Carter and Indochina

From: Cau Thai via Vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Sent: Monday, January 13, 2025 10:04 AM
To: Mc Hale, Shawn <mchale@gwu.edu>; Dan Tsang <dtsang@uci.edu>; VSG <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Carter and Indochina

I am afraid we might have talked past each other, Shawn.

In replying to the original poster about how "Carter embraced the genocidal Cambodian regime of Pol Pot, over Vietnam", among other things, I wrote,

"I quickly put together some facts:

1. Vietnam's leaders provided aid to Pol Pot and other Khmer Rouge leaders in their war to overthrow Cambodia's non-communist government.

2. Vietnam's leaders were among the first to congratulate the Khmer Rouge's victory in April 1975.

..."

These two points are just that, historical facts, They did not mean to say Vietnam's leaders had approved the Khmer Rouge's approach post-1975. They were there for the reason stated: Vietnam's leaders played a role in helping the Khmer Rouge overthrow Cambodia's non-communist government in April 1975. Would two million people have died if the Khmer Rouge was not the victor in that war?

You wrote, "The Vietnamese communists, simply put, were suspicious of the extremism of Maoist revolutionary thought."

This deserves another thread. I just wanted to share the following points:

While Vietnam's leaders did not fully know beforehand of Pol Pot's post-war plan, they were well aware of his anti-Vietnamese attitude since the 1950s. However, they chose to provide shelter and training to Pol Pot and other Khmer Rouge leaders in the 1950s and 1960s. (See Trường Chinh, 1980, Ben Kiernan, 2004 & 2008). Vietnam's leaders considered defeating the Americans and their puppets in Cambodia their top priority.

Back to the original post in this thread, after the response last week, I look forward to hearing from the original poster and/or from participants in the Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee's special program regarding "Jimmy Carter's despicable record with Vietnam during his presidency".  

Calvin Thai

Independent

From: Shawn McHale via Vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Sent: Sunday, January 12, 2025 4:50 AM
To: Carl Robinson <robinsoncarl88@gmail.com>
Cc: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Carter and Indochina

I would respectfully note that this text below needs context, as it is only partially true: 

"1. Vietnam's leaders provided aid to Pol Pot and other Khmer Rouge leaders in their war to overthrow Cambodia's non-communist government.

2. Vietnam's leaders were among the first to congratulate the Khmer Rouge's victory in April 1975."

If we look at the actual timelines, we can see that the first Khmer Rouge attacks on Vietnam happened right after April 30, 1975: Khmer Rouge troops, for example, attacked the islands of Phú Quốc  and Thổ Chu and killed many inhabitants. Vietnam engaged in a counter-attack and retook the islands. 

These, and later attacks, show how the new Vietnamese government either did not fully understand what was happening in Cambodia, or were only dimly aware of the intentions of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. What would soon come was the purging of Hanoi-trained Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and attacks on Vietnam itself. Given the sensitivity of this topic, I doubt we will soon get a full accounting of what the new Vietnamese government knew in April 1975. My suspicion is that congratulations to the Khmer Rouge for their April 17, 1975 victory was an attempt to mollify the Khmer Rouge, not to approve of their approach to emptying the cities and transforming the economy, which bears much more in common with the disastrous Great Leap Forward in China than to anything Vietnam envisioned. The Vietnamese communists, simply put, were suspicious of the extremism of Maoist revolutionary thought. 

Shawn McHale

From: Carl Robinson via Vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Sent: Friday, January 10, 2025 12:13 PM
To: Cau Thai <cvthai75@gmail.com>
Cc: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Carter and Indochina

Thanks, Cau, for those reminders of post-75 Vietnam and Jimmy Carter.   I agree the victors were particularly harsh, especially given their prior assurance of peace & reconciliation, and my wife's own family - who'd believed that like many other southerners - were caught up and civilian anti-Saigon regime father sent off to re-education.  By then, we were in NY but had absolutely no way of communicating with the family or helping them, surely something Ford & then Carter could've sorted out.  And "reparations"?  Surely, some relabelling or whatever but the US definitely owed the North something, and as promised under the table by Kissinger earlier.   I really hoped that Carter would normalise things and shattered when all he did was pardon the draft dodgers and cave into the MIA Lobby -- and the full tilt to China.  

Here's what I wrote on my Substack.. https://carlrobinson2.substack.com/p/president-jimmy-carter-and-vietnam?r=cgbc8.

Best regards,

Carl Robinson

USOM/USAID 1964-68

AP Saigon '68-75.

Convenor of Vietnam Old Hacks - Google Groups

From: Cau Thai via Vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Sent: Friday, January 10, 2025 11:25 AM
To: Dan Tsang <dtsang@uci.edu>
Cc: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Carter and Indochina

Dear Dan et al,

I quickly put together some facts:
1. Vietnam's leaders provided aid to Pol Pot and other Khmer Rouge leaders in their war to overthrow Cambodia's non-communist government.

2. Vietnam's leaders were among the first to congratulate the Khmer Rouge's victory in April 1975.
3. After the civil war ended in Vietnam in April 1975, instead of reconciliation, Vietnam's leaders punished people who were associated with the Republic of Vietnam government, and their families. Hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese including professional experts, skilled people were sent to re-education camps without trials; tens of thousands died in camps.
4. Vietnam's leaders' post-war revenge-based policies forced 800,000-1,000,000 people to risk death to escape by boat for freedom. 30%-50% of those Vietnamese perished at sea. This tragedy was the first of its kinds in Vietnam's history.
5. Despite more than 60% of Americans opposing the acceptance of refugees then, at a June 1979 economic summit, President Carter announced that the U.S. would double the number of refugees from Indochina it accepted. The Refugee Act of 1980 followed, resulting in the resettlement of 300,000 boat people in America.
6. President Carter proposed normalization of relations with Vietnam in 1977. Despite their blatant and gross violations of the 1973 Peace Accords, Vietnam's leaders insisted on the U.S. to pay war reparations, among other things. Normalization between two countries had to wait until 1995.

To have a good discussion, it would be great that facts to support the argument about Jimmy Carter's despicable record with Vietnam during his presidency be shared.

Best regards,

Calvin Thai

Independent

On Wed, Jan 8, 2025 at 9:46 PM Dan Tsang via Vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu> wrote:

Webinar posted on Jimmy Carter's despicable record with Vietnam during his presidency.  

A necessary corrective to the near-hagiography developing over Jimmy Carter's presidency, as journalists like Nayan Chanda of Far Eastern Economic Review and Elizabeth Becker of Washington Post recall how Carter embraced the genocidal Cambodian regime of Pol Pot, over Vietnam. Also appearing is Vietnamese diplomat Thach Nguyen, who penned a dissertation on the Carter administration.

https://youtu.be/JkZJuf3MWLA?si=_HsCU-hGdh7sP2Cz

dan

Daniel C. Tsang

Librarian Emeritus

University of California, Irvine