The “Other” Peace Movement:
The Third Force Opposition in
South Vietnam
Friday, April 4, 10 a.m. ET
Register by clicking here
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_HeDsItINS6eIFiKKOOyKQQ
- Le Anh Tu Packard moderator
- Sophie Quinn-Judge author; former professor, Temple University; American Friends Service Committee Vietnam staff
- An Thuy Nguyen historian of U.S. foreign relations, Vietnam, women, and labor, The University of Maine
- Thi Lien Claire Tran Professor, Paris Cité University, History of Southeast Asia
On January 27, 1973, representatives of North Vietnam, South Vietnam, the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam (PRG, known in the West as “Việt Cộng”), and the United States met in Paris to sign the “Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam.” The Paris Peace Accords – as it was called – mandated U.S. troops’ withdrawal, North Vietnam’s release of American prisoners of war, and an eventual unification of Vietnam. Notably, Article 12 of the Accords stipulated the establishment of a National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord (NCNRC) to oversee the ceasefire and organize a general election to determine a representative government for South Vietnam.
The NCNRC would consist of three equal segments: the Government of Vietnam (GVN, or the First Force), the communist-led PRG (successor of the National Liberation Front, or the Second Force), and the ostensibly “neutralist” Third Force (Lực Lượng Thứ Ba), which also became known as the Third Segment or the Third Component (Thành Phần Thứ Ba) after 1973. This informal Third Force coalition included a range of political, religious, and civic organizations and movements that sought peace through nonviolent nationalism and political neutralism. While much has been written about the importance of the American peace movement, little is known about the “other” peace movement that at once tore apart and invigorated South Vietnamese cities.
This webinar sheds light on the Third Force’s contribution to ending the war in Vietnam.
Dr. Sophie Quinn-Judge will discuss the early formation of proto-Third Force groups in the First Republic of Vietnam and the inter-republic years.
Dr. An Thuy Nguyen will give an overview of the Third Force opposition in the Second Republic between the 1968 Tết Offensive and the 1973 Paris Peace Accords.
Dr. Thi Lien Claire Tran will offer a closer look at the
progressive Catholics who constituted one of the most important and active
blocs within the Third Force, especially in the last years of the war.
An Thuy Nguyen is a historian of U.S. foreign relations, Vietnam, women, and labor. She currently teaches at The University of Maine’s Bureau of Labor of Education. She was the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations’ Marilyn B. Young Dissertation Fellow in 2020-2021 and received her Ph.D. from UMaine. Her historical research focuses on foreign policies, democratic governance, and the political activism of non-state actors. She has authored various book reviews, book chapters, and articles on the Vietnam War. She is currently working on a book about the Vietnamese Third Force’s and the Nixon Doctrine in Asia, in addition to her other projects in labor education and history.
After the war ended, Tu went on to study economics at Bryn Mawr College and Columbia University. She worked for Wharton Econometrics, Chase Econometrics, and the WEFA Group. In the early 1990s Tu provided consulting services to the United Nations, the World Bank, the Ford Foundation and academic institutions on capacity building projects and multi-country studies to study the effects of globalization. In 2005 she joined Economy.com (Moody’s Analytics) where she played a lead role in improving the baseline and scenario forecasting process, developed proprietary measures of sovereign risk and fiscal space, edited the flagship Precis Macro publication, and wrote articles on international economic issues. She retired from Moody’s Analytics in 2017 and participates in community efforts to support local biodiversity by providing free native seeds and native plants to residents.
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