Ton That Thien

Tôn Thất Thiện (1924–2014) was a South Vietnamese nationalist of the post-World War II generation who had the rare distinction of serving and watching at close quarters the two historic leaders of post-World War II Vietnam: presidents Ho Chi Minh in the Viet Minh coalition in 1945–46, and Ngô Đình Diệm 1954–55/1956–59/1963. He played a significant though understated role in the nationalist attempt to preserve a non-Communist Vietnam.

From 1945 to 1975, Thien was an active participant or a personal witness to almost all of the major historic events in Vietnam: the 1945 August Revolution, the 1954 Geneva Conference, division of the country and birth of the Republic of Vietnam, the 1963 coup d'état against Ngô Đình Diệm, the 1968 Tet Offensive in Huế and the April 1975 Fall of Saigon. He knew or met virtually all of the significant actors among the North Vietnamese, South Vietnamese and American political and military leadership, as well as most foreign journalists who covered the conflict.

In 1968, he served as Minister of Information in the South Vietnamese government. His reformist efforts allowing an uncensored media led to the Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts in the same year. As a "Third Force" nationalist opposed to colonialism and communism, and dedicated to a mix of Confucian traditions and Western political ideals, he is most closely aligned with the evolutionary reformist vision of the famous Vietnamese nationalist, Phan Chu Trinh. In many ways he can be considered the personification of a "Quiet Vietnamese" counterpart to Graham Greene's fictional "Quiet American" character.

He died at his home in Ottawa, Canada on October 3, 2014.

Overview

As a South Vietnamese government official, cabinet minister, Magsaysay Award winner, journalist, editor, historian and professor, Tôn Thất Thiện supported the independence of Vietnam from foreign political and cultural control, including French colonialism, communist dictatorship and American dominance. Described by Daniel Ellsberg as an "outstanding Vietnamese journalist", he was a leading supporter of freedom of the press and vociferous in his belief that the most effective strategy in fighting the Communists was to counter their claim to be the true and only nationalists fighting for Vietnam's national independence. His life saw the span of cataclysmic political and social changes in Vietnam from titular imperial rule under French colonialism to nationalist republican government to eventual communist rule.

In his life and writings, Thiện upheld the ideals drawn from the old, essentially Confucian traditions of the country - service to society, rule of customs and laws and orderly government.

In 1945-1946 Thiện personally witnessed the momentous events which were to mark Viet Nam's post-war history: the overthrow of French rule by the Japanese and Emperor Bảo Đại's proclamation of the termination of the French protectorate over Viet Nam (March 1945), the formation of the first independent government of Viet Nam (April 1945), Emperor Bảo Đại's abdication in Huế (August 1945) and Ho Chi Minh's declaration of independence in Hanoi (September 1945), the arrival of the Americans and the Chinese (September 1945), the return of the French (March 1946), and the breaking out of the Franco-Vietnamese war (December 1946). He served for a year in Ho's administration before quitting upon realizing the true communist nature of the Viet-Minh United Front government headed by Ho Chi Minh. He was one of the first few non-Communist Vietnamese to perceive the August Revolution as a Leninist cover for the introduction of communism to Viet Nam as a part of a world revolution.

In 1947 he went to Europe to resume his studies. Although he distanced himself from the Ho-led Viet Minh government, he did not support the various Bảo Đại-led governments. Like many other nationalists at that time, he faced a dilemma in terms of where to direct support for Vietnamese independence. Supporting Ho would be to abet communism, and supporting Bảo Đại would be to prolong French colonialism. In his view, neither Ho nor Bảo Đại were true nationalists. As a result, he remained non-committed to either side throughout the war until Ngo Dinh Diem became Prime Minister of the State of Viet Nam in June 1954. He considered Mr. Diem a true nationalist.

Thien served as press aide to Ngo Dinh Diem, and was with him when he was overthrown in an American-condoned military coup on 1 November 1963. Despite this close and loyal association, in the aftermath of the coup he was not persecuted by the coup leaders and the post-coup governments. In 1964 he voluntarily left government service to take up journalism, working for Vietnamese as well as foreign newspapers. In 1967, he accepted a professorship at Van Hanh University in Saigon. In 1968 he served briefly as Minister of Information, during which time he enacted libertarian reforms that removed all government censorship. In the same year he was awarded the Magsaysay Award in Manila for "significant contributions" to journalism, literature and creative communication arts in Asia.

In April 1975, just before the fall of Saigon to communist forces, he went into exile in Quebec, Canada. After a university teaching career at the University of Quebec, Trois-Rivieres campus, he retired in Ottawa in 1992. He continued to write on Vietnamese social and political issues, in particular on the necessity – first advocated by Phan Chu Trinh - of making the appropriate changes in culture to enable Vietnamese to acquire the values required for rapid development, the basic condition of the advancement of the Vietnamese people.

Contrary to many educated Vietnamese, in his writings Thiện considered development to be the primary objective of Vietnam, with independence as only a secondary objective. In his view, it was this error in setting the priority of objectives, which led to the costly and lengthy wars from 1945 to 1975. He viewed these national traumas as unnecessary for the country to achieve freedom and independence, but indispensable for the Communists to secure and retain power. He held the Communist Party accountable for this development and saw the consequence as the ruin of the country, the exhaustion of its people, and the establishment of a brutal dictatorship.

Journalism, teaching and government service: 1964–75

In August 1964 Thien left government service to take up journalism. He worked for the respected English language newspaper the Saigon Daily News, then for the Viet Nam Guardian, owned by a like-minded friend. As managing editor and columnist at both papers, he was stubbornly independent of government bias with often blunt commentary that offered constructive criticism. Vietnamese and foreign journalists were attracted by his blunt candour, convictions and independent political analysis. In December 1966 the Viet Nam Guardian was ordered by the government of Nguyễn Cao Kỳ to suspend publication for several months. Thien learned that he was on a police blacklist and at one point escaped an assassination attempt. This experience deepened his conviction that the communists could not be trusted.

In April 1968, Thien was appointed Minister of Information by Prime Minister Trần Văn Hương. His first act was to remove all censorship of the press although South Viet Nam was facing a widespread long standing insurgency and invasion from the North. In his view the country's security and freedom would be strengthened by greater freedom of expression.

In August 1968, the Philippine-based Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation awarded him the prestigious Magsaysay Award for journalism, literature and creative communication in recognition of "his enduring commitment to free inquiry and debate." The official citation read:

Ton That Thien relentlessly has sought to digest the essence of Western scientific method and wed it to Vietnamese cultural values. Freedom of thought and expression he found were essential to this pursuit. His convictions led him to act with perceptive courage and staunch individualism as writer and editor, professor and government official.

These roles also gave him reason for official or unofficial contact with a who's who of historic figures in that period of Viet Nam's history. These included, among government and political officials: Major Archimedes Patti, Edward Lansdale, Wesley Fishel, Wolfe Ladejinsky, Ted Serong, William Colby, Chester Cooper, Daniel Ellsberg, Douglas Pike, John Mecklin, Barry Zorthian, Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, General William Westmoreland, Dr. Tom Dooley and Senator Mike Mansfield. In 1965 Don Luce, the International Voluntary Services (IVS) field director arranged a private meeting with Senator Edward Kennedy during a fact-finding trip to Viet Nam.

Among journalists he knew or met virtually the whole range of the Saigon foreign press corps over the course of twenty years, from 1954 to 1975. He often served as a respected source of information and insight on Vietnamese cultural sensibilities and political traditions. His press contacts included: Stanley Karnow, Robert Shaplen, Homer Bigart, Sol Sanders, Keyes Beech, Bernard Kalb, David Halberstam, Malcom Browne, Charles Mohr, Neil Sheehan, Denis Warner, Peter Arnett, Joel Blocker, François Sully, Ward Just, Marguerite Higgins, Frances FitzGerald, Beverly Deepe, Elisabeth Pond, R. W. Apple, Don Oberdorfer, William Tuohy, Arthur Dommen, Michael Field, Bernard Crozier, Bernard Fall, Olivier Todd, Richard Gwynn, Max Clos, and François Nivolon.

He also was consulted by or became friends with several leading academics, including Joseph Buttinger, Gerald Hickey, Patrick J. Honey, Denis Duncanson and George Tanham.

Exile in Canada: 1975–2014

Thien believed that without the leadership of President Diem, South Vietnam would be doomed and this conviction remained with him following the 1963 coup d'état. By early 1975 as it became apparent that the anti-communist South's fall was inevitable, he knew too well that under communist rule a normal life, particularly one of independent political discourse, would be impossible.

Parallel life to Bùi Tín

It is historically intriguing to compare Tôn Thất Thiện's life history with that of Bùi Tín, Thien's neighbour, who also grew up in Huế, and whose father was also a Minister in the Imperial cabinet of Emperor Bảo Đại.

In August 1945, they both went to Hanoi. While Thien served in the office of the President, the younger Bui Tin joined the Viet Minh as a soldier in the first unit of the newly formed army and at one point served as a guard at the presidential office in which Thien worked.

Bùi Tín went on to serve the communist regime in the north of Vietnam as journalist, writer, and government officer, much as Ton That Thien was serving in the south.

For thirty years, they served on opposing sides of the communist North – nationalist South political division of the country.

When their life histories are considered together it is evident they singly or jointly were present at all of the major political and historic events of Vietnam's tumultuous history.

They were both present at the Proclamation of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in Hanoi on 2 September, 1945, and narrowly missed meeting again upon the Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, at which Bùi Tín took the surrender of Dương Văn Minh, then President of South Vietnam. Thien had departed shortly before.

While Tôn Thất Thiện came to recognize and reject the aims of the Communist Party-led Viet Minh in early 1946, Bùi Tín did not begin to question Party orthodoxy until after the unification under communist rule in 1975.

When he claimed asylum in France in 1990 his life's path once again became conjoined with that of Ton That Thien in their common experience of exile and their shared political beliefs in multi-party democracy, individual freedoms and traditional cultural values.

Personal life

In his personal life Thiện followed the Confucianist-Western modernism, which he adopted in his public life. In founding a family, he married a person with a clear Confucian background, Lệ Vân (Lovely Cloud), whose great-grandfather was the Confucian scholar and mandarin Nguyen Trong Hiep. Assigned by the emperor to negotiate with France after French troops had occupied the Imperial capital of Huế in 1883, he persuaded the French not to abolish the Nguyễn monarchy and annex Vietnam, but to accept it as a protectorate instead. Lệ Vân's grandmother was the daughter of a well-known poet, Cao Thi Ngoc Anh, herself daughter of a Confucian scholar, Cao Xuân Dục, known as a great Minister of Education in the Imperial Government of Vietnam, a contemporary of Nguyen Trong Hiep.

Unlike many young women of her generation, Lệ Vân not only went to college, but was also allowed to travel to France for further study. Another "modern" side to this marriage: neither Thien nor Lệ Vân sought prior permission from their parents before their engagement. Another infringement of traditions was that they got married in Paris, in a simple ceremony with a small attendance instead of an elaborate and lavish wedding party involving a large gathering presided by the parents surrounded by all members of the two families. When their daughter was born, they usurped their parents' traditional prerogative by naming her themselves, Thuỳ Lan (Sweet Orchid).

Professor Tôn Thất Thiện died peacefully at home in Ottawa, Canada, surrounded by his family on October 3, 2014.