Showing posts with label Vietnam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vietnam. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 11, 2025

Wednesday, June 11, 1975. North Sea Oil. Reeducation. Gas Tax Rejection. MKUltra.

The United Kingdom became an oil producing nation as the first oil was produced in the North Sea's Argyll field.

The U.S House of Representatives voted 209 to 187 to reject President Ford's proposal for a .23 per gallon federal fuel tax Ford saw as a way of ending US dependency on imported oil by 1985.

Alice Olson, the widow of Frank Olson, learned for the first time that her husband had been the subject of secret CIA experiments with the hallucinogenic drug LSD as part of the illegal clandestine program MKUltra.  Olson had leaped to his death in 1953.  The CIA was hoping to find drugs that could be used for interrogation purposes.

Vietnam sent an order to all "puppet soldiers" of  Army of the Republic of Vietnam to attend three days of "re-education" (hoc tap), and for former officers to bring supplies for one month of training.  Most officers who reported were held for more than one month.

Last edition:

Tuesday, June 10, 1975. Refugees.

    Sunday, June 8, 2025

    Sunday, June 8, 1978. Võ Văn Ba.

    Major South Vietnamese spy, Võ Văn Ba, who had infiltrated the North Vietnamese and who had served, in that capacity, as the Communist Party secretary for Phu Kuong district, Tây Ninh province with responsibility for recruiting members of the Cao Dai religious sect, committed suicide in captivity.

    Last edition:

    Tuesday, June 3, 1975. New rules for boys and girls.

    Tuesday, May 27, 2025

    Sunday, May 27, 1900. The Vietnamese Martyrs.

    Pope Leo XIII beatified sixty-four Vietnamese Martyrs. The Vietnamese Martyrs, including 53 additional individuals later beatified, were canonized on June 19, 1988.

    Last edition:

    Saturday, May 26, 1900. Battle of Palonegro.

    Friday, May 23, 2025

    Friday, May 23, 1975. Leaving Laos.

    Most American employees of the U.S Embassy in Laos were ordered to evacuate.

    The U.S. has an embassy in Laos presently.  In fact, the countries never severed diplomatic relations and normalized them in 1992.

    The Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1975 was signed into law by President Ford. The act provided for resettlement of South Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees into the United States. In 1975 it would be amended to include include refugees from Laos.

    A military government was appointed to govern Lebanon.

    Former President of the Teamsters Union Dave Beck was pardoned by President Ford.

    Last edition:

    Thursday, May 15, 1975. The Raid on Koh Tang.

    Sunday, May 18, 2025

    A Sunday Morning look at the Vietnamese Diaspora.

     


    This is probably a coincidence.  This particular church has an associate pastor who is from Vietnam.  Indeed, he's the second Vietnamese priest to serve in the parish.  But this particular Mass comes up just after the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War.

    Prior to the Vietnam War, very view Vietnamese lived anywhere other than Vietnam.  Some lived in France, due to the French colonial association with the country.  When the French Indochinese War ended, some Vietnamese in fact relocated to France, with a small number of actually being Vietnamese who were in the French armed forces.  It wasn't a large number, however, like it would come to be with Algerians.

    The end of the Vietnam War however was different.

    Many Vietnamese fled because they legitimately feared Communism, putting the lie to the often stated proposition that the South Vietnamese didn't really care how the war ended.  Thousands did, and of those who did, most didn't make it out of Vietnam.

    Over 2,000,000 Vietnamese now live in the US, with 60% of those having been born in Vietnam.  37% of them report themselves as being Buddhist, 36%  Christian and 23% aren’t affiliated with any religion. Vietnamese Americans are more than three times as likely as Asian Americans overall to identify as Buddhist (37% vs. 11%), but with Buddhism being the "native" religion of the country in American eyes, that numbers if surprisingly low.

    Indeed, it gives some credibility to Dr. Geoffrey Shaw's assertion in his biography of murdered South Vietnamese President Ngô Đình Diệm that at the time of the his assassination Buddhism was in significant decline.

    However it would also reflect that the American understanding isn't really all that correct.  While some regard Christianity as "introduced", the fact is that Buddhism is as a well, with it being Indian in origin.  Vietnam also has a folk religion which shares many common elements of other Asian "folk" religions, including devotion to ancestors.

    Today in Vietnam Buddhists make a 13.3% of the total population, and Christians a declared 7.6% with 6.6% being Catholic.  Hoahao Buddhists  make up 1.4%, Caodaism followers 1% and followers of other religions including Hinduism, Islam, and the Baháʼí Faith, representing less than 0.2% of the population. Folk religion has experienced a revival since the 1980s, and it's widely believed that the official 7.6% of the population being Christian is in error, and actually over 10% of the population is Catholic.  The Catholic faith in Vietnam is so vibrant that it now supplies Priests to the United States, as the nation has a surplus of Priests itself.  Looked at this way, Buddhists and Christians are overrepresented in the United States in comparison to Vietnam, but it might actually present a more accurate make up of the Vietnamese religious makeup.

    Or perhaps not.  One of the groups that most feared a Communist takeover in Vietnam were Catholics, and for good reasons.  Catholicism has always been antithetical to Communism and in many instances it was credited with being the only effective force on the Globe opposing it. Elsewhere in the same general region of the world, some credibly credit the CAtholic  Church for preventing mid 20th Century Australia from falling into Communism, something the far left in that country still strongly resents.  Catholics were well represented in the South Vietnamese government and military, and interestingly some of the leaders of its military converted to teh Faith during the war or even after it.  

    Buddhism was introduced to Vietnam in the 2nd or 3d centuries BC, so its presence there is very old.  Christianity in Vietnam is mostly the story of Catholicism there, and was introduced by the Portuguese, not the French as is so commonly assumed.  Vietnam was never part of the Portuguese Empire, but its influence was very long, and very significant. The Vietnamese alphabet was developed by the Portuguese.

    The Communist Vietnamese government has always been  hostile to religion in general and openly repressive against some. Catholic have notably been oppressed, and the native Cao Đài religion, which originated as late as 1926, was oppressed by both the Republic of Vietnam and Communist Vietnam.

    France did of course have all sorts of influences on Vietnam due to its conquest of Indochina which commenced in 1858 and ran to 1885.  The very first Vietnamese refugees I met in the US spoke French as well and their native language, reflecting that they had been educated during the French colonial period. Today that number has dropped way off, with their being no need for French in daily life.  A much higher percentage of Vietnamese in Vietnam speak English today than French.  One of the very first refugees I met, who had been an engineer in  Vietnam, but who worked as a city mechanic in the US, struggled with English, but spoke French fluently.

    At one time the Vietnamese Diaspora retained a close cultural connection with the defeated Republic of Vietnam and in some places, they still do.  Republic of Vietnam flags were prominent in some locations this past month in areas with large Vietnamese populations and they were displayed during commemorations of the fall of Saigon.  However, there are a not insignificant number of Vietnamese now who are post war immigrants, and whose association is not as strong or there at all.  The Republic of Vietnam itself is officially detested in Vietnam, and often open views about the Republic reflect the same.

    Vietnamese in the US often express the hope that someday the separated people can be united somehow, something that's common for diaspora people.  But it won't come to be so.  As time moves on, the Vietnamese in the US will become more and more American, like Italian Americans are and Irish Americans, and less Vietnamese.  Part of that will occur through intermarriage, which is occuring in the US but which interestingly was not a common occurrence during the French occupation of Vietnam or the Vietnam War, with the cultural differences at the time simply being to vast for it to arise frequently.

    Tuesday, May 6, 2025

    Tuesday, May 6, 1975. Authoritarian victims.



    Malaysian Foreign Minister Tan Sri Mohammad Ghazali Shafie delivered a scathing critique of the Domino Theory evcen as it was proving itself correct.

    A convoy of French nationals and Khmer Muslims, who had sought refuge at the French Embassy in Phnom Penh, crossed the border into Thailand. 

    Operation Babylift concluded.

    Hungarian Cardinal József Mindszenty, an unyielding opponent of fascism and communism, died in exile.

    Last edition:

    Sunday, May 4, 2025

    Saturday, May 3, 2025

    Saturday, May 3, 1975. End of the Cultural Revolution.

    Chinese Communist Party, Chairman Mao Zedong spoke out against the Cultural Revolution and the Gang of Four in his last speech to the Politburo.

    All former South Vietnamese military personnel and government officials were ordered to register with the new government.  This was the first step to sending them to reeducation camps.

    The city of Jerusalem was hit by missiles for the first time, after two Czechoslovakian made Katyusha rockets struck 500 meters from the Knesset parliament building.  They were fired by Arab guerillas.

    New edition:

    Friday, May 2, 1975. Hold outs.

    Thursday, May 1, 2025

    Escape From Saigon.

     Escape from Saigon.

    Thứ Năm, ngày 1 tháng 5 năm 1975. Chiến tranh Việt Nam kết thúc.* Thursday, May 1, 1975. The conclusion of the Vietnam War. Jeudi 1er mai 1975. Fin de la guerre du Vietnam.

    ARVN troops in Cần Thơ  surrendered to the VC following the suicide of Gen. Nguyễn Khoa Nam, age 48, Major General of IV Corps in Cần Thơ.  This effectively brought organized resistance to the VC and NVA almost to an end after twenty years of combat.  The country remains, of course, under the regime that won the war.

    Quân VNCH ở Cần Thơ đầu hàng VC sau cái chết của Tướng Nguyễn Khoa Nam, 48 tuổi, Thiếu tướng Quân đoàn IV ở Cần Thơ.  Điều này đã khiến cho sự kháng cự có tổ chức chống lại VC và Bắc Việt gần như chấm dứt một cách hiệu quả sau hai mươi năm chiến đấu.  Tất nhiên, đất nước vẫn nằm dưới chế độ đã thắng trong chiến tranh.

    Les troupes de l'ARVN à Cần Thơ se sont rendues au VC suite au suicide du général Nguyễn Khoa Nam, 48 ans, major général du IVe Corps à Cần Thơ.  Cela a effectivement mis fin à la résistance organisée au VC et à la NVA après vingt ans de combat.  Le pays reste bien entendu sous le régime qui a gagné la guerre.


    By this point, I'd quit tracking the war on my National Geographic map of Vietnam.  There came to be no point.

    Khmer Rouge forces landed on Phú Quốc which was claimed by Cambodia but controlled by South Vietnam.  It was also the location of a large South Vietnamese POW camp.

    Hank Aaron broke the career record for RBIs.

    Thursday, May 1, 2025

    The New York Stock Exchange dropped the requirement of a fixed commission for stock transactions following pressure to do so from the SEC. 

    Footnotes:

    *Google Translate text.  I don't speak Vietnamese.

    Last edition:

    Wednesday, April 30, 1975. The Fall of Saigon.

    Friday, April 25, 2025

    Friday April 25, 1975. White Christmas.

    The U.S. Embassy in Saigon decided that to signal "Evacuation Day" for  Americans, the Defense Attaché Office (DAO) radio station would broadcast the phrase "the temperature is 105 degrees and rising" followed by playing Bing Crosby's recording of the song "White Christmas".

    The last Australians, including their ambassador, were evacuated by the RAAF.

    91.7% of eligible Portuguese voters turned out for the first multiparty election in the country in nearly fifty years.  The Socialist Party won 116 of the 250 seats, Social Democrats won 81 and the Portuguese Communist Party 30 seats.

    There had been real fears the Communist Party would win.

    The Liga Comunista 23 de Septiembre raided a branch of the Banco de Comercio at Villa Coapa, Mexico City, killing six police who were guarding the bank.  They killed two more policemen and two bystanders in their escape.

    Last edition

    Thursday, April 24, 1975. Wings of Freedom

    Thursday, April 24, 2025

    Thursday, April 24, 1975. Wings of Freedom

    The last Pan Am flight out of South Vietnam occured.

    Episode 4: Evacuation of Saigon, Wings of Freedom Mission

    Six terrorists of the Baader-Meinhof Gang (the "Red Army Faction") seized the West German embassy in Sweden.  They took eleven hostages and demanded the release of Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, which the German government refused. They after killed two of the hostages before a bomb they took in the embassy accidentally exploded, allowing the hostages to escape and fatally injuring two of the terrorists.

    The Swedish army took the rest prisoner.

    The change in policy on negotiations with terrorists marked the beginning of the decline of domestic terrorism directed at West Germany.

    Colorado Attorney General Joyce Murdoch invalidated all six marriage licenses for same-sex marriages that had been issued by Boulder County Clerk Clela Rorex.

    Last edition:

    Wednesday, April 23, 1975. Ford addresses Vietnam at Tulane.

    Saturday, April 19, 2025

    Saturday, April 19, 1975. The ARVN withdraws from Xuân Lộc.

    The ARVN withdrew from Xuân Lộc.

    The Khmer Rouge declared that all former regime employees, including soldiers, needed to register with the new government.

    A largescale military wedding took place involving members of the ROK SWC 9th Brigade.  This is linked directly to Reddit:


    More photos of it can be found here:  Wedding.

    Note the uniforms heavily impacted by the Vietnam War, which South Korea participated in.

    Last edition:

    Friday, April 18, 1975. Executing the radicals.

    Friday, April 18, 2025

    Friday, April 18, 1975. Executing the radicals.

    Hang Thun Hak, 48 year old former radical Socialist Prime Minister of Cambodia was executed by the Khmer Rouge.  He'd been in the far left himself and had contacts with the Khmer Rouge, none of which saved him, with execution of left wing radicals actually being common amongst Communist.

    The NVA took Phan Thiết.

    Van McCoy released The Hustle.

    ZZ Top released Fandango!

    Last edition:

    Thursday, April 17, 1975. The fall of Phnom Penh.

    Thursday, April 17, 2025

    Thursday, April 17, 1975. The fall of Phnom Penh.

    Khmer Rouge cadres marched into Phnom Penh, forced all residents out of their homes, marched them into the countryside, and began mass murders.


    Around 2,000,000 Cambodians would die during the Cambodian genocide which only ended when the Vietnamese Army conquered Cambodia during the Cambodian Vietnamese War.

    A CIA spy inside the North Vietnamese government inner circle informed the US Embassy in Saigon that the North would not negotiated, which was pretty obvious by this point anyway.

    The last flight of the RAAF out of Vietnam took place, thereby taking a total of 270 Vietnamese civilians to Thailand.

    Last edition:

    Wednesday, April 16, 1975. Ford denounces Congress.