Buu Hoi

Prince Nguyễn Phúc Bửu Hội ( – 28 January 1972) was a Vietnamese diplomat, scientist and cancer researcher.

Family Born , Bửu Hội was a native of the former imperial capital of Huế. He was a great-great-grandson of Emperor Minh Mạng, who ruled Vietnam from 1820 until his death in 1841. Mạng had been a staunch Confucianist, known for his conservative philosophy, in which he shunned the western world and technological and scientific innovations. He resisted Catholic and Buddhist missionaries in Vietnam and was known for his hostility toward them, as he believed they were undermining the Emperor's Mandate of Heaven.

Mạng's father was Emperor Gia Long, who had united Vietnam under its current state. Gia Long had reunited the nation under the newly formed Nguyễn Dynasty with the help of French volunteers recruited by the Jesuit missionary Pigneau de Behaine after more than 200 years of north–south division and multiple wars between the Nguyễn lords in the south and the Trịnh lords in the north.

Bửu Hội was a Confucianist, instilled with a sense of duty to family and service to the nation. In contrast to his ancestors, Bửu Hội was also a secular-minded Buddhist, and his mother later became a Buddhist nun under the dharma name Thích Diệu Huế. His father Ưng Úy headed the Privy Council of the Imperial Family. Ưng Úy was the Minister of Rites at Bảo Đại's court until 9 May 1945. During First Indochina War, Ưng Úy joined Vietminh's government and showed support to Ho Chi Minh during war against French.

Education Bửu Hội completed his secondary schooling at the Lycée Albert Sarraut, a prestigious French-established school for the upper-class in Hanoi, the colonial capital of Vietnam. He then studied for a degree in pharmacy at the University of Hanoi while simultaneously auditing courses from the Faculty of Medicine. He had developed an interest in science from his youth, noting that this was "because of the desire of his mother and partly because of his own belief in the human value of science".

Scientific work At the Sorbonne, he followed the regular curriculum towards his doctorate. He completed a licence ès sciences degree while serving as an Intern of Pharmacy at Paris hospitals. After a short stint under Jean Perrin in the Institute of Chemical Physics, he began his doctoral research in organic chemistry. He worked in the laboratory of Pauline Ramart, investigating the spectrophotometry of organic compounds.

As Diệm remained intransigent on demands for religious equality and bringing those responsible for the Huế shootings to justice, his forces used chemicals on Buddhist protestors in Huế. The turning point was the self-immolation of Thích Quảng Đức on 11 June at a busy Saigon intersection. As the impasse continued, Hội's mother, who had been a Buddhist nun for many years, traveled from Huế to Saigon. The Buddhist leaders had announced that the mother of South Vietnam's most distinguished scientist and diplomat and member of the royal family, intended to burn herself to death to highlight oppression against Buddhists. The tension grew, and eventually in July, she made an appearance at a press conference at Saigon's Xá Lợi Pagoda, to repeat the threat. Outside, Nhu's men had organised a "spontaneous" demonstration where government supporters had been bussed in.

Concerned for his mother and the deteriorating situation in Vietnam, Hội returned home in attempt to mediate between the Buddhists and Diệm. Rumours began to circulate stating that the Americans wanted Hội inserted in a newly created post of prime minister, in order that the Ngô family's power would be diluted. He spent many hours talking with the Buddhist leader Thích Trí Quang at Xá Lợi to ensure that his mother would not actually self-immolate. The negotiations were fruitless and were futile. Shortly after midnight, the Special Forces of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam loyal to Nhu raided pagodas across the country, vandalising, looting and in some cases detonating them, arresting around 1400 monks and nuns. Up to 400 civilians disappeared or were killed trying to repel the invaders from the temples. Bửu Hội went to Gia Long Palace at the end of August to take leave and return to his laboratory. At the time, the United Nations had been strongly condemning the actions of Diệm's regime. When Nhu told him (in French: "You have left me in the shit"), Hội agreed to defend Saigon at the UN in New York on the condition that a fact-finding mission would be allowed to enter the country and freely see the truth for themselves.

United States

Bửu Hội arrived in New York in the middle of September 1963. The American public had a highly unfavourable view of South Vietnam, due to the self-immolations and pagoda attacks. U Thant, the Buddhist Burmese who was the Secretary General of the United Nations sharply criticised the Vietnamese government, saying that there was no country so chaotic and deteriorating. The campaign against the Diệm regime was overtly led by Ceylon, but Saigon felt that Cambodia had been stirring up animosity among the Asian countries, having already broken off diplomatic relations after the raids. The UN session started on 17 September and Hội met with the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Charles Yost, two days later. Bửu Hội contended that the Buddhist movement had transformed into a political movement to overthrow Diệm and claiming that media reports transmitted to America were inaccurate. Yost asserted that irrespective of what was happening, the situation was intolerable and that Diệm had to address it. Bửu Hội thought that implementing the five point plan Diệm signed in June but never intended to implement was the key. Bửu Hội acknowledged that anti-Buddhist discrimination in Vietnam was real. Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., the U.S. Ambassador in Saigon, described Hội's proposed solution as "oversimplified".

Bửu Hội outlined a plan to the United States' representatives to the United Nations to avoid a full-scale debate on South Vietnam in the General Assembly. He revealed that South Vietnam would reject a formal inquiry mission as interference in domestic affairs, but would try to seize the initiative to invite a fact finding mission. He reasoned that such a delegation would spark a rapprochement in Vietnam and would delay debate and condemnation by the Assembly until the mission had tabled its report. Privately he asked the Americans to tell Thích Trí Quang that he would not do anything to harm the Buddhist's cause.

Bửu Hội also visited the U.S. Department of State in Washington where he was given a mixed reception. Harlan Cleveland, the assistance secretary for international organization affairs thought that his "sophisticated" plan and his stature as an intellectual and diplomat would boost his cause. Undersecretary Averell Harriman and Assistant Secretary Roger Hilsman, well-known Diệm critics, were less enthusiastic. Bửu Hội's attempt to break the deadlock in relations since the pagoda raids failed to convince Harriman, who removed his hearing aid when Bửu Hội suggested the pro-Diệm former U.S. ambassador Frederick Nolting still had a positive role to play. When Hilsman criticised the treatment of the Buddhists, Hội asserted that the movement had become political and that the Buddhists had forced Diệm into a fight for survival. Hội parried U.S. calls for Diệm to remove Nhu, regarded as the corrosive influence in South Vietnam, from power. He asserted that Nhu was a great talent but noted that a prime minister should be appointed.

At the UN, the Ceylon delegate had begun to push for a resolution expressing serious concern about "the continuing violation of human rights in Vietnam". Since South Vietnam was not a member and had no right of reply, Bửu Hội and his team lobbied African and Asian countries behind the scene. Hội was also the South Vietnamese ambassador to six African nations. The result was that a polemical address by Ceylon on 7 October did not garner any support. A Soviet Union threat to use the International Control Commission to investigate the South's domestic affairs never materialized, either. The General Assembly voted unanimously to cut short the debate and accept the invitation to send a fact finding mission. Hội had managed to avert censure of his country and an unwanted debate on the role of the U.S. there. Lodge expressed disappointment at why the U.S. delegation helped to avoid a debate that would have condemned Diệm. Despite Hội's assurances that the mission would be free to move around the country and was not a stalling device, Lodge was adamant that Diệm would never allow them to see anything unfavourable.

Atomic Energy Center in Da Lat

On 28 October, Hội opened the Atomic Energy Center in Đà Lạt in his role as the director general of the Office of Atomic Energy. Diệm said of Hội's work, "In the non-aligned world, we have more friends now, thanks to the diplomatic bases laid by Professor Bửu Hội in Africa." On 31 October, he performed his last public duty in South Vietnam. Hội visited Nhu along with two Buddhist monks and ask him to intervene with Diệm to free "all Buddhist dignitaries, laymen and students till under detention". Nhu "promised to obtain from the president a favourable answer to this request". Diệm and Nhu were assassinated two days later after being deposed in a coup.

Awards Bửu Hội was a multiple laureate of the French Academy of Sciences, the French Academy of Medicine and the French Ministry of Education. His work in cancer research specifically yielded awards from the French Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale and the French league against cancer. Despite working for almost his entire academic career in France, he also received awards from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and received funding from the US National Cancer Institute.

Death Hội died of a heart attack on 8 January 1972, his native country still divided and ravaged by civil war. It was only a few weeks after the passing of his research colleague Antoine Lacassagne, ending a prolific partnership described by Cancer Research as a "heroic and important chapter of the study of carcinogenesis". It went on to say that "his death robbed French science of one of its most illustrious figures". He had totaled almost 1100 scientific publications. His body was laid in state for five days in a sanctuary at Rue Gassendi in Paris, where French and Vietnamese alike paid their respects. Hội's stature also allowed him to develop contacts with French President Charles de Gaulle, who favored neutralizing Vietnam in the early 1960s. With the support of Bửu Hội, de Gaulle advised his ambassador in Saigon, Roger Lalouette, to float the concept with Diệm and Nhu.