Trương Như Tảng Trương Như Tảng ( born 1923 , Cholon , French Indochina ) is a Vietnamese lawyer and politician living in France . He was active in many anti - South Vietnamese organizations before joining the newly created Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam as the Minister of Justice . He spent many years in the jungles near and in Cambodia until the Fall of Saigon in 1975 . He quickly became disillusioned with the newly imposed North Vietnam ese regime and escaped the reunited Socialist Republic of Vietnam via a boat in August 1978 . He was sent to a refugee camp in Indonesia before moving to Paris , France , to live out his life in exile . Early life . Tảng grew up in Saigon as one of six sons of a rich father who owned a rubber plantation and a printing house and taught ( " for pleasure " ) at the Collège Chasseloup - Laubat ; since his father intended him to be a pharmacist , after studying ( exclusively in French ) at the Collège Chasseloup - Laubat , Tảng was sent to Hanoi University for a year and then ( after a delay caused by the violence attendant on the end of World War II in Vietnam ) to France in 1946 to study pharmacy . While in Paris , however , Tảng was introduced to the movement for Vietnamese independence , met Hồ Chí Minh , and transferred to the École des Sciences Politiques , where he focused on military and diplomatic subjects and was especially drawn to Marxist writings on colonialism . When he refused to return to Saigon at his father ’ s command , he was cut off and had to work as a dishwasher to earn his living . By 1951 , he had completed his studies , having earned a master ’ s degree in political science and having gone on to take a licentiate in law at the University of Paris . However , at the end of the year , he returned to Vietnam at his father ' s urgent request to help put his brothers through school . To avoid draft into the South Vietnamese army , he joined the newly created French School of Naval Supply in 1954 . At the end of 1955 , he took a job as Controller - General of the Viet - Nam Bank for Industry and Commerce , but he also became involved in opposition to the Ngô Đình Diệm government . Anti - government organizer . Through contacts that he had made during his studies in France , Tảng became involved in the anti - government activities in South Vietnam . His position as corporate executive gave him access to the ruling circle and he could easily recruit non - communist anti - government people . Through this time he became close friends with co - conspirator Albert Thảo until Thảo ’ s death in 1965 . In February 1965 , he was arrested and held for six months by the National Police and held in jail under suspicion of being part of the Self - Determination Movement , an anti - government group opposed to the Diệm regime ( the Diệm regime had already ceased in 1963 , two years earlier ) . After his wife paid a US $ 5 , 000 ( US $ in 2018 ) bribe to the South Vietnamese military tribunal , Tảng was sentenced to just two years , which were then suspended . His arrest did not stop Tảng ’ s activities and he continued his urban organizing of anti - government forces before being arrested a second time . Arrest and life in the jungle . On June 16 , 1966 , he was pulled over by agents working under General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan . He was held at a National Police secret prison where he was tortured and held without charge . An anti - government agent , Ba Tra , had been arrested and gave the South Vietnamese government extensive information on anti - government forces working in the city . Ba Tra was held and tortured for about two weeks before signing a confession that he was a communist . Another bribe by his wife of US $ 6000 ( US $ in 2018 ) got him transferred to National Police headquarters where , in a small cell , he spent the next six months . In February 1967 , he and two other women anti - government organizers , San No and Duy Lien , were part of a secret prisoner exchange for two American prisoners . The three were handed over to American forces and then flown out to the jungle where they were handed over to Việt Cộng operatives . During his stay in the jungles of South Vietnam , he was one of the founders of the Việt Cộng , or National Liberation Front ( The NLF had already been established in 1960 , seven years earlier ) , and Minister of Justice for the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam ( PRG ) during the Vietnam War . In April 1970 , he was part of the escape of the Provisional Revolutionary Government when the military and civilian leadership of PRG and NLF were almost wiped out by ARVN forces . Disillusionment . After the Fall of Saigon , Tảng emerged from the jungle after more than eight years . The nature of the collapse of the South Vietnamese regime and the total victory of the North Vietnamese military gave total control to the North Vietnamese . The nationalist forces in the south were brushed aside in favour of communist cadres from the north . In 1978 , only two years after North Vietnam ese forces finally took Saigon and united Vietnam under the Communist rule , Tảng became disillusioned with the government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam , which he believed did not give equal standing to southern sympathizers . Not helping matters was the imprisonment of two of his brothers in North Vietnamese reeducation camps . While it was supposed to last only thirty days , the imprisonment of his younger brother , Bich , a director at the National Bank , was prolonged , and he was released only after many months of lobbying on the part of Tảng . The older brother , Quynh , a doctor who worked with the Health Ministry , was moved to a high security camp in the north where he was incarcerated at least until 1985 . An estimated 1 million people were imprisoned without formal charges or trials . After spending some time in exile in the Vietnamese countryside , Tảng decided to leave the country before things got worse . Through friends of his wife , he and others pooled their money to buy a boat which they boarded in August 1978 . While on the open ocean , they tried to flag down ships patrolling the busy shipping lanes . However none of the freighters would stop to pick them up , and they drifted further and further south . They were attacked by Thai pirates who stole money and valuables from the passengers but let the boat continue on . Their boat travelled almost to Indonesia before coming across an Indonesia n oil platform . Stopping there , they were picked up by UN ships and taken to a refugee camp on Galang Island , Indonesia . From there , Tảng went into exile in Paris , and , in 1985 , published a book about his life as a Viet Cong in the NLF and PRG . The book , " A Vietcong Memoir " , outlines not only his own experiences , but also the impact of the war among other revolutionaries . David Truong . His son Truong Dinh Hung ( a . k . a . David Truong ) , who lived in the United States and partook in the anti - Vietnam War peace movement , was arrested in 1977 and charged with espionage for passing diplomatic cables and classified information to North Vietnam and the successor Socialist Republic of Vietnam government . He was convicted and given a 15 - year prison sentence .