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, 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 releases, 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.

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.

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. The next day the CIA demanded that it be taken down, but it was too late, because a Japanese NGO had begun downloading it almost immediately after it was posted to the Internet. 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. Researchers were forced to increase of the mortality of Cambodians killed by U.S. airstrikes by 100,000. It also left Cambodia with the tragic distinction of being the most heavily bombed country in the world.

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. First appended below are several news clips obtained with FOIA searches from around the time of the coup in Cambodia that led to the May 1^st invasion…and provoked nationwide demonstrations in which protestors were killed at both Kent State and Jackson State in Mississippi, the latter almost unknown since LIFE magazine and other media focused the American public almost exclusively on Kent State.

The articles below describe in some detail and with maps precisely what the database revealed and why estimates of Cambodia’s mortality attributed to U.S. airstrikes had to be revised.

Bombs Over Cambodia: New Light on US Air War (with maps)

https://gsp.yale.edu/sites/default/files/walrus_cambodiabombing_oct06.pdf

As revised and expanded for Asia-Pacific Journal  May 2, 2007

https://apjjf.org/taylor-owen/2420/article

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

5/22/2025

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

Overview of April-May Trip to Indochina, Remarks by John McAuliff

 

Indochina:  Fifty Years On

By John McAuliff

When I first encountered the human and material devastation of post-war Viet Nam, Cambodia and Laos in April-May 1975, I could not imagine the transformation that half a century would bring—including in relationships between our countries.

I just led an extended visit to Indochina by eighteen Americans, most with a history of antiwar activism but without prior direct experience in the region.  Our number did include four recognized scholars as well as a distinguished veteran, the second ranked graduate of his class at the US Air Force Academy, who was confined for ten months after refusing to fly combat support missions when the US invaded Cambodia in 1970.

Like hundreds of thousands of US tourists who visit every year, our group was overwhelmed by widespread economic and social development far beyond the level of the US war years.  Every city we visited contained completed and under construction high rises of residential apartments and of offices of private businesses and government agencies.  Traditional markets are being supplemented or replaced by modern malls based on Japanese and Chinese investment.  Large export processing zones produce name brand goods destined for US consumers.  New bridges have replaced ferries and Ho Chi Minh City, a.k.a. Saigon, has opened its first subway train.

Students flock to the US, especially from Viet Nam, for undergraduate and professional degrees.  Most return home where they are joined by ambitious government-welcomed first generation descendants of refugees.  Grab is the Uber like ap that provides smart phone credit card access not only to taxis but also to motor bikes and three wheeled tuk tuks. 

Shared positive history took our delegation to Tan Trao, 125 miles northwest of Ha Noi, where members of the US Office of Strategic Services lived and trained with Ho Chi Minh and General Giap to fight Japanese forces in 1945.  It is a well attended public memorial.  A current shared threat took us to the East Sea Museum in Da Nang where Viet Nam’s decades long conflict with China over maritime claims blend with US concern to maintain freedom of navigation and the territorial rights of all countries bordering the South China Sea.

Meetings with the public University of Hue and the private Dong A University in Da Nang and the Diplomatic Academy in Ha Noi, as well as personally arranged meetings with academic colleagues, illustrated how much potential still exists for research collaboration.

One of Viet Nam’s most popular attractions for American and other foreigners and countless local students and older visitors  is the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City.    Our delegation went beyond that venue to grapple with the pain still felt at My Lai, the tiger cage prisons at Con Dao Island, mine and UXO clearance in Quang Tri, and birth defects created by Agent Orange in Da Nang. 

Our visits to Cambodia and Laos were shorter with fewer participants but equally meaningful.  The magnificence of Angkor Wat gives way to the still raw pain of the torture center at Tuol Sleng, the execution ground of Chung Ek and the work of the Documentation Center sponsored by the Queen Mother to account for every person’s experience under the Khmer Rouge.  The decades long challenge of clearing land mines in Cambodia and UXO (unexploded ordnance) in Laos echo war legacies in Viet Nam, including Agent Orange, that exact human cost far after combat ended.

US acceptance of responsibility for the legacies of its wars in Indochina has been slow and insufficient but had been growing.  Already obligated US funding for remediation and clearance programs appears to be undergoing slow if murky fulfillment.  However the future is less certain because of the DOGE afflicted destruction of USAID and the US Institute of Peace.

Our delegation played a locally well reported role in Viet Nam’s celebration on the 50^th anniversary of the end of the war.  Their formulation is different than ours, and reflects what the conflict was about from their perspective, “The Liberation of the South and the Reunification of the Country”.  Our difference of motivation is acknowledged, but there is broad recognition that opposition to the war in the US saved countless lives in Viet Nam and in Laos.  Cambodia is a more complicated equation due to the indigenous killing fields of the Khmer Rouge after US withdrawal. 

In Ho Chi Minh City we joined the President’s anniversary eve dinner for the international diplomatic and business community.  After the parade, we held a private meeting with a leader of the governing party.  (His remarks can be read here https://vnpeacecomm.blogspot.com/2025/05/fatherland-front-meeting-in-ho-chi-minh.html.) Along with representatives of resident US veterans and business communities, I also spoke at an earlier commemorative program hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ha Noi.  

The whole delegation was invited to the seated gathering of thousands opposite the VIP speaker and viewing stand for the celebratory anniversary parade in the center of Ho Chi Minh City. The general public watched in crowds surrounding the subsequent line of march, on giant TV screens erected around the city or at home.   Enthusiasm for the multiday celebration appeared broad and genuine. Participating units were reported here:  https://vietnamnews.vn/politics-laws/1716843/grand-military-parade-procession-takes-place-in-hcm-city-to-celebrate-50th-anniversary-of-national-reunification.html   Based on memory of previous 5 year anniversary marches, the military presence was larger, but not exclusive.  For the first time Cambodian, Lao and Chinese contingents participated. 

There are reports that Viet Nam also invited the US to participate for the first time, a remarkable symbol of reconciliation and a careful balance to Chinese inclusion.  However that was killed by the White House blocking any US official participation, until the last minute at the Consular level—much to the detriment of the US.  The same policy seems to have led to cancellation of our delegation’s meeting with the US Ambassador and the substituted Deputy Chief of Mission. 

My personal conclusion fifty years later is that Viet Nam is well on the way to its goal of being a middle income developed country.  It will play an increasingly strong leadership role in South East Asia and internationally.  The difficult process of reunifying the country culturally, politically and militarily after four decades of war with France, the US, Cambodia and China (and distrust of their allies within the country) are over.  As after the US Revolution and Civil War, there are still some rough edges of treatment of the losing side.   Viet Nam’s version of democracy is not the same as our, nor is that pursued by its neighbors.  The country has new leaders and is in the midst of deep reform of local, regional and national governance.  Time will tell whether that makes the system more responsive to popular will or more efficient bureaucratically.

Having traveled to the region at least thirty times over the last half century, I was not surprised by what I saw or heard although the amount of Vietnamese engagement in the 50 year anniversary was notable.  I was impacted more by learning of a link between the history of Viet Nam and Cambodia.  Hearing Charlie Clements’ account of 1970 was not only moving as a reminder of the price paid for conscientious resistance by an active duty Air Force officer, but also confirmed direct and unique US responsibility for the tragedy that befell Cambodia. 

As a C130 pilot with unusual security clearance, Charlie transported an intelligence team to Phnom Penh that apparently lay the groundwork for the overthrow of President Norodom Sihanouk.  Charlie’s chance encounter with a key CIA operative in Saigon a few days later predicted the coup by Lon Nol and his invitation of US military intervention including B52 raids way in excess of the Secret Bombing.  Without a US inspired coup and military engagement, there would have been no viable Khmer Rouge, take over of power, depopulation of cities, mass torture and executions, cross border attacks on Viet Nam and a third Indochina War that included China’s destructive invasion in support of Pol Pot.

As an American, I am more immediately concerned by current threats to our governance and foreign policy.  If implemented, the irrational and unfounded tariff policies of the Trump Administration will do great damage to the economic well being of the people of Viet Nam, Cambodia and to a lesser extent Laos.  His tariffs have nothing to do with reciprocity.    Viet Nam and Cambodia are being grievously punished for an imbalance of trade that came about because the US encouraged them to be an alternative supply stream to China.

US non-participation in 50^th anniversary events was juvenile and may reflect revisionist right wing perspectives on the war by this Administration.  It was contrary to US interests and hopefully will be corrected by the time of the 30^th anniversary of normalization of relations in July.

5/16/25

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

Webinar by delegation participants (5/15/25):   

https://youtu.be/-oUamqY6D0Q

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

Remarks by John McAuliff on behalf of the VPCC Delegation

at Fatherland Front meeting April 30, 2025

The anniversary we celebrate has special meaning for Americans and Vietnamese.  Our initial relationship could not have been more positive in 1945 as the US Office of Strategic Services provided military support to Viet Minh forces in Tan Trao led by Ho Chi Minh and Võ Nguyên Giáp.

The pressures of emerging cold war politics led the US government to a tragic course of first supporting and then replacing the French colonial role in Indochina.  How many million lives were lost and opportunities for economic development were squandered because of American historical and cultural ignorance and arrogance?

During the next thirty years the people of Viet Nam and the US paid an increasingly horrific and disproportionate cost.

The first stages of US intervention were barely noticed in public opinion and government.  The path accelerated with sabotage of the Geneva Agreement, most notably refusal to implement reunification elections in 1954.  As military advisers and supplies of weapons grew into direct combat, a military draft and growing casualties,  US citizens took notice.  Symbolic vigils by traditional pacifists expanded into teach-ins on university campuses, a draft counseling and resistance movement, increasingly massive peace demonstrations, a nationwide Moratorium, tax resistance, symbolic sabotage of draft boards and large scale civil disobedience. 

Civilian activists were energized by antiwar veterans and gave significant support to opposition within the military.  African Americans not only provided the inspirational model of the civil rights movement but moral leadership uniting domestic and international concerns.

After the Paris Agreement brought release of POWs and the end of US combat and bombing of the north, the antiwar movement diminished in size but focused effectively on pressuring the US Congress to restrict further US intervention and material support for the Saigon government, undermining its morale and military capability.  A powerful motivator for activists was exposure of the brutal tiger cages at Con Dao that we just visited and repression of the Paris mandated role of the Third Force.

When the war ended fifty years ago, a majority of Americans celebrated the end to the bloodshed and favored humanitarian assistance.  Official opinion was more negative.  The rawness of feelings and distrust led to missed opportunities for normal relations on both sides in the late 1970s.  US public opinion soured because of postwar problems in Viet Nam and illusions about China.

However, sympathetic sectors of peace oriented religious organizations and remnants of the secular antiwar movement advocated for normal relations beginning with Viet Nam’s membership in the United Nations.  A rice shipment was provided by the Friendshipment coalition and individual organizations established their own humanitarian programs in collaboration with the Viet Nam Union of Friendship organizations.

Thanks to Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach and General John Vessey a crucial diplomatic pathway was opened through officially endorsed private humanitarian assistance.  During the decade before normalization of relations, a growing number of US NGOs, veterans groups, educational exchange institutions and businesses built a network of relations with Vietnamese mass organizations and government ministries.  They also pressured and worked with members the US Congress and several Administrations to end the embargo and establish diplomatic relations.

Many US ambassadors have acknowledged that US government credibility with the Vietnamese people was built on the moral foundation of activists who opposed the war and non-governmental organizations and veterans groups that addressed the humanitarian problems of its legacies, including Agent Orange, land mines and unexploded ordnance.

In the thirty years since normal relations, we have seen the flowering of bilateral trade due to economic reforms created by Doi Moi, dramatically expanded educational exchange and creation of a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.  Both countries are determined that neighboring waters should be a zone of peace, mutual respect and free transit. 

We had begun to believe that the catalytic role of people to people engagement had been supplanted by deep and enduring national ties.  Then we witnessed the Trump Administration’s butchery of USAID and the US Institute of Peace, including war legacy projects in Viet Nam, a block on US embassy participation in 50th anniversary events and threats of punishing irrational tariffs.   I hope and believe this is a short term aberration.  In any case it has illustrated that the role of friendship and mutual support has not ended.

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

Prospects of Viet Nam’s Diplomacy in the Role of Mediation and Reconciliation

Remarks by John McAuliff at a conference organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ha Noi, April 23, 2025  

“50 Years of National Reunification: The Peacebuilding Role of Diplomacy from Past to Present”

Let me thank our hosts of MOFA and DAV for inviting me and giving me a task that seems inherently presumptuous, an American offering ideas about mediation and reconciliation to Vietnam, the country that has taught me everything I know about creative diplomacy for almost fifty years.

It began with Do Xuan Oanh of Hoi Viet My who welcomed a delegation of US peace activists to Ha Noi on April 30, 1975.  We arrived at the same moment that US Ambassador Graham Martin was abandoning Saigon.  It continued with Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach who taught me that you could not move a country geographically but you could change its political and thus its strategic environment. 

It went on with a series of US ambassadors, beginning with Pete Peterson, who recognized that American credibility with the Vietnamese people was built on the moral foundation of activists who opposed the war, non-governmental organizations and veterans groups that addressed the humanitarian problems of its legacies, including Agent Orange, land mines and unexploded ordnance;  not to mention pioneers from US universities and the American business community.

So here is my two cents worth about where Viet Nam might go in the future to build on the hard won potential of its past.

 1)     Utilize Viet Nam’s unique role where it is trusted by both sides of a conflict to offer the good offices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defense and other agencies to assist in the development of mutual understanding and confidence building.    That can be combined with adding in the broad range of people to people relationships and experience created by the Viet Nam Union of Friendship Organizations. I leave to your imagination the applicable countries.

 2)    Offer Viet Nam’s example of undertaking risky internal radical self-transformation to solve grave economic and development problems and liberate creative productive energy of the entire population, consistent with socialist values.  At the same time show the benefit of opening the door without discrimination to all sources of investment and trade.   Note that doi moi preceded and may have encouraged the end of the US embargo of Viet Nam by more than seven years.  Countries with which Viet Nam has special emotional and political closeness can be helped to recognize the hard, uneven but necessary steps to achieve fundamental market reforms.

3)    Consistent with Viet Nam’s principle of non-intervention, it needs to grow its international leadership role beyond participation in UN peace keeping missions to lead incremental humanitarian solutions in conflict zones.  For example Viet Nam could bring countries that abstained in the UN vote against Russian aggression in Ukraine to take responsibility under the UN for the security of all nuclear plants, replacing both sides’ combatants. That would eliminate a grave danger to the people of Ukraine, Russia and the rest of Europe.  Viet Nam could also have helped to create a neutral safety zone that allowed the local population to obtain internal refuge closer to home and family.  Trusted by both sides, these special UN peace keepers could have saved civilian lives and been able to assure exclusion from this territory of transit of foreign weapons supplies or use for Ukrainian military emplacements.

You can say this is an attractive fantasy but who could imagine fifty years ago what we see around us today, here and throughout the country, of booming construction, economic growth and public engagement—or have believed that once bitter enemies could be comprehensive strategic partners determined that neighboring waters should be a zone of peace, mutual respect and free transit.

A half a century ago the Vietnamese people with significant popular support throughout the world, including in the US, overcame what was assumed to be not only an undefeated but undefeatable power that had dominated the world since 1945.  Today we see that the disease of imperial assumptions and ambition does not have one home country or ideology.  Multipolarity ironically leads to more than one power doing terrible things.  I challenge Viet Nam to provide the international leadership that guarantees not only its own well-being but advances hope for the survival and prosperity of our brothers and sisters in too many places to mention.

Let me close as someone who was raised as a Catholic but no longer follows that faith to express the feeling of deep loss from the passing of Pope Francis and hope that his Church will choose a worthy successor. 

 

Vietnam can be a trusted mediator on global stage, says American peace activist                                                                                                         Voice of Vietnam  Wednesday, 23/04/2025                                                                                                                                                                                          https://english.vov.vn/en/politics/diplomacy/vietnam-can-be-a-trusted-mediator-on-global-stage-says-american-peace-activist-post1194311.vov

American activists say US should take responsibility for role in Cambodia’s tragic history                                                                                                                                                                                            By Som Sotheary / Khmer Times May 8, 2025

https://www.khmertimeskh.com/501680694/american-activists-say-us-should-take-responsibility-for-role-in-cambodias-tragic-history/

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

Ho Chi Minh City Celebrates the Fall of Saigon                                                                                                        By Damien Cave, The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/30/world/asia/saigon-parade-vietnam-war.html?unlocked_article_code=1.G08.OUTr.1_ANDXXYj7UZ&smid=url-share

Out of War’s Shadow:  Vietnam on the Move t                                                                         By Damien Cave and Tung Ngo, The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/30/world/asia/vietnam-country-progress-growth.html?unlocked_article_code=1.G08.8zZo.B7Y7L4xCBvck&smid=url-share

Fatherland Front Meeting in Ho Chi Minh City April 30, 2025: Remarks by Do Van Chien and John McAuliff

 

REMARKS BY COMRADE DO VAN CHIEN Member of the Politburo, Secretary of the Party Central Committee, Secretary of the Party Committee of the Fatherland Front, Central Mass Organizations, President of the Central Committee of the Viet Nam Fatherland Front at the Meeting with International Friends on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Liberation of the South and National Reunification

(Ho Chi Minh city, 30 April 2025)

          Dear Comrades and Friends,

1. Today, in the jubilant and exciting atmosphere of the 50th anniversary of the Liberation of the South and National Reunification, I am very happy, on behalf of the Party and State leadership, to meet with international friends who have steadfastly supported the cause of national development and defense of the Party, State and People of Viet Nam.

          I would like to extend to all comrades and friends my deep respect, heartfelt greetings, and best wishes.

          I was deeply moved by the speeches and reflections shared by the international delegates. Allow me to express my profound gratitude for the sincere affection, enthusiastic support and noble spirit of international solidarity that our international friends have generously extended to Viet Nam during the two resistance struggle for national independence and reunification, as well as in our current cause of national reform, development and defense of our Fatherland.

          Comrades and Friends,

          2. On this day 50 years ago, 30 April, 1975, the historic Ho Chi Minh Campaign achieved complete victory, signifying the cessation of war and heralding a new era for Viet Nam, an era of peace, independence, reunification and territorial integrity, with the country united as one. This was the triumph of the fervent patriotism and unshakable determination of the Vietnamese people under the leadership of the Communist Party of Viet Nam and the great President Ho Chi Minh. It was not only a joy for the Vietnamese people but also a shared joy for all peace and justice-loving people around the world. It stands as a powerful testament to the truth that “righteousness prevails over cruelty, and benevolence triumphs over tyranny”. It reinforced the faith of peace-loving people and oppressed nations and inspired collective movements for national independence, freedom, equality and fraternity worldwide. 

This victory also underscored the profound strength of great national unity and the invaluable international solidarity of our friends from all over the world.

Comrades and Friends,

3. Unity has long been an inherently valued tradition of the Vietnamese people, an enduring source of strength for the resilience and evolution of our nation.  President Ho Chi Minh captured this sentiment of unity as a vital source of strength and success. He said: “Unity, unity, great unity; success, success, great success”. He further affirmed, “The strength, greatness and perseverance of the Vietnamese people fundamentally lie in their unity and in the support of the peoples of the world... International solidarity holds profound significance for us”.

          The Party, State and people of Viet Nam have forever cherished the noble spirit of international solidarity and the invaluable support extended by international friends - regardless of race, skin color, religion - during the most difficult and challenging years. We will never forget the multifaceted assistance from the people of the Soviet Union and other fraternal socialist countries, nor will we ever forget the words of Chairman Mao Zedong of China: “700 million Chinese people are a strong back up force for the Vietnamese people, and China’s vast land is a reliable rear base for Viet Nam”, the immortal statement by Cuban President Fidel Castro: “For Viet Nam, Cuba is willing to shed its own blood,” or the resounding slogan heard on the streets of India: “Amar Nam, Tomar Nam, Viet Nam, Viet Nam” (“My name, your name, our name is Viet Nam, Viet Nam”). We remain deeply grateful to the unwavering political support from people across continents: from the peoples of Laos, Cambodia and the Philippines; the anti-war, pro-Viet Nam movements in Japan, Argentina, Chile, Sweden, the anti-war protests by American youth and veterans; the blood donation movements in support of Viet Nam by the Italian people; the daring Caracas guerrillas who captured an American lieutenant colonel in exchange for Hero Nguyen Van Troi; the sheltering support from the people of Paris, France for the delegations of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Viet Nam during the Paris Peace Talks; the support of international people’s organizations such as the World Peace Council, the Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Organization, the World Federation of Trade Unions, the Women’s International Democratic Federation, the International Association of Democratic Lawyers... and countless other examples of noble international solidarity with Viet Nam. All the invaluable support and assistance from our international friends, including those of you who are present here today and many others who, for various reasons, could not attend this gathering, have become an integral part of Viet Nam’s history in its struggle for independence and freedom, as well as in the global movement for peace, justice and righteousness. We are eternally grateful for the invaluable support and help extended to us by the people of the world throughout the arduous years of our struggle and in our current cause of national development and defense.

          Comrades and Friends,

4. Since the Spring of 1975, Viet Nam’s history has entered a new chapter. Upholding the spirit of patriotism, self-reliance, determination, resilience and creativity in overcoming all hardships and challenges coupled with a keen grasping opportunities, Viet Nam has achieved significant progress and remarkable milestones over the past 50 years of national reunification and almost 40 years of renovation, industrialization, modernization and international integration. Emerging a war-devastated country and grappling with embargoes and blockades, Viet Nam has transcended from being one of the poorest nations to attaining milestones of immense historical significance, after 50 years of reunification and 40 years of Đổi mới (Reform).

             In the field of politics, Viet Nam has consistently maintained its stability, independence, sovereignty, national unity, territorial integrity and socialist orientation while strongly promoting the people’s right to mastery. The socialist rule-of-law state of Viet Nam – governed by the principles “of the people, by the people and for the people” - under the leadership of the Communist Party, has been progressively improved under the oversight of the people. Grassroots democracy has been strengthened through adherence to key principles: “the people know, the people discuss, the people do, the people inspect, the people supervise, and the people benefit”. The fight against corruption, wastefulness and adverse practices has been and continues to be resolutely strengthened by the Party and the State, thereby consolidating the people’s trust in the Party’s leadership role. Administrative reform has been strongly implemented and seamlessly integrated with breakthroughs in science and technology development, innovation and digital transformation. These concerted efforts has culminated in an increasingly modernized, efficient, and stable public administrative framework that fosters investment and development.

             In the field of development, Viet Nam has joined the group of middle-income countries, aiming to achieve upper middle-income status by 2030 and high-income status by 2045. Viet Nam’s economic growth rate in 2024 reached 7.09%, among the highest in the region and the world. Its GDP in 2024 reached 476 billion USD, with a per capita GDP of 4,700 USD, ranking 32nd globally and 4th in ASEAN, representing a remarkable 58.75-fold increase compared to 1976, when per capita income was a mere $80 USD following the cessation of war. Viet Nam’s national brand value in 2024 reached 507 billion USD, ranking 32 out of 193 countries in the world. By 2024, the multidimensional poverty rate was estimated at only 4.06% (compared to a staggering 75% in 1975). Social security is guaranteed, living standards continue to be improved. The average life expectancy of Vietnamese people increased from 62 years in 1990 to about 74.7 years in 2025. Viet Nam Human Development Index (HDI) is classified in the high-medium global group. The happiness index according to the United Nations ranking in 2025 improved by 8 positions from the previous year, securing the 46th spot out of 143 countries—a notable ascent from its ranking of 83rd in 2020. The Party and State of Viet Nam are striving to address housing inadequacies aiming to “eliminate temporary and dilapidated houses” by 2025. Starting in 2025, the Party and State of Viet Nam will exempt all tuition fees for students from primary to high school (12/12) and aim to achieve free healthcare by 2030 - demonstrating the Party and State's firm dedication to elevating the quality of life for all citizens.

          In terms of foreign affairs, alongside its economic reform, Viet Nam has been consistently pursuing a foreign policy of independence, self-reliance, mutilateralism and diversification, peace, friendship, cooperation and mutually beneficial development on the basis of the fundamental principles of the United Nations Charter and international law. The nation’s international integration has evolved with increasing depth and efficacy, yielding many important accomplishments of strategic and long-term significance, thereby inevitably enhance the country’s statute, capabilities, potential and global standing.

          To date, Viet Nam has established diplomatic relations with 194 countries and territories, including 12 comprehensive strategic partnerships, 9 strategic partnerships and 14 comprehensive partnerships. Viet Nam has established either a comprehensive strategic partnership or a strategic partnership with all 05 permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. The country has also expanded economic and trade relations with 230 countries and territories, and maintains relations with 245 political parties in 111 countries. Viet Nam is an active and responsible member of more than 70 important international organizations and forums, such as the United Nations, ASEAN, APEC, ASEM, the WTO and others. Regarding people-to-people relations, the Viet Nam Fatherland Front and its member organizations - including the Viet Nam Union of Friendship Organizations - have established relations with thousands of people’s organizations and non-governmental organizations around the world.

          Viet Nam’s current achievements stand as evidence of the success of the Đổi mới (Renovation) reforms and the correctness of the socialist-oriented development path embraced by the Party, the State and the people of Viet Nam.

          Comrades and Friends,

5. The world has undergone rapid, complex and unpredictable transformations. Strategic and geopolitical competition among major powers is becoming increasingly intense, with a rising trend of power politics and the use of force in international relations; territorial and sovereignty disputes, military conflicts and arms race are becoming more complicated, while terrorism, ethnic and religious extremism, populism and protectionism are emerging as more pressing issues. The trends of peace, cooperation, and development are facing enormous challenges; international law and multilateral institutions are being undermined. Economic and financial instability, trade wars, tariffs and disruptions in supply chains, along with inflation, social injustice and increasing poverty are escalating in many parts of the world. Pandemics and extreme weather events caused by climate change are becoming more severe, and the ecological environment is being seriously destroyed, negatively impacting and threatening human life.

             Therefore, preventing conflicts and wars, building a world of peace, equitable and sustainable development have become urgent demands and the earnest aspirations of progressive humanity worldwide. As a nation that has endured immense sacrifices, suffering and losses through its struggle against foreign invasion, Viet Nam deeply cherish and steadfastly uphold the values of peace, the fundamental principles of the United Nations Charter and international law, including respect for independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity, non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries, non use of force or threat to use force in international relations and peaceful settlements of disputes based on international law.

6. We hope that you, who are present here today, along with friends from all around the world, will continue to uphold the noble spirit of international solidarity, supporting Viet Nam on its endeavors to protect, build and develop the country. Viet Nam still faces numerous challenges due to the aftermath of the war, including tens of thousands of Vietnamese soldiers still missing in action with their remains yet to be found and repatriated, thousands of square kilometers of land still contaminated with Agent Orange/dioxin and unexploded bombs and landmines, and thousands of people, many of them are children, suffer from the long-term effects of chemical agents. We sincerely hope that international friends, especially our friends in the United States, will continue to stand by the Party, the State, and the people of Viet Nam to work together in overcoming and addressing the consequences of war, in the spirit of putting the past behind us and strive toward the future.

7. With its consistent stance as a friend, a reliable partner and a responsible member of the international community, Viet Nam remains steadfast in its goal of peace, national independence, democracy and social progress. We are committed to working with other countries to uphold an environment of peace, friendship cooperation and development in the region and the world.

             Once again, on behalf of leaders of the Party, the State and the people of Viet Nam, I would like to express my sincere thanks for the warm affection, solidarity and invaluable support that you have shown us over the years. We deeply trust in and cherish your continued companionship and support for the Vietnamese people’s current cause of national development and defense.

I wish all the delegates good health, happiness, success and many memorable experiences about our country and people of Viet Nam.

Thank you very much./.

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

Remarks by John McAuliff on behalf of the VPCC Delegation

at Fatherland Front meeting April 30, 2025

The anniversary we celebrate has special meaning for Americans and Vietnamese.  Our initial relationship could not have been more positive in 1945 as the US Office of Strategic Services provided military support to Viet Minh forces in Tan Trao led by Ho Chi Minh and Võ Nguyên Giáp.

The pressures of emerging cold war politics led the US government to a tragic course of first supporting and then replacing the French colonial role in Indochina.  How many million lives were lost and opportunities for economic development were squandered because of American historical and cultural ignorance and arrogance?

During the next thirty years the people of Viet Nam and the US paid an increasingly horrific and disproportionate cost.

The first stages of US intervention were barely noticed in public opinion and government.  The path accelerated with sabotage of the Geneva Agreement, most notably refusal to implement reunification elections in 1954.  As military advisers and supplies of weapons grew into direct combat, a military draft and growing casualties,  US citizens took notice.  Symbolic vigils by traditional pacifists expanded into teach-ins on university campuses, a draft counseling and resistance movement, increasingly massive peace demonstrations, a nationwide Moratorium, tax resistance, symbolic sabotage of draft boards and large scale civil disobedience. 

Civilian activists were energized by antiwar veterans and gave significant support to opposition within the military.  African Americans not only provided the inspirational model of the civil rights movement but moral leadership uniting domestic and international concerns.

After the Paris Agreement brought release of POWs and the end of US combat and bombing of the north, the antiwar movement diminished in size but focused effectively on pressuring the US Congress to restrict further US intervention and material support for the Saigon government, undermining its morale and military capability.  A powerful motivator for activists was exposure of the brutal tiger cages at Con Dao that we just visited and repression of the Paris mandated role of the Third Force.

When the war ended fifty years ago, a majority of Americans celebrated the end to the bloodshed and favored humanitarian assistance.  Official opinion was more negative.  The rawness of feelings and distrust led to missed opportunities for normal relations on both sides in the late 1970s.  US public opinion soured because of postwar problems in Viet Nam and illusions about China.

However, sympathetic sectors of peace oriented religious organizations and remnants of the secular antiwar movement advocated for normal relations beginning with Viet Nam’s membership in the United Nations.  A rice shipment was provided by the Friendshipment coalition and individual organizations established their own humanitarian programs in collaboration with the Viet Nam Union of Friendship organizations.

Thanks to Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach and General John Vessey a crucial diplomatic pathway was opened through officially endorsed private humanitarian assistance.  During the decade before normalization of relations, a growing number of US NGOs, veterans groups, educational exchange institutions and businesses built a network of relations with Vietnamese mass organizations and government ministries.  They also pressured and worked with members the US Congress and several Administrations to end the embargo and establish diplomatic relations.

Many US ambassadors have acknowledged that US government credibility with the Vietnamese people was built on the moral foundation of activists who opposed the war and non-governmental organizations and veterans groups that addressed the humanitarian problems of its legacies, including Agent Orange, land mines and unexploded ordnance.

In the thirty years since normal relations, we have seen the flowering of bilateral trade due to economic reforms created by Doi Moi, dramatically expanded educational exchange and creation of a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.  Both countries are determined that neighboring waters should be a zone of peace, mutual respect and free transit. 

We had begun to believe that the catalytic role of people to people engagement had been supplanted by deep and enduring national ties.  Then we witnessed the Trump Administration’s butchery of USAID and the US Institute of Peace, including war legacy projects in Viet Nam, a block on US embassy participation in 50th anniversary events and threats of punishing irrational tariffs.   I hope and believe this is a short term aberration.  In any case it has illustrated that the role of friendship and mutual support has not ended.