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The Republic of Vietnam, 1955-1975

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View the page of Sean Fear

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Sean Fear presents us with an interpretation of “South Vietnam” as a passionately imagined nation in the minds of ordinary Vietnamese, rather than merely as an expeditious political construct of the United States government.

Image courtesy of interviewee. May 2, 2024

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This video video is a transcript of a discussion led by a graduate student focused on the political history and diplomacy of South Vietnam during the Vietnam War, particularly from 1968 to 1975. It emphasizes the student's research, which aims to shed light on the complex and often overlooked political dynamics of the Republic of Vietnam.

Key points include:

1. **Research Motivation**: The student became interested in U.S.-South Vietnamese relations and found a lack of detailed historical research on South Vietnamese politics, despite the prominence of the Vietnam War in academic discussions.

2. **Paper Focus**: The discussed paper, titled "Saigon Goes Global," examines South Vietnam's diplomatic efforts during the war. The student is part of a broader project to explore the "rich and complex" political history of South Vietnam.

3. **Diplomatic Concepts**: The student discusses concepts such as "diplomatic revolution" and "people's diplomacy," drawing parallels with other post-colonial movements while noting the distinct context of an anti-communist state like South Vietnam.

4. **Archival Research**: The student highlights the importance of utilizing both American and Vietnamese archival sources, including diplomatic cables and print media from South Vietnam, to better understand the perspectives of Vietnamese actors.

5. **Historical Events**: Significant historical moments, such as the assassination of South Vietnam's president in 1963, the U.S. military intervention starting in 1965, and the subsequent impact on South Vietnam's political climate, are discussed.

6. **Global Diplomatic Initiative**: South Vietnam's efforts to establish diplomatic ties with countries around the world, including sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, illustrate its desire to assert legitimacy and independence beyond American support.

7. **Challenges of Representation and Legitimacy**: The student argues that South Vietnam's struggle to be seen as a legitimate state was hampered by its dependence on the U.S. and its internal authoritarian tendencies, which conflicted with its international image as a burgeoning democracy.

8. **Future Research Plans**: The student aims to further analyze South Vietnamese political history to understand the internal and external factors contributing to the state's breakdown and the Vietnam War’s conclusion, moving beyond traditional military narratives.

Overall, the discussion reflects a commitment to uncovering a nuanced understanding of South Vietnam's history, emphasizing its attempts to navigate a complex international landscape while addressing domestic challenges.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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As a graduate student, I was very interested in

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United States, south Vietnamese relations.

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Um, and it's really when I first started doing basic

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research at the American Archives that I discovered just

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how rich the politics of, the Republic of Vietnam

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or South Vietnam really were.

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I assumed, as someone at the time, fairly new

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to the field, that there would be a lot

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of historical research on this.

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The Vietnam War is quite a prominent topic, of course.

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Um, but it slowly became apparent that a lot

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of basic details about South Vietnamese politics,

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legislative debates, programs like land reform,

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for example, clashes between political parties,

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just hasn't been covered very much,

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certainly in in English language publications.

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And so that's what Ru really drew me in, I suppose.

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Um, this paper that we're discussing today,

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Saigon Goes Global, is a specific look at,

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the Republic of Vietnam's diplomacy,

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during the wartime period,

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but it's part of a broader project that I'm working on,

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to really try to bring the rich and complex,

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but I think long overlooked, political history of,

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of the Republic of Vietnam or, or South Vietnam to life.

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So there are a number of, historical works

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that I found helpful in working on this particular project.

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Um, one is the idea of

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what is sometimes called diplomatic revolution.

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This is the title of a very known,

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well-known book in our field by Matthew Connolly,

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looking at the Algerian War for Independence.

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And the basic premise is that,

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the Algerian nationalists were ultimately successful

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in their conflict with France

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because they were able to

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leverage international connections,

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even at a time when militarily the struggle

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was not going well for them.

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Uh, so I found that quite helpful.

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There is quite a lot of scholarship on, the idea

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of people's diplomacy

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or gorilla diplomacy,

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which is something I tap into as well.

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So sort of non-state actors, trying

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to pursue political objectives by looking

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beyond their own borders, I guess

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by leveraging the attention

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and maybe the intervention of the international community.

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Um, and I'd be here all day listing examples.

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Um, I think also there is a, a kind of growing set

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of scholars who are interested in right wing political,

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international activity during the Cold War.

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So much of the focus on gorilla diplomacy

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or people's diplomacy has been on

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national liberation movements, often,

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groups struggling against the United States,

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but with South Vietnam, an anti-communist state,

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it's a different dynamic.

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So I, I'm, I'm part of a group of scholars I think, who are,

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are looking at this in more detail.

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There's been some really exciting recent

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scholarship on Taiwan,

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Indonesia, military governments in Latin America.

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Um, this kind of counter-revolutionary diplomacy,

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if you like, merits attention.

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I think as well, it, the, this project

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and the, the book that it is part

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of is based on a great deal of archival research.

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First in the United States.

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That was the first place I really got started.

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So looking at, American diplomatic

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cables from Saigon back to Washington,

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American State Department analysis,

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American presidential deliberations.

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Um, but what I think makes this project unique,

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is the extent to which I and,

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and other historians are now able

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to use Vietnamese language sources to,

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really foreground Vietnamese protagonists

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as the main actors in the story.

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I started learning Vietnamese,

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it's been about 15 years ago now,

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at a summer program in Wisconsin.

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Uh, from there I was fortunate enough

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to spend a bit of time in Vietnam.

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Before I started graduate school,

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I did some more language training as well.

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Um, and this article just would not have been possible

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without, the language, skills that, that I have.

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And I'm fortunate as well

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because the archives in Vietnam,

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especially on South Vietnam, the communist side,

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is a different story.

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But on South Vietnam,

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the archives are relatively accessible,

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certainly in a regional context.

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Uh, it it's not that bad.

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So I was able to go

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and look through old diplomatic cables,

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south Vietnamese diplomats stationed all over the world,

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writing back to Saigon,

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and then in turn, the Saigon Foreign Ministry,

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assessing and developing a, a foreign policy on the fly.

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One final thing, maybe I'll say another,

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really significant source that I,

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I use in my research on Vietnamese history

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during this time period is print media.

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Um, so in South Vietnam, there was a very vibrant,

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print media scene, journals, political magazines,

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entertainment magazines, even a TV guide.

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Um, all sorts of print media was being produced

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during this time period, mostly left so far

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to sit in very dusty archives.

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Um, but it's a really insightful look into

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how ordinary people responded to politics in the south and

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and to world affairs as well.

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Um, so that, that's quite a helpful source too. Yes.

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So this is a, a paper that looks at the later stages

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of the Vietnam War from about 1968 to 1975.

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And there's really three important events

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that I think foreground this period.

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First, in 1963, the previous president

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of South Vietnam was assassinated in the military coup.

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This means that politics in the South completely unravel.

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Um, there's about a four year period with military coups,

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counter coups, political unrest,

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regional uprisings.

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Everything is chaotic to put it, simply and largely

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because of the domestic instability.

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South Vietnamese diplomacy, really lapses.

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It's just not a priority given all the

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instability in Saigon.

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Another key event that is vital

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to understanding this time period is massive

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American intervention in Vietnam in 1965.

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So the United States had been involved

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to varying degrees in Vietnam for some time,

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before this, but it's really 1965 when the Vietnam War is,

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most Americans know it begun.

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Um, and the onset of all these American troops fundamentally

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transforms the South Vietnamese economy.

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Uh, it leads to soaring inflation,

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it facilitates corruption.

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Um, it leads to a host of, social problems.

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People fleeing the,

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the bombing in the countryside pour into Saigon.

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Uh, so this is quite destabilizing as well,

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and that, I think is why the South Vietnamese state is

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so eager to broaden its diplomacy towards the end

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of the Vietnam War, they see the writing on the wall.

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They realize that American,

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political support is beginning to waiver.

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They're well aware

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of the anti-war movement in the United States.

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And so this diplomatic initiative

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that I describe in the late sixties

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and the early seventies is a frantic struggle to balance,

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a dependence on American aid

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to find alternative partners, who will continue

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to support South Vietnam when the United States is no

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longer, so dominant militarily in the region.

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Yes, and this is what really drew me

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to this particular project.

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When I was going through these old archival files,

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I initially started

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by looking at South Vietnamese

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correspondence with the United States.

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So what was the South Vietnamese embassy in Washington,

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reporting back about American politics.

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Um, I looked at South Vietnamese relations

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with other anti-communist states in the region.

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So Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore

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and Thailand, the Philippines.

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But what I found really interesting was just

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how global this, diplomatic initiative was.

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South Vietnam,

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set up diplomatic missions all throughout Latin America,

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for example, in the 1960s

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and the 1970s, they were especially concerned,

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about having good relationships with independent states,

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newly independent states in Sub-Saharan Africa,

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and the Middle East.

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And that was surprising to me.

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I I wasn't expecting the reach of, south Vietnam

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to be quite so global.

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And then trying to explain why that was exactly,

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became a really compelling research question.

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What, what was South Vietnam hoping

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to accomplish in courting diplomatic ties with, Senegal

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or, or Iran or the Central African Republic?

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It's really, really an attempt to reshape

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how they were perceived on the world stage.

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And this is in a sense why American intervention is

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so significant.

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Um, American intervention in 1965 is arguably necessary

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to keep the South Vietnamese state from

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collapsing altogether.

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Um, it really was facing quite,

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a challenge from the Vietnamese communists.

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Uh, during that year. Arguably, this shored things up.

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Uh, it, it meant that the collapse

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of Saigon was no longer imminent,

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but it became very difficult

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for the South Vietnamese government to present itself

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as a truly independent state in its own right.

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Um, the perception around the world was that this was a sort

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of American public creation.

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This was an artificial government,

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not a legitimate representative of the Vietnamese people.

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And so by building, international partnerships,

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by sending diplomats all the way to Latin America

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and Sub-Saharan Africa, the government was hoping to

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present itself as a, a more legitimate representative

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of the people of Southern Vietnam.

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So, in other words, achieving, a, a a a, a kind

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of global legitimacy in the eyes of,

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a very attentive world public given American media scrutiny.

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It's an interesting question.

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They attended a lot of conferences.

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They were successful at setting up embassies where,

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there had been none previously.

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Um, but I think the ultimate goal of balancing,

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diminishing air, American aid, it has to be said that

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that was not successful.

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Um, and the, the diplomatic, or I think became more

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and more professional as time went on,

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but ultimately overcoming the perception of being a, a kind

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of American puppet creation, was, was formidable.

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And I, I don't think they were ultimately

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successful in that regard.

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This, this is one of the core points that I tried

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to make in the article, that one of the reasons,

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why this diplomatic campaign failed is that,

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at least on paper, the Vietnam War was presented

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to an American audience

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and a global audience as a struggle for democracy.

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Um, south Vietnam was portrayed

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as a democracy in the making a state moving towards a more

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democratic system in contrast to the,

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authoritarian communist state in North Vietnam.

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But what I argue is that this message, on behalf

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of this global public relations campaign

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that the South undertook was fatally compromised when the

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South Vietnamese government started moving in a more,

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and more authoritarian direction, back home.

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And you get howls

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of protests from South Vietnamese actors when this happens.

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Political parties, journalists, religious groups,

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student protestors.

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There's a, a kind

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of coalescing protest movement against the government's

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authoritarian term.

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And precisely because the government had spent so much,

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energy trying to present itself internationally in a

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positive light, what they end up doing is drawing more

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attention than might otherwise have been the case

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to their own mounting authoritarianism.

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So the basic premise

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of this global public relations campaign seem

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to be undermined, by the government itself.

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Well, I think this question of South Vietnam as a, a kind

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of American public creation is worth addressing

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because on the one hand, the research that I,

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that I've done, that the information

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that I found in the archives suggests

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that South Vietnam remained very,

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strongly dependent on the United States for military

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and economic aid.

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And everybody in the South, whether involved in government

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or not, knew this at the time.

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I think. So there is clearly a sense of dependency,

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one which the government worked, diligently to try

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to over overcome.

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On the other hand, I think it's also clear that this was,

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an independent state, that this was not a government

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that simply took orders from the United States.

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Um, se emerges from an anti-colonial

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nationalist tradition,

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which splits along the way into a kind of communist camp

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and a non-communist camp.

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Um, so it's not an American

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or a Cold War creation in that sense.

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It has a much deeper, historical background.

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And the project, to some extent is trying to bring that

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to light, to grapple with the complexity

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of the South Vietnamese relationship with the United States.

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I suppose what I'm hoping to do in the broader book is

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to look at South Vietnamese political history

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in much more detail.

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So I, I sort of hint at this in this paper,

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but I'm attempting a, a much more comprehensive analysis of

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South Vietnamese politics, really, to try

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to move our understanding of the end

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of the Vietnam War away from the United States,

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away from the battlefield, away from military history.

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And instead to suggest that the breakdown

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of the South Vietnamese state,

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which collapses very rapidly in 1975, has as much to do

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with the breakdown

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of internal political legitimacy in the South,

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than decisions made by the United States or, or in Moscow,

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or, or maybe even in ha.

00:00 - As a graduate student, I was very interested in United States, south Vietnamese relations. and it's really when I first started doing basic research at the American Archives that I discovered just how rich the politics of, the Republic of Vietnam or South Vietnam really were.

00:20 - I assumed, as someone at the time, fairly new to the field, that there would be a lot of historical research on this. The Vietnam War is quite a prominent topic, of course. but it slowly became apparent that a lot of basic details about South Vietnamese politics, legislative debates, programs like land reform, for example, clashes between political parties, just hasn't been covered very much, certainly in in English language publications.

00:49 - And so that's what Ru really drew me in, I suppose. this paper that we're discussing today, Saigon Goes Global, is a specific look at, the Republic of Vietnam's diplomacy, during the wartime period, but it's part of a broader project that I'm working on, to really try to bring the rich and complex, but I think long overlooked, political history of, of the Republic of Vietnam or, or South Vietnam to life. So there are a number of, historical works

01:21 - that I found helpful in working on this particular project. one is the idea of what is sometimes called diplomatic revolution. This is the title of a very known, well-known book in our field by Matthew Connolly, looking at the Algerian War for Independence. And the basic premise is that, the Algerian nationalists were ultimately successful in their conflict with France because they were able to

01:48 - leverage international connections, even at a time when militarily the struggle was not going well for them. so I found that quite helpful. There is quite a lot of scholarship on, the idea of people's diplomacy or gorilla diplomacy, which is something I tap into as well. So sort of non-state actors, trying to pursue political objectives by looking

02:12 - beyond their own borders, I guess by leveraging the attention and maybe the intervention of the international community. and I'd be here all day listing examples. I think also there is a, a kind of growing set of scholars who are interested in right wing political, international activity during the Cold War. So much of the focus on gorilla diplomacy or people's diplomacy has been on national liberation movements, often,

02:42 - groups struggling against the United States, but with South Vietnam, an anti-communist state, it's a different dynamic. So I, I'm, I'm part of a group of scholars I think, who are, are looking at this in more detail. There's been some really exciting recent scholarship on Taiwan, Indonesia, military governments in Latin America. this kind of counter-revolutionary diplomacy, if you like, merits attention.

03:07 - I think as well, it, the, this project and the, the book that it is part of is based on a great deal of archival research. First in the United States. That was the first place I really got started. So looking at, American diplomatic cables from Saigon back to Washington, American State Department analysis, American presidential deliberations. but what I think makes this project unique,

03:34 - is the extent to which I and, and other historians are now able to use Vietnamese language sources to, really foreground Vietnamese protagonists as the main actors in the story. I started learning Vietnamese, it's been about 15 years ago now, at a summer program in Wisconsin. from there I was fortunate enough to spend a bit of time in Vietnam.

03:59 - Before I started graduate school, I did some more language training as well. and this article just would not have been possible without, the language, skills that, that I have. And I'm fortunate as well because the archives in Vietnam, especially on South Vietnam, the communist side, is a different story. But on South Vietnam, the archives are relatively accessible,

04:23 - certainly in a regional context. it it's not that bad. So I was able to go and look through old diplomatic cables, south Vietnamese diplomats stationed all over the world, writing back to Saigon, and then in turn, the Saigon Foreign Ministry, assessing and developing a, a foreign policy on the fly. One final thing, maybe I'll say another, really significant source that I,

04:49 - I use in my research on Vietnamese history during this time period is print media. so in South Vietnam, there was a very vibrant, print media scene, journals, political magazines, entertainment magazines, even a TV guide. all sorts of print media was being produced during this time period, mostly left so far to sit in very dusty archives. but it's a really insightful look into how ordinary people responded to politics in the south and

05:21 - and to world affairs as well. so that, that's quite a helpful source too. Yes. So this is a, a paper that looks at the later stages of the Vietnam War from about 1968 to 1975. And there's really three important events that I think foreground this period. First, in 1963, the previous president of South Vietnam was assassinated in the military coup. This means that politics in the South completely unravel. there's about a four year period with military coups,

05:54 - counter coups, political unrest, regional uprisings. Everything is chaotic to put it, simply and largely because of the domestic instability. South Vietnamese diplomacy, really lapses. It's just not a priority given all the instability in Saigon. Another key event that is vital to understanding this time period is massive American intervention in Vietnam in 1965.

06:24 - So the United States had been involved to varying degrees in Vietnam for some time, before this, but it's really 1965 when the Vietnam War is, most Americans know it begun. and the onset of all these American troops fundamentally transforms the South Vietnamese economy. it leads to soaring inflation, it facilitates corruption. it leads to a host of, social problems. People fleeing the,

06:51 - the bombing in the countryside pour into Saigon. so this is quite destabilizing as well, and that, I think is why the South Vietnamese state is so eager to broaden its diplomacy towards the end of the Vietnam War, they see the writing on the wall. They realize that American, political support is beginning to waiver. They're well aware of the anti-war movement in the United States. And so this diplomatic initiative

07:20 - that I describe in the late sixties and the early seventies is a frantic struggle to balance, a dependence on American aid to find alternative partners, who will continue to support South Vietnam when the United States is no longer, so dominant militarily in the region. Yes, and this is what really drew me to this particular project. When I was going through these old archival files, I initially started

07:46 - by looking at South Vietnamese correspondence with the United States. So what was the South Vietnamese embassy in Washington, reporting back about American politics. I looked at South Vietnamese relations with other anti-communist states in the region. So Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand, the Philippines. But what I found really interesting was just how global this, diplomatic initiative was.

08:12 - South Vietnam, set up diplomatic missions all throughout Latin America, for example, in the 1960s and the 1970s, they were especially concerned, about having good relationships with independent states, newly independent states in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East. And that was surprising to me. I I wasn't expecting the reach of, south Vietnam to be quite so global.

08:38 - And then trying to explain why that was exactly, became a really compelling research question. What, what was South Vietnam hoping to accomplish in courting diplomatic ties with, Senegal or, or Iran or the Central African Republic? It's really, really an attempt to reshape how they were perceived on the world stage. And this is in a sense why American intervention is so significant. American intervention in 1965 is arguably necessary

09:10 - to keep the South Vietnamese state from collapsing altogether. it really was facing quite, a challenge from the Vietnamese communists. during that year. Arguably, this shored things up. it, it meant that the collapse of Saigon was no longer imminent, but it became very difficult for the South Vietnamese government to present itself as a truly independent state in its own right.

09:36 - the perception around the world was that this was a sort of American public creation. This was an artificial government, not a legitimate representative of the Vietnamese people. And so by building, international partnerships, by sending diplomats all the way to Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, the government was hoping to present itself as a, a more legitimate representative of the people of Southern Vietnam. So, in other words, achieving, a, a a a, a kind

10:07 - of global legitimacy in the eyes of, a very attentive world public given American media scrutiny. It's an interesting question. They attended a lot of conferences. They were successful at setting up embassies where, there had been none previously. but I think the ultimate goal of balancing, diminishing air, American aid, it has to be said that that was not successful. and the, the diplomatic, or I think became more

10:34 - and more professional as time went on, but ultimately overcoming the perception of being a, a kind of American puppet creation, was, was formidable. And I, I don't think they were ultimately successful in that regard. This, this is one of the core points that I tried to make in the article, that one of the reasons, why this diplomatic campaign failed is that, at least on paper, the Vietnam War was presented to an American audience

11:03 - and a global audience as a struggle for democracy. south Vietnam was portrayed as a democracy in the making a state moving towards a more democratic system in contrast to the, authoritarian communist state in North Vietnam. But what I argue is that this message, on behalf of this global public relations campaign that the South undertook was fatally compromised when the South Vietnamese government started moving in a more, and more authoritarian direction, back home.

11:37 - And you get howls of protests from South Vietnamese actors when this happens. Political parties, journalists, religious groups, student protestors. There's a, a kind of coalescing protest movement against the government's authoritarian term. And precisely because the government had spent so much, energy trying to present itself internationally in a positive light, what they end up doing is drawing more

12:04 - attention than might otherwise have been the case to their own mounting authoritarianism. So the basic premise of this global public relations campaign seem to be undermined, by the government itself. Well, I think this question of South Vietnam as a, a kind of American public creation is worth addressing because on the one hand, the research that I, that I've done, that the information that I found in the archives suggests

12:32 - that South Vietnam remained very, strongly dependent on the United States for military and economic aid. And everybody in the South, whether involved in government or not, knew this at the time. I think. So there is clearly a sense of dependency, one which the government worked, diligently to try to over overcome. On the other hand, I think it's also clear that this was, an independent state, that this was not a government

13:00 - that simply took orders from the United States. se emerges from an anti-colonial nationalist tradition, which splits along the way into a kind of communist camp and a non-communist camp. so it's not an American or a Cold War creation in that sense. It has a much deeper, historical background. And the project, to some extent is trying to bring that to light, to grapple with the complexity

13:26 - of the South Vietnamese relationship with the United States. I suppose what I'm hoping to do in the broader book is to look at South Vietnamese political history in much more detail. So I, I sort of hint at this in this paper, but I'm attempting a, a much more comprehensive analysis of South Vietnamese politics, really, to try to move our understanding of the end of the Vietnam War away from the United States, away from the battlefield, away from military history.

13:56 - And instead to suggest that the breakdown of the South Vietnamese state, which collapses very rapidly in 1975, has as much to do with the breakdown of internal political legitimacy in the South, than decisions made by the United States or, or in Moscow, or, or maybe even in ha.

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