When the war was over
Personal experiences
Watch the video of the complete zoom by clicking here https://youtu.be/0u7Ae24LLzk
John McAuliff will show slides from his trip to Hanoi for the American Friends Service Committee and the Indochina Peace Campaign
Nayan Chanda, former editor, Far Eastern Economic Review, will speak of his experience in Saigon.
Claudia Krich, American Friends Service Committee, also will speak about Saigon
Nayan Chanda, is
Associate Professor of International Relations at Ashoka University.
He began his
career as a lecturer in History at North Bengal University and later conducted
research on contemporary Indochina in Jadavpur University and University of
Paris. His deepening interest in contemporary history led him to wartime Saigon
as the bureau chief of the Hong Kong-based magazine the Far Eastern Economic
Review and report on the fall of Saigon in 1975. After two decades as its
correspondent based in Hong Kong and Washington DC he was appointed editor of
the magazine - the only Asian editor in its half century.
Prior to his
editorship of the magazine Chanda was a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace in Washington DC and also served as editor of the Asian
Wall Street Journal Weekly. In 2001
Chanda was appointed Director of Publications at the Yale Center
for the Study of Globalization at Yale
University. In 2002 he founded YaleGlobal Online and edited the online journal
until 2015.
Chanda is the
author of Bound Together: How Traders, Preachers, Adventurers and Warriors
Shaped Globalization (Yale ,2007)
and Brother Enemy: the War After the
War (Harcourt, 1986). Bound Together has been translated in eight languages. Chanda has
co-edited and contributed chapters to
over a dozen books including Encyclopedia of Global Studies (2012). His most
recent co-authored publication is The Future of East Asia
(Palgrave/Macmillan, 2018). Recently Chanda has published his first children's
book Around the World With a Chilli, (Pratham Books, 2016).
He has been
published in the New York Times, Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the
Diplomat and other international newspapers. He writes regular columns for Times of India, and Global Asia. He is a founding member of the editorial
board of Global Asia and New Global
Studies journal and of the Sage Encyclopedia of Global Studies. He has served
as a member of the Abe Fellowship
Committee and Shorenstein award committee.
Chanda did his BA
(Hons in History) from Presidency College, Kolkata and obtained a First Class
Master's degree in History from Jadavpur University, winning the University
Gold Medal. Nayan Chanda is the winner of the 2005 Shorenstein Award for
Journalism presented for lifetime achievement.
From March of 1973 to July of 1975, Claudia Krich and her husband Keith Brinton, were co-directors of the American Friends Service Committee humanitarian program in Viet Nam. Keith had also been part of the program there from 1966 to 1970. Their work included running a large civilian physical rehabilitation center in Quang Ngai, in central Viet Nam, researching and reporting on the war and wartime culture in Viet Nam, and hosting visiting dignitaries and journalists. The program also maintained an office in Saigon, with two representatives there. Claudia and the team left Quang Ngai in March, 1975, and were witnesses to the change of government in Saigon at the end of April. After returning from Viet Nam on July 4, 1975, Claudia and Keith went on a national speaking tour for the AFSC. She later worked for some months at the AFSC main office in Philadelphia. She has returned to Viet Nam twice, and has stayed in contact with Vietnamese and American friends there.
Claudia had been active in AFSC activities since high school. She was chosen by AFSC to participate in a two month international work camp in Sweden in 1968. In 1972 she again represented AFSC as the co-director of another summer work camp, in New Bedford, Massachusetts. There she met the other co-director, Keith Brinton, whom she married.
Claudia majored in Spanish Literature at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and also studied at the University of Mexico in Mexico City, at the University of Madrid in Spain, at the Sorbonne in Paris, and at the University of New Hampshire at Durham. She was a bilingual teacher and created and directed a large elementary school chorus. Claudia and Keith currently live in Davis, California. They have three daughters and four grandchildren. She has written a book based on the months around April 30 in Saigon, and it is in the process of publication with an editor at a major publishing house.
John McAuliff is the executive director of the Fund for
Reconciliation and Development and coordinator of the Vietnam Peace
Commemoration Committee. As a student at Carleton College, he organized
support for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and participation in
the Mississippi Summer Project of 1964. After serving in the Peace Corps
in Peru, he became the first President of the Committee of Returned Volunteers,
leading its participation in the Vietnam anti-war movement, including the
demonstration at the Chicago Democratic Convention. He represented CRV in
national anti-war coalitions and the U.S coalition at international conferences
in Sweden. For ten years he directed the Indochina Program in the Peace
Education Division of the American Friends Service Committee, traveling on its
behalf to Hanoi with a delegation that arrived on April 30, 1975, the last day
of the war. In 1985 he founded the Fund for Reconciliation and
Development to continue his AFSC work for normalization of relations with
Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. After that was accomplished in 1995, he
refocused most of his work on a similar goal with Cuba. He was
"detained" at the March on the Pentagon and the Mayday civil
disobedience action and while demonstrating against George Wallace during his
Presidential campaign in New York.
Resources
Brother Enemy: The War After the War
by Nayan Chanda
Reaching the other side: The journal of an American who stayed to witness Vietnam's postwar transition
by Earl Martin
The Last Helicopter
by Jim Laurie
Voice of Vietnam Announcing the End of the War, broadcast from Havana
https://shortwavearchive.com/archive/voice-of-vietnam-announcing-the-fall-of-saigon-april-30-1975
Edited Chat from the Webinar
09:36:57 From John McAuliff to Michael S Goodman(Direct Message) : did you find last night interesting?
09:59:02 From Michael S Goodman to John McAuliff(Direct Message) : Good morning! yes, I enjoyed it very much. I have memories of a lot of those events, even though I was only 16 at the time!
10:01:10 From Alex Knopp to John McAuliff(Direct Message) : Nice job last night on Mayday . Alex
10:06:31 From Michael S Goodman to Everyone : Actually, shortwave was fairly popular at the time.
10:09:03 From Tom Gardner to Everyone : Folks might be interested in the conference on the Ellsberg papers going on at UMass Amherst today and tomorrow, organized by Chris Appy. Tomorrow at 1:30 is a conversation between Ellsberg and Edward Snowden, moderated by Amy Goodman. Free and open to all. Registration required. https://www.umass.edu/ellsberg/conference/schedule/
10:15:03 From Michael S Goodman to Everyone : They weren't expecting a complete victory until several months later.
10:22:56 From Michael S Goodman to Everyone : Was there any mention of the circumstances surrounding the first Mayday?
10:28:46 From Gavin Frome to John McAuliff(Direct Message) : Those are incredible slides! I hope you will donate a copy to an archive somewhere.
10:52:08 From Michael S Goodman to Everyone : That's right. Bill Clinton was there in 1995.
10:53:26 From Tom Gardner to Everyone : The Vietnamese were so sophisticated in diplomacy.
11:01:25 From Michael S Goodman to Everyone : Working with the AFSC, weren't you concerned about handling guns and weapons?
11:10:18 From Michael S Goodman to Everyone : "arrondissement" - very colonial term !
11:13:32 From Alex Knopp to Everyone : Thanks for this fascinating tour of the events of 1975! Regards, Alex Knopp
11:13:36 From Claudia Krich Krich to Everyone : We have no guns, no arms, and never allowed weapons into our rehab center. In Saigon we accepted guns and piled them and helped move them to safety.
11:13:45 From Claudia Krich Krich to Everyone : Sorry- I meant “had”
11:14:53 From Claudia Krich Krich to Everyone : We did that only on the first day, on April 29th. (sic 30th)
11:15:48 From Michael S Goodman to Everyone : Interesting the level of hostility that existed between Vietnam and China!
11:15:51 From Gavin Frome to John McAuliff(Direct Message) : How long did the speakers stay in country? What were the forces that led them to depart?
11:16:08 From Laurent Gilbert to John McAuliff(Direct Message) : Will there be further trips to Vietnam where other like us could join in?
11:17:01 From Laurent Gilbert to John McAuliff(Direct Message) : How do we get your newsletter?
11:17:51 From Gavin Frome to Everyone : How long did the speakers stay in country? What were the forces that led them to depart?
11:19:39 From Michael S Goodman to Everyone : The ken Burns "documentary" was awful.
11:21:37 From Gwendolyn Simmons to John McAuliff(Direct Message) : I just tried to register for the U Mass conference and was unable to register!
11:22:27 From Tom Gardner to Everyone : I think UMASS is also live streaming it on You Tube.
11:23:17 From Tom Gardner to Everyone : “Truth, Dissent and the Legacy of Daniel Ellsberg” is the title if you search for it.
11:23:57 From Claudia Krich Krich to Everyone : Gavin——we left because we really had nothing to do. We had successfully turned over our rehab center to the new government, and we were essentially unemployed, and were running out of money.
11:33:18 From Gwendolyn Simmons to Everyone : I so enjoyed everyone’s presentation and photos. Thank you so much. I hope I can travel to Vietnam on your next trip. I went on an AFSC Delegation led by Sophie and Paul Quinn Judge. we were in the Region for 6 weeks and traveled by road from North to South. We were the first Americans to enter Cambodia after the fall of Pol Pot. I want to know how the Unified Vietnamese government carried out the peace. What have you who have visited seen over the years! Zoharah
11:35:55 From Michael S Goodman to Everyone : ...and the US always refused to accept the legitimacy of the government installed by the Vietnamese after Pol Pot.
11:38:27 From Tom Gardner to Everyone : Wow, Zoharah, I didn’t know (or forgot) that you were on that trip. Would love to hear more sometime. My only trips were 2009 and 2012. On the 2012 trip when I brought students we had a warm greeting from Mme. Nguen Thi Binh and the Friendship Committee. We focused on the effects of Agent Orange on that trip.
11:39:12 From Bonnie Prest Thal to Everyone : Excellent and so informative to someone less informed. Thank you and bless you. Peace.
11:39:40 From Michael S Goodman to Everyone : OFAC doesn't like to issue those licenses
11:45:25 From Claudia Krich Krich to Everyone : Hi Jim!
11:45:37 From Merriam Ansara to Everyone : Michael - they do issue those licenses and have to every other telecommunications platform imaginable: facebook, google, WhatsApp, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, you name it. It would be good if someone could investigate why it is that Zoom does not have a license, whether their decision or the US government's.
11:46:17 From Michael S Goodman to Everyone : Probably the Government's. Do you still work at RHC?
11:47:02 From Merriam Ansara to Everyone : As most of you likely know, the owner of Zoom is a Chinese engineer who immigrated to the United States and first worked at Cisco. When they did not fund his idea for Zoom, he started his own company. There is no evidence that he is particularly political. AND NO Michael, I do not think it is the US government -- why would they refuse that license and grant all of the others.
11:47:26 From Merriam Ansara to Everyone : Gavin, of course. merri.ansara@gmail.com
On 30 April 1975 I was in our VVAW Connecticut office on the second floor Anexx of the Community Church on the Yale campus. I was elected state coordinator in 1973. Four of us VVAW members decided to go to a nearby corner bar to celibrate the end of the war when noted psychiatrist Dr. Robert Jay Lifton breased into the office and agreed to go with us as he had some questions for us.We passed #9 a store front School and the only evidence of radical political activity at Yale. entered the bar and ordered drinks and dr. Lifton turned to me and asked, "How do you feel now that the Vietnam war is over." I was taken aback because I hadn't thought about it/ So off the top of my head I replied, " I don't think the war will ever end." And to this day 50 years later the Vietnam War is never far from my consciencness everyday.
ReplyDeleteI should have mentioned, when Claudia read my note to her about my visit to the AFSC project in Quang Ngai, that they were really doing wonderful work there. They made prostheses for people who had lost limbs. It was really very impressive.
ReplyDelete