression of “nation-building” (kien-thiet quoc-gia).

Nu-Anh

Tuan Hoang <thoang1@nd.edu>

date Dec 11, 2006 10:06 AM

subject Re: [Vsg] Cold Wars and Flight Suits

Nu-Anh mentions the Ben Hai, and I'd like to add that for all the differences among the Vietnamese sides about the war and partition, there was at least one thing that they'd have agreed unanimously: the river was a symbol of national shame. A researcher trying to grasp the mind of Vietnamese during the war should mine the countless references to it in wartime print, music, film, etc.

Tuan Hoang <thoang1@nd.edu>

date Dec 11, 2006 7:07 PM

subject Re: [Vsg] Cold Wars and Flight Suits

Quick clarification: I didn't mean to dispute what Nu-Anh was saying about the Ben Hai song in 1954 that encourages northerners to head south. In fact, I think her point is important, esp. because English-language interpretations of this issue have been so American-centric (e.g., saying that the migration was basically the handiworks of the US), that they typically left out Vietnamese agency in promoting the move. What I'd meant to say is, the Ben Hai became a symbol of shame as Vietnamese realized the partition was permanent instead of temporary.

Peter Hansen <phansen@ourladys.org.au>

date Dec 11, 2006 7:16 PM

subject RE: [Vsg] Cold Wars and Flight Suits

Couldn't agree with you more, Anh Tuan, about the overplaying of the

role of Lansdale et. al. in the 'cuoc dai di cu' of 1954-5. Ed Miller

has written on the subject, and I'm in the process of doing so.

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