From: ttran@cv3000.Prime.COM (T. Tran)
Subject: [POL] Ngo-Dinh_Diem / Dialogue
Organization: Saigon.COM Public Access BBS; Data Line: (408)730-1092
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 10:02:44 GMT


In <<Bzzrtv.2yt@Saigon.COM> tin@poseidon.smsc.Sony.COM makes an argument
that because the current discussion "takes excerpts from foreign books while
ignoring Vietnamese documents", therefore it fails to take into account the
VNese side.

Let's me make a few observations:

1/ English books written by Western scholars on the subject of VNese communism
   DO rely as primary sources on Vietnamese publications or their translation.
   No scholar worth his salt would write about VNese history purely on the

   basis of foreign sources.
   For example, see the profusing number of items in VNese titles in the
   bibliography of D. Marr's "VNese Tradion on Trial, 1920-1945".

2/ Asides from relying on VNese-language source, they also have access to
   the massive INTELLIGENCE files available in the Archive of Paris and
   the U.S.
 
   Without the information provided by these intelligence files, NO ONE
   can determine what was real and what was purely "covert action" manipulated
   behind the scenes by all sort of superpower interests.
	
   For those who wonder what "intelligence files" can possibly contain,
   Frank Snepp provides an example in his "Decent Interval":
   Received intructions from Kissinger that Thieu had to go, Ambassador
   Martin came to visit Thieu and explained to him the facts of life.
   Thieu asked for a few days to think things over. Then he called a
   meeting in "Dinh Doc Lap" to discuss the sitiuation with his close
   associates. Before Thieu made known his response to the Ambassador, the
   CIA had already told him what Thieu's plan was going to be.  The 
   Independence palace was completely wired, ie. electronically bugged, 
   by the local CIA station. Frank Snepp was the Chief CIA Strategy
   Analyst in VN.
     
   It's precisely for this reason that one can only rely on pre-1975
   publications with a great deal of care, for no book could be issued
   then (as it is now in VN), without government's prior approval.

Let's me reprint part of my posting elswhere on this subject:

** The history textbooks in SVN were written to fight communism, thereby
** failing to mention quite a number of historical facts, e.g. the aid,
** military and financial, the U.S provided to the French Expeditionary
** Corps from before 1954, the skillful policies of assimilation and exploitation
** of the French ministry of colonial affairs, the sophisticated struggle
** the Communists waged against the massive French repressive apparatus,
** how Diem came to power in SVN, the role of US Embassy in SVN internal
** politics, etc.
**
** Unless we look into these new informations, which are only available
** in scholarly Western studies in this country (that's why relying on
** purely VNese source, esp. publications in pre-1975 SVN, can hardly be
** adequate), we remain blissfully oblivious to the realities of history,
** and therefore freely dreaming up all sorts of historical possibilities.
** History, unfortunately, sometimes is the worst of tyrants, for it only
** allows what's feasible, and real, not what's desirable, and purely
** fictional.
**
** God helps us if we have to keep relying on fictions in order to compete
** with the communists !


---------- original posting: 
>From: <Bzzrtv.2yt@Saigon.COM> by tin@poseidon.smsc.Sony.COM:

Recognizing that many articles take excerpts from foreign books while
ignoring Vietnamese documents. I took part of a published letter by
Ton-That-Binh sent to a newspaper recently. If we just only base
on foreign documents to research about Ngo, it is still not enough to havean insight of a story. Let us look at another side of that story; judgmentis yours. I think all SCVers can read Vietnamese. I apoligize to Mr. TTB
not to let him know I use his published letter to help Vietnamese to have
another look at Ngo-dinh-Diem.

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