“I Want to Tell My Story”: Journalist Nguyen Tu and the Price of Courage (Part 2)

George J. Veith

“I Want to Tell My Story”: Journalist Nguyen Tu and the Price of Courage (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)

Working in Saigon

Without a job, Tu set off across South Vietnam to see the country. He traveled from the Ben Hai River, which marked the new border between North and South Vietnam, to the far south. With no money, he walked from village to village, talking to people. He was the quintessential loner, listening to people’s concerns and surviving off their generosity. Farmers were always kind to him and shared their food. They had plenty of rice and fish. They showed him how to place a sampan along the canal, and as the tide went out, they just scooped the fish into the sampan and killed them. They did not need nets; after three hours of this method, they had plenty of fish.

When South Vietnam’s new President Ngo Dinh Diem went to visit the ethnic Montagnard people in the town of Ban Me Thuot in the Central Highlands in February 1957, Tu also traveled there. He wanted to understand Diem’s efforts to integrate this different racial group into Vietnamese society. He was watching Diem’s official party mingling with the Montagnards when a Communist assassin attempted to kill the president. Tu heard the shots, and he noticed that Diem had remained calm.

Tu never met Diem, and while he admired Diem’s courage while under fire, he soon became disenchanted with the president. He acknowledges that Diem was popular during the early years, but Diem ruled like an authoritarian mandarin. Tu became outspoken in his criticism and earned Diem’s wrath. In particular, he believed that the Strategic Hamlet program, Diem’s effort to group the rural peasants into fortified locations to defend themselves against the Communists, would not work.

In the years before the 1963 coup against Diem, he found work in Saigon teaching French. Nguyen Van Kieu, the older brother of future president Nguyen Van Thieu, taught at the same school and helped Tu get the job. They had met shortly after Tu had left Hanoi for Saigon. Kieu had been one of the first Dai Viets in the southern part of Vietnam, and they became close friends.

Tu recalls that he visited the Kieu family home to meet the oldest son, Nguyen Van Hieu. Tu quickly realized that the family was traditional and Confucian, and he noticed that the young Thieu was very respectful. Thieu had come into the room and stood silently, not speaking until spoken to by Hieu. Thieu dared not talk to Tu. “It was a Vietnamese family tradition,” Tu explained, “not to talk to the friends of older brothers.” Thieu stayed fifteen minutes, then left. This short meeting began Tu’s lifelong relationship with Nguyen Van Thieu.

After the coup against Diem in November 1963 and then the countercoup by General Nguyen Khanh in January 1964, Khanh tapped Nguyen Van Kieu as the high commissar for youth. Kieu quickly appointed Tu as director general because Tu had worked for the same ministry in the early 1950s. He remained in that role until February 1965, when Dr. Phan Huy Quat became prime minister that month. Tu resigned as director general to return to his great love: journalism.

His old friend Dang Van Sung had also left Hanoi in the great migration in 1954 by many Nationalists from North Vietnam to South Vietnam. Sung had moved to Saigon and dreamed of starting another paper, but President Diem had always denied Sung’s application. With Quat now in power (Sung was related to Quat by marriage), Sung decided to open the newspaper Chinh Luan (Political Discussion). Sung asked Tu to join his new venture.

“It will cost you!” Tu said. “Don’t tell me what to write or what not to write.”

Sung smiled, embraced him, and said yes.

Tu worked for Chinh Luan as a war reporter from 1965–1975. It was the top paper in terms of influence, catering to an older reader base. Other papers, like Song Than (Tsunami), targeted a younger, more progressive audience.

Many people thought Sung was a CIA agent, but Tu says he wasn’t. For some reason, Sung never defended himself against these charges, and Tu claims that Sung only told the following story to him: sometime in the 1950s, the South Vietnamese and U.S. advisor Edward Lansdale were plotting to blow up the Paul Doumer Bridge in Hanoi. As the only bridge at that time across the Red River between Hanoi and Haiphong, it would have been a devastating blow against the Communist government. When Lansdale asked the northern-born Phan Huy Quat to help him destroy the bridge, Quat delegated the job to Sung, but the plan was never carried out. Sung and Lansdale often met, and so rumors started that Sung was on the CIA payroll.

As the paper’s war correspondent, Tu decided to spend most of his time in the field with the South Vietnamese troops rather than talk to the generals in Saigon. His time as a revolutionary in 1946 had taught him that the best stories and information came directly from the soldiers. He only returned to Saigon several times a month, mainly to get his expenses paid. His salary was 20,000 piasters a month.

In 1966, he asked the U.S. military command to let him visit all the main U.S. outposts.

“Why?” an American colonel asked. “No American reporter wants to do this.”

“Because” Tu replied, “I want to see how the American soldiers handle the fighting.”

He spent four months traveling around, and he grew to greatly respect the American troops.

They were very young, very dedicated, but after spending time with them, an incident while on patrol made him realize this was not the type of war they could understand.

One night he went out with an American unit to set up a night position to ambush the Communists. At about 2:00 a.m., the patrol leader told Tu to rest.

“No,” Tu said. “I want to stay awake and see how the Americans do their jobs.”

Shortly thereafter, one soldier starting loudly crying for his mother.

With their position compromised, Tu called the patrol leader. “Let’s go home. There’s nothing else we can do here.”

The leader agreed, and he called on the radio and got permission to leave.

Eventually, Tu would visit all the U.S. military branches, and he even spent a week on the Navy carrier USS Ranger.

When South Vietnam approved a constitution in April 1967, which mandated a presidential election in September, Tu spent more time with Nguyen Van Thieu. Thieu had been appointed as the candidate for president on the military ticket, and Ky was his running mate. Tu had renewed his relationship with Nguyen Van Thieu after Thieu had joined the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and was promoted to colonel in 1962. The future president, Tu said, had quizzed him about his relationship with his brother, Kieu. Satisfied that Tu’s relationship with Kieu was mostly about Dai Viet business, Thieu agreed to see him again. The next time they met was after the coup against Diem and again when Thieu was promoted to Major General in late 1964.

When Thieu became chairman of the Armed Forces Council and chief of state in June 1965, Tu asked for a meeting. They talked for four hours, and Tu queried Thieu about his activities and about his relationship with newly installed Prime Minister Nguyen Cao Ky. Thieu felt Ky was an arrogant show-off, and he did not like him. Tu, however, felt that Thieu had his own quirks and that he was a man of two personalities. Tu claimed that Thieu was an overly cautious introvert, but Tu believed that he was more mature than Ky, that he had a vision of what he wanted, and that he was ambitious and determined.

With the 1967 presidential election heating up, Tu met Thieu again. Thieu wanted elections, but according to Tu, he referred to his own ticket and the other candidates as “merchandise for the people to choose.” It was an odd phrasing, especially since Thieu had also not talked about democracy. After Thieu and Ky won the election in September 1967, Tu spent more time with the new president. Aware of Thieu’s reserved personality, he encouraged the president to make public appearances so that the people could become more acquainted with their new leader.

Tu’s advice was rejected. In a meeting with U.S. advisor Ed Lansdale, Tu said that Thieu acted like a “sterile bride. He was still as cautious, hesitant, and suspicious as ever. At this time, he still thought of people in military terms, of giving them orders to obey rather than inviting them in to give him advice.” Thieu, however, would eventually become more accessible to the Vietnamese people.

Concurrent with the presidential election was a second vote for a National Assembly. Dang Van Sung was elected to the newly formed Senate in 1967, but he retained control of Chinh Luan. Sung and Thieu often clashed, and at one point in 1969, the paper was closed by the Interior Ministry for criticizing the government.

Tu claimed that “Sung was never against Thieu personally but against the president’s policies. He backed Thieu because Sung felt he was best option to defeat the Communists. Sung supported anyone who was anti-communist, but not unconditionally.” Thieu ultimately tolerated Sung because he knew that Sung was a staunch Nationalist.

The massive and surprising Tet Offensive in early 1968 shocked both the Republic of Vietnam and the United States. Tu claims that, based upon his trips to the field, he saw the attack coming two weeks in advance. When the North Vietnamese army captured most of Hue, he went to the former imperial city to cover the battle. Tu received a press pass from the U.S. Marines, but the weather was bad, and he spent three days waiting for a flight to Hue. When he finally got there, he was forced to remain on the south bank of the Perfume River for four days. The weather was cloudy, rainy, cold, and he had little to eat.

Finally on the morning of the fifth day, he got across, one of the first reporters to arrive. He asked to interview Brigadier General Ngo Quang Truong, who at that time was the commander of the 1st ARVN Division. Truong’s headquarters unit in Hue had held its position against a determined enemy attack, and now Truong’s men and the U.S. Marines were trying to retake the city. Truong denied his request, but after Hue was clear, he said, they could meet for coffee. Although the ARVN commander had refused the interview, he also let Tu stay rather than order him out of Hue.

Tu wrote a series of articles about the battle for Hue. He had not been satisfied with his work before this, but his stories on Hue caught the national attention and made him one of the leading South Vietnamese journalists. Tu returned to Hue in 1969 and asked Truong again for an interview. This time, Truong accepted. Of all the senior officers Tu interviewed, he liked Truong the best.

Although Tu continued to cover the war, he also traveled to the U.S. and France. In the U.S., he watched the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago erupt into battles between the protestors and the police. He then went to France and covered the opening of the Paris Peace Talks. He also worked part-time for Robert Shaplen of The New Yorker and helped other foreign journalists in Vietnam.

The 1971 presidential election provided him more insight into President Thieu. In his view, Thieu got lucky. He believed that Thieu’s main opponent, General Duong Van Minh, had destroyed himself. Minh’s own missteps and poor advice from the general’s entourage ruined his campaign.

After the election, Thieu attempted to replace his prime minister, Tran Thien Khiem, with a civilian, the highly respected Professor Nguyen Van Bong. Tu believed that the president was very aware of  Khiem as his superior military officer and that he wanted to get out from his shadow. Even though he was president, in Vietnam’s hierarchical society, Thieu felt that Khiem outranked him. Khiem had been a captain when Thieu was a lieutenant, and Khiem had graduated from military school before him. When the Communists killed Bong in November 1971, Thieu was forced to keep Khiem, but the attempt to replace the prime minister created a rift between the two men. Although Tu believed that Thieu viewed Khiem as an older brother, he thought that the two men did not like each other even though they were similar in many ways. Khiem also kept a low profile, but he was even more cautious and ambitious than Thieu.

The last years of the war

When the 1972 Easter Offensive exploded, Tu traveled to I Corps to cover the battles. He spent time with the Vietnamese Marine and Airborne Divisions. He jokingly recalled one episode when the Marines had captured a number of enemy prisoners. Since the brigade commander did not have any troops to guard them, Tu told the Marine colonel that he would watch them. The colonel told the prisoners that if they did not tell Tu everything they knew, he would send them to “harvest shrimp,” meaning he would toss them into the sea. Although he was bluffing, Tu offered them beer, which also helped loosen their tongues.

After spending time with the Marines on the eastern side of Route 1, he decided to visit the Airborne on the western side of the road. He wanted to cover the assault to recapture the Quang Tri Citadel in Quang Tri province. With no transportation, he had to walk.

On September 13, 1972, he reached their area, but the Military Police stopped him from proceeding to the Airborne frontline even though they knew him. He was about to accept their restrictions when a Marine lieutenant colonel drove up in a jeep. He was taking a doctor assigned to the Airborne Division to his unit.

The Marine officer recognized Tu, and he said that Tu could join them. Tu jumped into the jeep behind the driver. Oddly, he had a premonition that something might happen. Although Tu had previously never worn a helmet, the Marine brigade commander had made him wear one. Despite his hunch, since it was very quiet where they were, he took off the helmet when he got into the jeep.

As they were driving, enemy artillery shells landed nearby. The lieutenant colonel told the driver to go faster. A shell exploded near them. Tu felt something wet on his chest. He looked down and saw his own blood. Shrapnel from the shell had killed the driver, but Tu was lucky: another fragment had just missed his head, but it had cut his face and sliced his right eye.

They took him to the military hospital in Hue, where a doctor told him that he could sew up his facial wound, but that Tu would have a scar. However, this doctor had a friend who had just returned from cosmetic surgery training in the U.S. His friend could repair the wound and not leave a scar, but he was some distance away, and Tu had lost a lot of blood.

Tu said to take him to the other doctor, then he fainted. When he woke up, he realized that while the cosmetic surgeon had expertly patched his face, he had lost his right eye.

Lieutenant General Ngo Quang Truong, who was now the commander of I Corps, came to see him along with his U.S. adviser. The American general offered to have Tu flown to the Danang hospital, but Tu said no, he wanted to stay with the troops.

Despite his years on the battlefield reporting on the South Vietnamese troops, Tu’s greatest story would also be his most tragic and his last. In early February 1975, he went to the city of Pleiku, the capital of the northern section of the Central Highlands, to interview Major General Pham Van Phu. He knew Phu from when the general had replaced Truong in 1970 as the 1st ARVN Division commander. Phu now commanded II Corps, the military region for the entire middle section of South Vietnam.

Phu allowed Tu to spend a week in the field examining Pleiku’s defenses. As usual, Tu visited the frontline soldiers to get their opinion. He returned to Pleiku in mid-February, and Phu invited him to dinner. There, Phu asked Tu’s opinion on Communist plans. Tu said Phu’s troops were spread too thin and that Pleiku was not the Communist objective, it was Ban Me Thuot, the capital of the southern half of the Central Highlands. Tu believed, based on the First Indochina War when the Communists had captured the town and the French had to fight hard to recapture it, that the Communists would repeat history.

Phu was polite and did not respond, meaning the general did not agree. Tu did not understand why Phu was so fixated on Pleiku, but he believed that Phu thought the Communists would attack his headquarters.

Once again, Tu had accurately predicted the Communist plans. The Communists attacked and captured Ban Me Thuot. On March 13, 1975, President Thieu ordered Phu to recapture the town. To make the assault, Phu had to use his troops currently defending Pleiku. Phu, however, faced a major problem. Route 14, the only road between Pleiku and Ban Me Thuot, was blocked by enemy troops.

Phu decided to use a badly maintained road called Route 7B to reposition his forces. Route 7B ran east from Route 14 to the sleepy town of Cheo Reo, the capital of Phu Bon Province, and then to Tuy Hoa on the coast. From there, Phu would send his units west on Route 21 to attack Ban Me Thuot.

Tu was still in Pleiku when Phu’s troops began the retreat on March 16. He was the only journalist in Pleiku. He had an opportunity to leave the day before on Vietnamese Air Force planes, which had begun repositioning to the city of Nha Trang on the coast, but he decided to stay and accompany the units moving on Route 7B. “Being an eyewitness is the best time for a journalist,” he said. It was a decision that, like the one he had made at Lao Cai, would almost cost him his life.

Seeing army units suddenly leaving Pleiku on March 16, the population panicked, desperate not to be left behind. Thousands of civilians began a nightmarish trek from Pleiku. The road was full of old men, women, and children who were either walking or jammed onto vehicles overloaded with their possessions.

Tu joined the exodus around 10:30 p.m. that night. Carrying his backpack, he walked all night to Cheo Reo, about 20 miles from Pleiku. Part of Phu’s column had already passed through Cheo Reo and arrived at the Ba River, but they needed to build a bridge over the wide river to continue to Tuy Hoa. The rest of Phu’s men and many civilians were still in Cheo Reo when Communist troops blocked Route 7B near the town.

Heavy fighting broke out as the ARVN attempted to destroy the Communist roadblock. The enemy shelled the town, killing hundreds. Tu watched helplessly as a bus filled with people took a direct hit.

“Many, many people died” from the enemy shells, he recalled, and “the smell of burning flesh filled the air.” The deaths reminded him of the stretch of Route 1 north of Hue where the Communists in 1972 had also fired artillery shells at a column of retreating civilians. In July 1972, two South Vietnamese journalists from the paper Song Than had discovered hundreds of decaying bodies still strewn upon the ground where they had been killed several months before. One of the journalists, Ngy Thanh, published an article about the horrific scene. He named the area the “Highway of Horror.”

Trapped in Cheo Reo, and with the Communist artillery shells raining down on them, desperate Vietnamese civilians and soldiers ransacked the town for food, water, and medicine. The local people shot back, and the city collapsed into chaos.

Tu was caught in this calamity, but he managed to get a radio message back to Saigon. Dang Van Sung convinced the Vietnamese Air Force to send a helicopter to pick up Tu on the side of a mountain, but Tu refused to be taken to the safety of Saigon. Instead, he asked to be dropped off at the bridge on the Ba River.

When Tu arrived, he saw more tragedy. Wounded soldiers lay moaning on the ground, while starving civilians begged for food. Tu was particularly distressed seeing abandoned children crying loudly and wandering among the numerous army and civilian vehicles bunched up at the river.

As the ARVN engineers attempted to construct a pontoon bridge across the river, he stayed that night with Colonel Cao Van Uy, the commander of the 6th Ranger Group, which was guarding the bridgehead. The next day, he jumped on a helicopter, thinking it was going to Tuy Hoa, but in reality it was heading back to Cheo Reo to rescue an ARVN general. After picking up the general, they landed in Tuy Hoa. Tu spent a night in the province chief’s residence. The next day, Tu flew to Nha Trang. On March 31, he hitched an airplane ride back to Saigon.

When he got to Saigon, he was told that people in the capital were both angry and demoralized about what had happened on Route 7B. He also learned that President Thieu had ordered his arrest while he was at Tuy Hoa for the stories about the retreat, but the soldiers had refused.

Chinh Luan published four different articles by Tu about the disaster on Route 7B, but on March 31, 1975, the Newsweek put Tu’s story on its cover. Tu called the horrors he had witnessed the “Convoy of Tears,” and like the “Highway of Horror” tag in 1972, Tu’s label stuck.

During the retreat from Pleiku, all he thought about was getting the story out. “That was all that drove me,” he said. “The Pleiku withdrawal was my best story, but it was horrible to see.”