World Order After Viet Nam

 

"World Order After Viet Nam"

Webinar presentation by Dr. Richard Falk, comment by Dr. Christian Appy

Monday, January 26, 7 p.m. ET, 4 p.m. PT

Register by clicking here   https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_4kJxeTzVSzC3_v7ibetAUw

Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee

Cosponsors

• The Ellsberg Initiative for Peace and Democracy, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
• Institute for Policy Studies, Washington D.C.

Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University where he was an active member of the faculty for 40 years (1961-2001). Chair of Global Law, Faculty of Law, at Queen Mary University London(2021-2025).  Falk served as UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Occupied Palestine (2008-2014). His most recent books written in collaboration with Hans von Sponeck are Liberating the UN: Realism with Hope(2024); Genocide in Gaza: Global Voices of Conscience co-edited with Ahmet Davutoglu and Patriotism to the Earth written in association with Sasha Milonova (2025). His memoir, Public Intellectual: The Life of a Citizen Pilgrim was published in 2021.  He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize several times since 2008. He currently serves as President of the Gaza Peoples Tribunal.

Christian Appy is director of the Ellsberg Initiative for Peace and Democracy and a professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he has received the Chancellor’s Medal, the Distinguished Teaching Award, and the Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award. He is the author of three books about the Vietnam War--American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity (Viking, 2015), Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides (Viking, 2003), and Working-Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam (University of North Carolina Press, 1993). He is currently working on a book about Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg.

Doug Hostetter (moderator) was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War and chose to do his alternative service working for Mennonite Central Committee in Tam Ky, Quang Nam, from 1966 - 1969.  Doug returned to Vietnam in November and December 1970 with the US National Student Association delegation that negotiated the People’s Peace Treaty (PPT).   The People’s Peace Treaty was signed in Saigon by representatives of the Saigon Student Union and brought to Hanoi where representatives of the South Vietnam Liberation Student Union, the Vietnam National Student Union and the US National Student Association signed it.  Upon return to the US, Doug joined the staff of the People’s Peace Treaty national office in New York City, which, in cooperation with the US National Student Association, introduced the PPT to students in colleges and universities across the United States. In the spring of 1971, the PPT was ratified by almost 200 US colleges and universities -- hundreds of thousands of US students declaring their peace with student in Vietnam.   Doug was active broadly in the US anti-Vietnam War movement.  He was the Treasurer for Medical Aid for Indochina which after 1972 became the Bach Mai Hospital Fund and after 1975 became Friendshipment.  Doug is the NGO Representative for Pax Christi International at the United Nations in New York.  Earlier in his career Doug was as the Director of the Mennonite Central Committee United Nations Office, the Director of the New England Office of the American Friends Service Committee; the Director of the US Fellowship of Reconciliation; and the Resource Specialist for Peace for the United Methodist Office for the United Nations.  Doug has published widely on the issues of war, peace and nonviolence, and is a contributing author to The People Make the Peace:  Lessons from the Vietnam Antiwar movement.

CHAT

                                               

Support this program by donating here https://donorbox.org/fund-for-reconciliation-and-development

19:42:57 From Todd Pierce  to  Hosts and panelists : Kudos to Richard for calling out “Realism” for what it actually is, as the militaristic doctrine behind the US attack on Venezuela, to include the “Diplomacy of Violence” as Thomas Schelling promoted back in the day for US aggression during the Cold War. Unfortunately, prominent antiwar activists in their ignorance have adopted and amplified Realist doctrine while falsely promoting it as good for “Peace,” while being too stupid to recognize it as the “theory” behind “Realpolitik,” so popular in Germany 1933-1945, in pursuit of Germany’s “interests” in Poland, France, the USSR, etc. As Stephen Miller makes a point of, we’re doing the same in the many countries we are conquering, “Pursuing our interests,” as defined by us. Hardly conducive to “Peace.”

19:46:00 From Susan Scott  to  Hosts and panelists : Is Richard’s talk being recorded so we can send it on to others?

19:48:13 From Todd Pierce  to  Hosts and panelists : My only quibble with Richard is his reference to “NeoCons,” when in fact, something even more ruthless and horrible is the Right’s ideology now, “National Conservatism,” rhymes with National Socialism. With it combining Traditional Conservative with Israeli Settler Yoram Hazony’s National Conservatism. To be ignorant of that by now is to epitomize the “banality of evil” that Hannah Arendt warned us of. Here is a brief synopsis of  National Conservatism: https://apnews.com/article/national-conservativism-conference-schmitt-a27e3b489dcf768dbebfc927f5e4a1d0. Quote: “Donald Trump’s victory was not just a win for his movement but for the ideas of the people in this room,” Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt told the crowd. “National conservatism is an idea whose time has arrived.”

 

19:49:13 From Jim Barton  to  Hosts and panelists : I wish that my hope of global democracy in 2009, when Twitter seemed to promise a global community of democracy, came true. One thing I'll note that in 1937, with the rape of Nanking and the bombing of Guernica, looked very dark; but in 1945, there was a flowering of internationalism.

20:01:34 From William Tam  to  Hosts and panelists : What role do you see for targeted and selective general strikes?

20:01:47  Canadian PM at Davos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btqHDhO4h10

20:03:18 From Mike S Goodman  to  Hosts and panelists : We shouldn't forget that Ike's "military-industrial complex" address was made exactly two weeks after he broke diplomatic relations with Cuba!

20:03:41 From John McAuliff : Vietnam’s Leader Consolidates Power, Pledging ‘New Era of Prosperity’

To Lam, the head of Vietnam’s Communist Party, will also become president of the nation. His new stature comes with new risks.

By Damien Cave and Tung Ngo

Reporting from Hanoi, Vietnam

Jan. 23, 2026

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/23/world/asia/vietnam-lam-power-congress.html?unlocked_article_code=1.HVA.8a2P.xKj7W2WRijBp&smid=url-share

20:04:14 From Terry Murray  to  Hosts and panelists : Richard Falk - As a Canadian, I apologize for your treatment when entering the country. -Terry Murray, Toronto

20:06:08 From Robert Shaffer  to  Hosts and panelists : And that NYT article on Vietnam today  quoted Hai Hong Nguyen, who appeared on a VPCC webinar in March 2025.

 

20:06:59 From Mark Pavlick  to  Hosts and panelists : https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(25)00278-5/fulltext

20:07:57 From Joe Volk  to  Hosts and panelists : Richard and Chris, Many thanks for your in depth analysis and insights.  Much appreciated — Joe Volk

20:10:28 From Paul Hubers  to  Hosts and panelists : How might the World BEYOND War movement in, say, the U.S. & India make a difference?

20:10:30 From Todd Pierce  to  Hosts and panelists : Here are the main ideologists of National Conservatism: https://www.vox.com/21355993/trump-israel-yoram-hazony-nationalism-tikvah, and Willmoore Kendall of the 1950s Conservative Movement with William Buckley , James Burnham, Brent Bozell, and Frank S. Meyer, all admirers of Fascism and promoters of it, while calling it “Conservatism” instead of Fascism, but identical by the political theory of each: https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/willmoore-kendall-writing-relevant-to-modern-conservatism-populism/. Remaining ignorant of this is akin to those who chose not to pay attention to the political theory behind Mein Kampf.

20:15:18 From jerry simotas  to  Hosts and panelists : The obsession with Trump to the exclusion of democrat/liberal corruption and belligerence does nothing to improve or grow the moribund peace movement which collapsed with the election of Obama, hardly a champion of peace having launched 7 invasions in all 8 years of his presidency.  The "peace" activists caved in to Obama showing the weakness of their resolve..  As a veteran for peace I no longer squander my time with uninspiring "activists" who do little to expose the costs of war but rather carry out the VFP mission on my own.

20:21:47 From Jim Barton : I was the lead founder of the Boston Alliance Against Registration and the Draft in 1979 (not 1969). At the time, Peter Barnes wondered if that activism was a great idea. In 2004, when I saw Michael Moore's film about Iraq, I began to agree with him.

20:22:27 From Jim Barton : I wish that my hope of global democracy in 2009, when Twitter seemed to promise a global community of democracy, came true. One thing I'll note that in 1937, with the rape of Nanking and the bombing of Guernica, looked very dark; but in 1945, there was a flowering of internationalism.

20:27:32 From Dr W Brown  to  Hosts and panelists : Important to keep in mind that the US is not a true democracy. It never was in the past and very doubtful it ever will be.

This deeply underlies many of the chronic abuses of US hegemony over many many decades.  Dr. Brown

20:27:40 From Farshid Moghimi  to  Hosts and panelists : Unfortunately, part of Iranian oppositions outside Iran and some people inside iran, wishing for a regime change by USA. Sanction created a lot of problem in Iran, but also a lot of corruptions by Iranian government official added to these crisis.Unofficial number of people killed during last few weeks in Iran is 37,000 and 300, 000 wounded. Iran called all of them spy or foreign agents, which people of Iran strongly rejected. Regime of Iran since 1980 put most of people with leftist ideas either in jail or executed. What I experienced from US left is calling government of Iran anti-imperialit , because their dispute with USA. Most of anti-imperialists activists in Iran, either are in jail or perished by the government, 1988 more than 4000 political leftist people in the jail were executed by order of Khomeini.

20:29:25 From Paul Cox : The end of the Empire will not be pretty.

20:31:50 From Peter Feld  to  Hosts and panelists : I took Professor Mendlovitz’s World Order class at Columbia in 1981 and am very glad to hear this current perspective.

20:31:52 From Phillip Josselyn  to  Hosts and panelists : Would be interesting to know what you guys think of BRICS?

20:34:00 From Maple O : Our ongoing protesting made a huge difference, maybe all...long live Kent State martyrs. Long live #AaronBushnell

20:35:08 From Romina Beitseen : Thank you to all organisers and speakers.  Well presented and informative.

20:35:11 From Anne Stevens  to  Hosts and panelists : Thank you John.

20:35:35 From William Short : Please visit amatterofconscience.com/podcast

20:35:37 From Maple O : Bless the draft card burners of all generations and 'countries', including brave Israel youth peaceniks.

20:35:45 From Martha Winnacker  to  Hosts and panelists : These webinars have been profund. Thank you

20:35:51 From Joel Schwartz  to  Hosts and panelists : thanks all. great program.

20:35:51 From Paul Hubers  to  Hosts and panelists : 🌻🌻

Q & A 

Would you please tell us a bit about the intellectual and activist aspirations of the WORLD ORDER MODELS PROJECT, which you founded some decades ago with the late great Professor Saul Mendlovitz? The suggestion in the very name, that there might be ALTERNATIVE models of world order to the Westphalian sovereign state system, has long helped me expand my own future historical

imagination."

I’d be grateful if the panelists might comment on the contribution of Telford Taylor during the Vietnam War. Thank you.

What if rebuilt Gaza has a great GDP like Vietnam 50 yrs. from now ?  This is a dangerous precedent to adapt to a comparison between the two.

What about Victoria Nuland and Geoff Pyatt in Kiev?  Many who support Palestine condemn Russia and and fail to acknowledge THAT coup.  The Ukrainian one the US did.

Even given the lack of historical undersptanding by US policy makers about the Vietnam-China antagonisms during the war, have you been surprised by the extraordinary cooperation between the US and Vietnam after the war on matters of military strategic alliance and the growing role of Vietnam exports trade w the US— and hello from Alex Knopp, Honey Knopp was my mother who admired her coopertive work with you during the war. Thank you.

What arguments should be used to promote diplomatic solutions over the use of military power?

What is your evaluation of the BRICS+ and their impact on global finance and the ability to enforce sanctions?

To what extent has the end of the draft dampened the spirit for activism at the Vietnam-era level?

FRD Presentation for the 30th Anniversary of Normalizaion

“The Participation of the Fund for Reconciliation and Development (FRD) in the Normalization Process” - Mr. John McAuliff, Executive Director of the Fund for Reconciliation and Development (online)

 

 (i) Clarify the key highlights and major features of Vietnam–U.S. people-to-people relations over the past 30 years; identify the differences between Vietnam–U.S. people-to-people relations during the 1995–2025 period and those in the periods before 1975 and from 1975 to 1995.

Steps toward normalization:

1)    1965-1975   A small but influential sector of the antiwar movement became directly involved with Vietnamese from the DRV and the National Liberation Front at meetings in Canada, Bratislava, Paris and Stockholm.    During the war approximately 200 activists and significant cultural figures visited Ha Noi and connected with NLF linked students and Third Force leaders in Saigon.  These relationships led to the creation of the Peoples Peace Treaty in 1971 and a campaign for its adoption throughout the US.  Much of the antiwar movement was cautious about too close an association with the “other side” because it might be considered disloyal.  Broader public opinion was uncomfortable with NLF flags in protests.

1975-1985      A delegation of activists from the Indochina Peace Campaign and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), including myself, arrived in Ha Noi the day the war ended, remaining for two weeks.  Quaker and Mennonite staff posted to Saigon stayed there for some months after liberation.  Most organizations and activists that had been involved in the broad movement against the war greeted April 30^th with feelings of achievement and relief and went on to other concerns like nuclear weapons and Central America. 

 A small group of religious peace organizations such as the Quakers (AFSC), the Mennonite Central Committee, and Church World Service, continued humanitarian assistance that had begun during the war.  They joined with secular peace activists to create the Friendshipment Coalition that sent a boatload of wheat from Houston in April 1978.  In the same year. the US Committee for Scientific Cooperation was launched with more ideological roots.  Vietnam Veterans of America pioneered engagement of former serving military with its first trip in 1981.  Efforts were made during the Carter Administration to support normalization but the only achievement was Viet Nam’s membership in the UN in 1977.  In the first months after the end of the war, US public opinion favored normalization of relations and humanitarian assistance but that sentiment declined dramatically because of the traumatic stories about the boat people, the anti-communist refugee perspective shared in the US, reeducation camps and the war between Viet Nam and the Khmer Rouge.  Popular films conveyed contradictory images of the war and of the US role:  The Deer Hunter (1978), Apocalypse Now (1979) and Rambo (1982).

1985-1995   Wider sectors of US and Vietnamese society became engaged with each other creating the foundation for normalization.  The US-Indochina Reconciliation Project of the Fund for Reconciliation and Development, our organization, began in 1985 organizing twice a year delegations that introduced professors, academic institutions and foundations that followed up their own programs of cooperation.  The delegations were hosted first by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,  then by Vietnam Tourism, and finally by the Viet Nam USA Society.  

FRD coordinated ten conferences between 1989 and 2001 in partnership with the Viet Nam Union of Friendship Organizations that brought US NGOs together with counterparts from Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia leading to many new collaborative programs.  The goal was both to provide assistance and to foster normal relations.  By 1994 210 international NGOs, largely American, had authorized programs in Vietnam registered with PACCOM, sometimes with in-country staff.  Veterans created a variety of binational programs in literature, the arts and humanitarian assistance.    Mainstream US academic institutions established research and training projects.   The business community’s interest and support took institutional form with the launching of the US-Vietnam Trade Council in 1989.  A growing number of US sponsored Vietnamese expert delegations visited the US and regional countries.  

An agreement negotiated by General John Vessey and Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach in August 1987 took reconciliation to a governmental level as each side acknowledged the other’s humanitarian needs; humanitarian assistance was officially encouraged from new American private sources.  US Senators who were veterans played a higher level role, enabling Fulbright scholarships in 1992, overcoming myths of living POWs, and creating the political environment for President Clinton to end the embargo and normalize relations.

 

(ii) Identify the current contextual factors that affect Vietnam–U.S. people-to-people relations, including both favorable conditions and challenges.

The objective interests of the two countries and their economic institutions provide an important motive for people-to-people relations.  The goal of the US to contain China, especially in the East Sea, coincides strategically with Viet Nam’s concern for its independence and sovereignty.  Methods of achieving these ends may have tactical differences, including links to the more volatile China-Philippines conflict.   Family relationships are an enduring bond, regardless of reasons and timing of emigration.  Marriages between Americans and Vietnamese are building new lifelong ties.

The US will have difficulty understanding how Viet Nam can seem to have warm Party to Party and ideological bonds with China at the same time that there is open conflict over territorial control.   Our countries also have very different visions of human rights and democracy.  In the current context, the US sets these differences aside.  However, it is also possible that liberal or conservative self-righteousness and regime change arrogance can reemerge.  The unpredictability of the current US Administration creates additional challenges in both countries.

 

(iii) Determine the partners, content, formats, and measures to promote Vietnam–U.S. people-to-people exchanges in the current period.

 I see four potential areas for VUS/VUFO engagement

1)   1) Continue to work with the diminishing number of Viet Nam war era activists and veterans to connect or reconnect their personal histories with Vietnamese war legacies and current reality.

 2)     Promote your ability to organize “Introduction to Viet Nam” programs to current activist, civil society and student networks in the U.S.  They should be tailored to involve the Americans with Vietnamese counterparts with the goal of creating long term friendship and collaboration.

 3)     Offer to foreign and Vietnamese tour operators and travel agents the opportunity for two hour programs about Viet Nam’s recent history, economy and culture.  They can be offered in Ha Noi, Hue, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City as a one or multi part program.  About an hour should be a well done entertaining presentation and about an hour should be an opportunity for questions.  This should be a paid service.  A second way to do it is to promote open to the public programs with an entry fee.

4)      4) Over the next ten years create sister city partnerships between every Vietnamese province and US state.  These can become vehicles for many levels of long term relationships with visits and social friendships and collaborations professionally, culturally and economically.  High school and college level student exchanges should be facilitated and perhaps even subsidized and involve local hosts in both countries.

VUFO Program for the 30th Anniversary of US - Viet Nam Relations

 

                                                (Tentative translation)

People to People Meeting

Celebrating 30 years of Viet Nam - US Normalization of Relations

Ha Noi, from 8:00am - 10:00am, on 28^th October 2025 (Ha Noi Time Zone)

Monday, October 27, 9 – 11 p.m. ET

(It is held as both a meeting and a webinar)

 

08:00: Opening Remarks and Introduction of Delegates - Mr. Nguyễn Năng Khiếu, Secretary -General of the Vietnam - US Society

08:05: Opening remarks & Overview of Vietnam - US Relations and People-to-People Ties 30 Years after Normalization – Mr. Phan Anh Son, President of the Viet Nam – USA Society

08:15: Briefing – Moderated by Ambassador Pham Quang Vinh,  President of the Vietnam - US Society.

08:20: “Establishing Vietnam  - US Diplomatic Relations in July 1995: A Historic Milestone” - Representative of Vietnam Association of Historical Sciences

08:25: “Support from American Working - Class People for the Vietnamese People: From History to Future” - Mr. Amiad Horowitz, Communist Party USA

08:30: “The Role of Culture Exchange in Reconciliation and the Normalization Process” - Writer Nguyễn Quang Thiều, President of the Vietnam Writers Association

08:35: “The Participation of the Fund for Reconciliation and Development (FRD) in the Normalization Process” - Mr. John McAuliff, Executive Director of the Fund for Reconciliation and Development (online)

08:40: “The Role of Vietnam - US Educational and Cultural Cooperation in Bilateral Relations” - Representative of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities

08:45: “Vietnam - US Friendship Exchange: Connecting Young Generations for a Peaceful and Prosperous Future” - Mr. Frank Joyce, Member of the U.S. National Council of Elders (online)

08:50: “Vietnam - US Cooperation in Addressing War Legacy Issues” - Representative of the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange (VAVA)

08:55: “The Role of American Veterans’ Organizations in Reconciliation, War Legacy Resolution, and Promoting Vietnam - S Relations” - Mr. Chuck Searcy, President of VFP160

09:00: "Vietnam - US Exchange of People-to-People: Historical Lessons” - Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam - US Friendship Association (online)

09:05-9:45: “Vietnam - US People-to-People Exchange in the Context of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership” - Ambassador Phạm Quang Vinh, President of the Vietnam - US Society

09:45: Opening Discussion

09:45: Closing Remarks - Ambassador Phạm Quang Vinh, President of the Vietnam - US Society

10:00: Program is over & Group Photo.

***************************************************

A limited number of virtual seats is available.  If you would like to attend, send us a note by no later than October 11th to jmcauliff@ffrd.org  .  Please include a short description of your involvement in the antiwar movement and/or post-war normalization.

80th Anniversary of Independence

 US Ambassador Knapper's Facebook post for the 80th anniversary featuring the OSS work with Ho Chi Minh   https://www.facebook.com/reel/2259625791152346

Congratulatory Statement by Secretary of State Marco Rubio

https://vn.usembassy.gov/statement-by-secretary-marco-rubio-on-vietnam-national-day/

Photos from dinner celebrating 80th anniversary

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10238416096998778&set=pcb.10238416102718921

*********************

President meets with friends and American people who love Vietnam

President meets with friends and American people who love Vietnam

President Luong Cuong met with friends and peace-loving American people in New York, affirming that Vietnam always appreciates their affection and help.

President Luong Cuong on September 22 met with representatives of thousands of American friends who love Vietnam, on the occasion of attending activities of the 80th United Nations General Assembly High-Level Week in New York and working in the US, according to VNA .

These are people who have supported, assisted, and been with Vietnam in the struggle for national independence, national reunification, resolving the consequences of war, promoting Vietnam-US relations, and contributing to the current process of national construction and development.

President Luong Cuong and delegates. Photo: VNA

One of them was Ani Toncheva, a member of the Communist Party USA, who was dedicated to internationalism and anti-militarism and actively participated in struggles for labor and housing rights in New York City.

The meeting was also attended by Mr. John McAuliff, Director of the Reconciliation and Development Foundation, who actively campaigned for support for Vietnam during the 1973 Paris Agreement negotiations, and Mr. Todd Magee, Executive Director of Operation Smile, an organization that has made many contributions to promoting the normalization of Vietnam-US relations.

They expressed their admiration for Vietnam's efforts to overcome difficult times to develop strongly, especially during a period when the world had many unpredictable changes, and shared about its contributions to the process of healing the wounds and consequences of war for the Vietnamese people.

These are efforts to help Agent Orange victims have a better life, bring the people of the two countries closer together, contribute to helping Vietnam and the US move towards normalizing relations, as well as projects to help disadvantaged children.

The President affirmed that Vietnam always remembers and appreciates the close affection, valuable help and support that the friends and peace-loving people of the United States have given to the Vietnamese people.

The President recalled the image of peace-loving American citizens in the movement supporting Vietnam's just struggle, promoting an end to the war and the restoration of peace, or American veterans organizations that overcame past guilt and returned to Vietnam to heal the wounds of war.

President Luong Cuong shakes hands with friends, long-time partners, and progressive people of the US on September 22. Photo: VNA

He emphasized that people-to-people diplomacy is an important field of Vietnam-US relations, playing the role of a solid social foundation, being both a catalyst and contributing to building and strengthening trust, connecting hearts to hearts, connecting and promoting relations between the two countries.

The President hopes that American friends and partners will promote their role as bridges, connecting businesses and localities of both sides, promoting cooperation in core and breakthrough areas of economics, trade, investment, especially in science, technology, and innovation.

The President also asked American friends and partners to continue supporting and contributing to the work of overcoming the consequences of war, assisting victims of toxic chemicals, dioxin and bombs, and assisting in collecting information to help speed up the process of searching for and collecting the remains of missing Vietnamese soldiers.

He affirmed that Vietnam is committed to making the greatest efforts in searching for and repatriating the remains of American soldiers from the war in Vietnam, and hopes that friends and partners will continue to contribute to the development of relations between the two countries.

Ngoc Anh

Remarks by John McAuliff at VUS/VUFO Friendship Meeting in New York with President Luong Cuong   9/22/25

Mr. President, it is an honor to be with you and your colleagues from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Viet Nam – USA Society, and the Viet Nam Union of Friendship Organizations.  Our group of twelve includes people who were active in the antiwar movement:   Carolyn Eisenberg, Steven Goldsmith, Susan Gregory, Rick Hind, Terry Provance, Joel Schwartz, and myself.  Some continued on in the campaign for normalization, reconciliation and responsibility for the legacies of war, most notably land mines, UXO and Agent Orange, and were joined by:  Susan Hammond, Mary McDonnell, Matt Meyer, Rebecca Waugh, and Andrew Wells-Dang

They worked with the American Friends Service Committee, the Bach Mai Hospital Relief Fund, Brooklyn for Peace, Catholic Relief Services, Chicago Seven Conspiracy Trial, Clergy and Laity Concerned, the Coalition to Stop Funding the War, the Committee of Returned Volunteers, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the Indochina Peace Campaign, the March on the Pentagon, May Day, Medical Aid for Indochina, the Moratorium, the National Council of Churches, the National Mobilization Committee, the Pentagon Papers Peace Project, the Peoples Peace Treaty, the Shoe Shine Boys Project, the Social Science Research Council, the Support Committee for Dan and Phil Berrigan, the US Institute of Peace, the Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee, the War Legacies Project, the War Resisters League, the Women’s March on Congress to Cut Off War Funds and in national movements for draft resistance and to support antiwar GIs.

We meet during the 30^th anniversary year of the overdue end of the US embargo and establishment of normal diplomatic relations, the 50^th anniversary of the end or the war and of national reunification (which most of us joined in Ho Chi Minh City, attending the fine dinner you hosted), and the 80^th anniversary of Viet Nam’s Declaration of Independence. 

Ho Chi Minh’s words incorporated language from the US Declaration of Independence, symbolic of his warm collaboration in Tan Trao with the Deer Team of the Office of Strategic Services, the OSS.  One of my organization’s highlights was the reunion we arranged in 1995 with the support of the Ford Foundation between surviving veterans of the OSS and Viet Minh, including a touching meeting with General Vo Nguyen Giap.  Let me present to you a transcript of three days of discussions in Southampton, Long Island, not far from here, between the two groups of veterans.  It culminated with a program at the Asia Society that moved Deputy Foreign Minister Le Mai to an eloquent commentary.  Tragically it took decades of horrific war, at least three million deaths, and economic and environmental devastation before we returned to the spirit of 1945 two years ago with our comprehensive strategic partnership.

I will end my remarks with an appeal to Viet Nam to take leadership in the world commensurate with the phenomenal success of its post-war recovery and its international prestige.   Can Viet Nam, the US and ASEAN mobilize international opinion to reverse the territorial aggression of China in the East Sea?  Can Viet Nam work with the other UN vote abstention countries to creatively mitigate, if not end, the aggression of Russia against Ukraine?  Can Viet Nam use its strong friendship with both the US and Cuba to help achieve comparable mutual respect, the end of the embargo and doi moi economic reforms with a Caribbean accent?

As Americans we also need to find out and overcome why the US embassy limited its participation in 50^th anniversary celebrations in Ho Chi Minh City to the Consular level and at the 80^th anniversary march in Ha Noi to the military attaché, although our ambassador was otherwise very involved.    They show the job of reconciliation is not done.  With the support of both governments and the engagement of our peoples, by 2035 VUS should expand sister city partnerships for every province of Viet Nam with every state in the US.

Charlie Clements on Cambodia

 

The US Role in the Coup Against Sihanouk

   By Charlie Clements

In Jan of 1970 I was a co-pilot/pilot in a C-130 cargo plane flying out of Saigon. The mission we were assigned early one morning in January required the entire crew of five to have TOP SECRET security clearances. That was quite unusual as the C-130 is known as a lumbering four-engine turbo- prop specifically designed for take-off and landing on short unprepared runways. Except for moving nuclear weapons, which might be threatened by a typhoon, which is the reason our crew had TS clearances, I had never heard of any classified mission for a C-130 in the war, where I had been flying there for eight months.

Early that morning, we picked up eight civilians in Saigon and flew them to a rendezvous point in Cambodia, where we were met by two aging MiG-17 fighters of Korean War vintage. Cambodia was a so-called neutral country at the time and the U.S. did not have diplomatic relations. The MiGs escorted us to the runway at Phnom Penh.

The eight men, who we assumed were diplomats, were picked up in a black car, not a limousine. We waited on the tarmac eight hours, occasionally cranking up our Auxiliary Power Unit to cool off the aircraft in the blistering heat. When the passengers returned, we took them back to Saigon. They never introduced themselves, said hello or goodbye, or ‘thank you for a nice flight.’ If you have ever ridden in the back of a C-130, you might understand why. It is extremely noisy, the seats are canvas webbing hung from the walls, there is a relief tube for male passengers, but no accommodation for female passengers. There is no air conditioning and no way for anyone in the cockpit to communicate with passengers. It is also very challenging for passengers to even communicate with each other.

Two days later in a bar in Saigon as young men will do I boasted that I had recently participated in a diplomatic mission to a nearby country. A man introduced as “Ski”, one of three with whom I was drinking, appeared to be in his forties, immediately guffawed and said, “You’re pretty damned naive, Clements, if you believe that diplomatic crap. I had a team on your aircraft, which was arranging the overthrow of Prince Sihanouk. When he goes to Paris for his annual medical consultation in 60 days, a palace coup will leave a General named Lon Nol in power. Sixty days after that we will be invited to invade Cambodia.” I was led to believe he was with the CIA and just assumed his comments were the typical one-upsmanship, common in war zones.

Almost 120 days later as I was shuttling plane loads of combat ready American soldiers to a protrusion of Vietnam into Cambodia called the Parrot’s Beak, sometimes described as the ‘end of the Ho Chi Minh Trail’, it was clear the invasion predicted in that Saigon Bar in January was imminent.  Flying over Cambodia to Phnom Penh I had noted large parts of Cambodia looked like the moon and there was only one weapons system that did that - B-52s. I had also heard rumors that B-52 pilots were occasionally required to alter their flight logs after particularly sensitive missions - I had no idea what those were, but began to imagine there were missions over Cambodia.

I got angrier and angrier that day and by the end of our crew day about 8 p.m., I decided, because I had a cold to declare myself DNIF (Duties Not Including Flying), which pilots could do if they had a cold...and I did. They found another co-pilot for that mission and I flew back to Taiwan with my own crew the next day. When I got there, I asked to see my commander, explained that I was getting angrier and angrier about everything I saw in SE Asia/Vietnam and asked for a change of assignment any place else in the world. I explained that there were several offices within the Pentagon where my skills as an econometrician would be in demand.

Though I was a Distinguished Graduate of the Air Force Academy (number two in my class) and a decorated pilot, on April 30, 1970 I refused to fly further missions in SE Asia.  The Air Force locked me up in a psychiatric ward for eight months and gave me an honorable, but medical discharge (10% psychiatric).

Returning to Phnom Penh, 55-years later John McAuliff arranged a dinner with five survivors of the Khmer Rouge genocide. They were five of only 64 men who survived that a college degree or higher, all had served as government ministers as Cambodia slowly and painfully rebuilt their country. I asked if any of them had known or heard of evidence of CIA involvement in the coup that overthrew Prince Sihanouk. They said no, but to a person they also stated categorically that General Lon Nol did NOT have the wherewithal to have been able to do something like that on his own. Press accounts, some written from Cambodia, indicate widespread suspicion that this was a CIA-engineered coup.  Since Sihanouk in attempting to remain neutral, had not permitted U.S. bombing of the portion of the Ho Chi Minh trail inside Cambodia, the major supply route for the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong armies fighting in South Vietnam, it was strongly in the U.S. interest to install the more U.S. friendly General Lon Nol, then Sihanouk’s Prime Minister.   

Most Americans were led to believe that the B-52 carpet bombings in Cambodia began with the so-called ‘incursion’ (read invasion) in May 1970. However, in 2000 after Bush was elected, but before his inauguration, Bill Clinton traveled to Vietnam. In a gesture to aid in recovery of the remains of both American and Vietnamese MIAs, he released the previously classified IBM database of all the U.S. bombing missions of the war from 1964 to 1973 -  described as the largest database ever created. It revealed many, many bombing missions that the world had no knowledge of, providing proof that the U.S. B-52’s had been carpet bombing Cambodia since 1965.

As Ben Kiernan and Taylor Owen wrote, “The total tonnage of U.S. bombs dropped on Cambodia, at least in the range of 500,000 tons, possibly far more, either equalled or far exceeded the tonnages that the U.S. dropped in the entire Pacific Theater during World War Two (500,000 tons) and in the Korean War (454,000).38 In per capita terms, the bombing of Cambodia exceeded the Allied bombing of Germany and Japan, and the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam (but not that of South Vietnam or possibly, Laos)”

The articles below by Ben Kiernan and Taylor Owen describe in some detail and with maps what the database revealed:

Bombs Over Cambodia: New Light on US Air War (with maps) https://gsp.yale.edu/sites/default/files/walrus_cambodiabombing_oct06.pdf                                                 October 2006

 

Roots of U.S. Troubles in Afghanistan: Civilian Bombing Casualties and the Cambodian Precedent  

June 28, 2010

https://apjjf.org/taylor-owen/3380/article [see note 38 correcting bombing totals in Walrus]

 

Making More Enemies than We Kill? Calculating U.S. Bomb Tonnages Dropped on Laos and Cambodia, and Weighing Their Implications

April 27, 2015

https://apjjf.org/ben-kiernan/4313 

 

While our delegation was in Cambodia, I was very interested to visit the Cambodia Mine Action Center, often referred to by its initials CMAC. I served on the board of Physicians for Human Rights, one of six NGOs that founded the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL). The campaign was catalyzed by a book written by PHR and Human Rights Watch, which suggested that using extant methods de-mining it would take 10,000 years to clear Cambodia of these heinous weapons. No human language has survived that long. Within eight years we had an international treaty banning that weapon and because it was the first arms control treaty led by civilians rather than by militaries, the Campaign was awarded the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize. I was President of PHR at the time and present with me at both the treaty signing in Ottawa and the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony a week later in Oslo was Tun Channarath, a Cambodian who lost his legs to an anti-personal mine. I was heartened to learn from the Executive Director of CMAC that Tun was still alive and active in their work. CMAC is not only pioneering new methods of mine detection such as mine sniffing rats, but with Japan has developed new technologies such as using drones to map minefields. They train people in demining techniques from all over the world including Ukraine and Sudan.

The recent cut-off of USAID funding has slowed down, but will not halt CMAC’s efforts at disarming the vast amounts of unexploded munitions that continue to kill and maim decades after the conflict in which they were deployed has ended.

More about my personal decision to refuse to fly further missions in SE Asia and the consequences can also be found in the book I wrote Witness to War, Bantam, 1984.

Charlie Clements

5/31/2025

clementscharlie@gmail.com

 

 

Charlie’s zoom presentation of the Cambodia coup story can be seen at 39:55 in the VPCC 50^th anniversary of peace webinar https://youtu.be/-oUamqY6D0Q