Nu-Anh Tran’s Collection: PREFACE

Nu-Anh Tran

PREFACE

I collected a large volume of rare historical documents about Vietnamese politics and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, or South Vietnam) while conducting research for my first book, Disunion:  Anticommunist Nationalism and the Making of the Republic of Vietnam (University of Hawaii Press, 2022). These documents open a window into the dynamic and contentious politics of the RVN during the rule of Ngô Đình Diệm (1954-1963). I was specifically interested in Diệm’s relationship with the political opposition, and the sources reflect a wide spectrum of views ranging from Diệm and his loyal followers to their bitterest rivals. The oppositionists included, at different times, the Cao Đài, the Hòa Hảo, the Vietnamese Nationalist Party (Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng), the Đại Việt Nationalist Party (Đại Việt Quốc Dân Đảng), the Freedom and Progress Bloc (Khối Tự Do Tiến Bộ), and various individual activists, most famous among them Phan Quang Đán. Despite the many disagreements that divided these politicians and organizations, they all identified as anticommunist nationalists, and their ideas borrowed from or developed in response to the republican and democratic thought of the late colonial period. Indeed, the question of democracy was of paramount concern, and politicians and activists vigorously debated the meaning of democracy, the degree of democracy that was suitable for Vietnam, and even the process of democratization itself.

As I gathered these sources, I realized with surprise that few Western researchers have made use of them. I also came to believe that these documents were an essential part of Vietnamese political heritage and should be made available to the wider public. Accordingly, I have selected the most interesting and substantial documents to be included in this collection and have placed the collection on the website of the US-Vietnam Research Center. The collection draws from a variety of published and unpublished materials. The archives of the RVN, housed in the National Archives Center II (Trung Tâm Lưu Trữ Quốc Gia II) in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), sheds light on the inner workings of Ngô Đình Diệm’s government and its interaction with his rivals. Additionally, the collection incorporates excerpts from books, newspapers, and journals published in the RVN. These works are critical to understanding the political views of both Diệm’s faction and the opposition. Occasionally, I have also included important but less rare documents that are available on the internet or that have been published in diasporic Vietnamese anthologies. Lastly, a handful of French and American documents round out the collection and offer a contrasting perspective from the Vietnamese materials. The American documents are drawn primarily from the collection of US State Department, housed at the National Archives and Records Administration in College Park, Maryland, and the French documents were given to me by other researchers. 

The collection is organized thematically in rough chronological order, and documents are presented in the original language. Glaring typographical errors have been corrected, capitalization and punctuation have been regularized, and abbreviated words are written in full, but regional and historical variations in orthography have largely been preserved. Illegible or barely legible words are placed in brackets, and missing and censored text are also indicated in brackets. 

The laborious task of compiling, editing, and transcribing the documents could not have been possible without the assistance of many individuals. Hồ Thị Bảo Tiên transcribed and proofread Vietnamese- and English-language materials, and Jacob Raterman transcribed and proofread French-language materials. Some documents were collected by my colleagues, and they generously allowed me to reproduce the materials. I acknowledge their contribution in the relevant citations. Lastly, Edward Miller, Tuan Hoang, Tuong Vu, and Peter Zinoman offered much needed encouragement and wisdom on this project.

Nu-Anh Tran

April 2022

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Nu-Anh Tran’s Collection on the First Republic, 1954-1963

TABLE OF CONTENT

PREFACE

SERIES A: POLITICAL VISIONS BEFORE 1954