In the Jaws of History

by Bùi Diễm, David Chanoff

This rare and vintage book is a perfect addition to any bibliophile's collection

Genres: History, Nonfiction, War

233 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1987

Reviews

[Stefania Dzhanamova · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book tells the story of Vietnam's struggle for independence as seen through the eyes of Bui Diem, the ambassador of South Vietnam to America from 1967 to 1972. It gives the reader an opportunity to observe what happened from the perspective of Saigon. While he was serving as the main link between the American government and that of South Vietnam, Bui Diem witnessed Tet, the invasion of Cambodia, the Easter Offensive, and the Paris peace talks. Before that, he saw the rise of Vietnamese nationalism, the war with the French, and its aftermath. He has a lot to tell.

The author begins with the story of his youth, which sounds like that of almost every young Vietnamese nationalist. The son and grandson of mandarins, he did well at school and then enrolled into Hanoi University, the only institution of higher learning that the French had bothered to establish in their colony, to study Mathematics – the two other options that he had considered, Law and Medicine, were out of the question because graduating with a law degree would have meant working for the hated French colonial system and the sight of hospital patients' suffering made him realize Medicine was not for him. It was at the university that he came in contact with college students who were members of nationalist organizations such as VNQDD, Dai Viet, and Viet Minh. The nationalist movement was past its peak in the forties. The Communists had started eliminating other competitors for the hearts of the people and destroyed this organizations by winning some members over and informing on others to the French. Vietnam's struggle for independence had become international as it involved France, Japan, which was supporting some nationalists, and China, which was helping Ho Chi Minh. Bui Diem chose to join the Dai Viet because it had a sizeable student following and because a friend had done so. Smart and clear-sighted, he soon realized that Dai Viet had no understanding of politics and economics beyond the idea that the government should be of the people, by the people, and for the people, and he found his role in it narrow and constricting. 

This changed abruptly when Emperor Bao Dai formed a national government and appointed Bui Diem's uncle, Tran Trong Kim, prime minister. Bui Diem was ordered by Dai Viet's leader to go to the capital, observe the new government, and be a link between Kim and Dai Viet. Such was the beginning of Bui Diem's political career. In Hue, he watched and learned from the mistakes of his uncle and others, who did not recognize on time that the Japanese, who were supporting their government, were losing the Second World War. This lack of foresight led to the eventual collapse of Bao Dai's regime and the rise of the Viet Minh. Bui Diem, his aunt, and their kids were forced to flee from Vietnam not long after his uncle and the former emperor had done so. An internal war had broken out between the Viet Minh and the nationalists, and the Communists were relentless in their attempts to eradicate the nationalist parties. Thousands of Vietnamese nationalists died when they tried but failed to hide underground or leave for China. Hong Kong, which Bui Diem managed to escape to, became the center of the Vietnamese nationalist community abroad. There he continued his political activity, returning to Vietnam in 1946 to clandestinely work for Dai Viet again only for the party's leader to disappear soon after. Forced into hiding by Viet Ming persecutors in a village near Hanoi, Bui Diem spent the year there, unsure what the future held for him and if Dai Viet still existed. By 1947, the Communists' had become too focused on fighting the French, and the conflict between them and the nationalists had subsided. Bui Diem started working as a Mathematics teacher and legitimized his status by joining the Vietminh cultural committee, which made him a small-scale propagandist for the Communists. He toured villages and extolled Ho Chi Minh's accomplishments, but he wanted a way out. 

He found it in Phat Diem, the Catholic zone, where he reunited with two of his college friends and joined a military faction supporting Ngo Dinh Diem. Convinced that Communism could not solve the political and economic problems of a small, underdeveloped country like Vietnam, he began to recruit and train cadres to oppose the Viet Minh. However, when Ngo Dinh Diem did rise to power after the war with the French ended and the Americans got involved, Bui Diem again found himself in the opposition. He thought of Ngo Dinh Diem's methods as repugnant and considered his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, to be "a truly Machiavellian character." He criticizes Diem's approach to eliminating political threats to his rule, which was no better than the Communists' terror. A referendum was held, and 98.2 percent voted for Ngo Dinh Diem. Bui Diem, who together with other nationalists had hoped for free elections, thought that if the Americans were actually planning to make South Vietnam democratic, as they claimed, Ngo Dinh "Diem was a strange figure around whom to try and build a democracy." 

Bui Diem's discussion of the National Liberation Front is interesting. When the NLF emerged as a new oppositionist organization in 1960, he immediately knew that it was established by the Communists and, according to him, so did others who had come down to Saigon from what had become North Vietnam. "The NLF had all the telltale marks of Ho Chi Minh's organizing genius," he writes. He and the refugees from the North were familiar with them. Even the name, Liberation Front, reminded him of the fronts with which Ho had tried to win the nationalists over in the forties. For the southerners, though, it was difficult to believe that the NLF was not a liberal, nationalistic organization but a tool of the Communists, and the northerners' attempts to warn them only caused frustration on both sides – the southerners treated these warnings as proof that the northerners were cynical and suspicious, while the northerners scoffed at the southerners' naivety.

Another notable thing – Bui Diem knew that the generals were planning a coup against Diem. Together with his close friend Quat, a prime minister candidate who had been sidelined by the Americans in favor of Ngo Dinh Diem, he was told to start planning the new government. All did not go as planned after the coup, though, when the military junta took over the government instead. For someone who was so enthusiastic to see Saigon get rid of Diem and Nhu, Bui Diem was also pretty quick to acknowledge that the generals were much more incompetent and their rule denied South Vietnam its last opportunity to become a democracy.  

If someone benefitted from the coup against Diem, it was America. According to Bui Diem, although the American government tried to hide its involvement in the coup, everyone in Saigon knew that they had been behind it, and the Americans were again recognized as friends of democracy. However, he observes, the negligent way in which they were dealing with the military junta in power soon undermined their good reputation. They were letting the generals stumble from one incompetence to another without giving them any advice, and at the same time they were being angrily impatient with them for having no clear political program. In December 1963, Robert S. McNamara walked into a conference with the junta, glared at them, and said, "O.K., which one of you here is the boss?", which greatly incensed the generals. Bui Diem saw this moment as a perfect instance of the Americans' tendency to antagonize their allies instead of tactfully but firmly using their influence over them to achieve good results. From then on, another coup followed, this time by General Nguyen Khanh, who thought of politics as an exciting game to play and was, not surprisingly, removed from power in 1965, and then it was finally Quat's turn. His administration witnessed the escalation of the Vietnam conflict.

Bui Diem argues that the Americanization of the war, seemingly an abrupt decision, had a long history. All the failures of the American diplomacy up to that moment had led to it. Although he underscores that the people in power in Saigon were the most responsible for what happened, he believes that America was not free from blame either. It watched civilian and military dictatorships rise and fall in South Vietnam without using its influence to stop the chaos. Then, in an effort to correct that chaos, it intervened on a massive military scale without seriously consulting its ally. Neither Quat and Bui Diem nor anyone else in the Saigon government had been let in on the American plan. They were simply asked to make a decision – to allow or not to allow America to intervene militarily – without any knowledge that would have helped them evaluate this proposal, Bui Diem explains. Similarly, when the American government realized that they were not winning, it abruptly began looking for ways to end the conflict, again withholding information from their ally and prioritizing quickly reaching an agreement with North Vietnam over defending South Vietnam's interests. Bui Diem witnessed it all, and he was understandably disappointed in America. "It seemed a strange and destructive way to conduct the work of an alliance," he writes.

IN THE JAWS OF HISTORY has many more interesting thoughts and observations. To mention them all is to write a review almost as long as Bui Diem's work, and I do not want to detract from other readers' enjoyment, so I will stop here. All that I would like to add is that he has told a great story of political machinations, diplomatic mistakes, and one country's struggle for independence. This book is an incredibly well-written history of modern Vietnam. Keep in mind, though, that its author was "in the jaws of history," and it requires some background knowledge of the period and the political and military figures involved.

[Michael Burnam-Fink · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bui Diem had a front row seat to some of the most important historical events of the Vietnam War. As ambassador to the United States from 1965-1972, he was South Vietnam's representative in Washington during the most intensive period of intervention. From 1972-1975 he served as a representative to the Paris peace talks and ambassador at-large. Always one of the top civilians in the military government of President Thieu, Bui Diem advocated for nationalist and constitutional policies to little avail.

Bui Diem was born and raised in Hanoi, in a family with a legacy of academic excellence in the Confucian tradition. An uncle, Trần Trọng Kim, wrote an influential history of Vietnam and briefly served as Prime Minister under the Emperor Bao Dai. Instead of Confucian classics, Bui Diem was educated at Thăng Long School, where his history teacher as Võ Nguyên Giáp (yes, that Giap), and later studied mathematics. Hanoi in the 40s was roiling fervent of secret political groups, and Bui Diem joined a embryonic nationalist party. He was repelled by the overt manipulations of Communism, and became a hardened anti-Communist when his faction was systematically liquidated by Communist secret political assassination squads. Bui Diem only escaped with his life by running and hiding, reemerging in public life in 1955 in Saigon.

Bui Diem was locked out of the autocratic rule of Ngô Đình Diệm, garnering some influence as a newspaper editor. With the acccession of Thieu and Ky, and a stable military government, he was appointed ambassador to the United States.

This book is at its best when Bui Diem talks about his job. He tried to foster good relations between Johnson, Theiu, and Ky, sound out Johnson's "Best and the Brightest", and get a sense of political currents in Congress.

In The Jaws of History covers two major bombshells. The first is that the decision to dispatch Marines to Danang in 1965, the most significant escalation of the war, was made as a fait accompli with no consultation of South Vietnam. Bui Diem admires Johnson as a committed friend to South Vietnam, but admits that serious strategic considerations of the intervention, like how victory was to be defined, were known as early as 1965, and never seriously clarified by Johnson. The second is the Anna Chennault affair, which to summarize a great deal of complexity, is the theory that Richard Nixon used Anna Chennault and Bui Diem as a channel to tell President Thieu to scuttle peace negotiations in the runup to the 1968 election in order to increase his odds of winning. Diem both confirms and denies this theory. He did pass along messages from the Nixon campaign, but he doubts they influenced Thieu's decision. Theiu was a deeply suspicious man, and already doubted the intentions of North Vietnamese negotiators, with some justification.

This is an important and interesting book, and it also showcases the weaknesses of Bui Diem's side, particularly when read against Trương Như Tảng A Vietcong Memoir. Bui Diem certainly suffered, particularly during his childhood under French occupation, and in the desperate guerrilla days during the First Indochina War, but I don't get the sense of marginal existence from his memoir that less privileged Vietnamese had; where starvation and/or death by violence were ever present enemies. Bui Diem's elite diplomacy could take the temperature of public opinion, but Trương Như Tảng deliberately aimed to influence it. This account is ultimately a penetrating look at the failures of the American-South Vietnamese alliance, and the limited imagination that America had for the future of South Vietnam.

[minhhai · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quyển sách là hồi ký chính trị của cụ Bùi Diễm, người đã hoạt động chính trị tích cực vào những năm 1940s, từng gắn bó với Trần Trọng Kim, tiếp xúc với Bảo Đại, giúp Phan Huy Quát và hai tướng Nguyễn Văn Thiệu và Nguyễn Cao Kỳ xây dựng nền Đệ Nhị Cộng Hòa ở miền Nam Việt Nam, và nhiều năm làm Đại Sứ Việt Nam tại Hoa Thịnh Đốn. Do vậy, quyển sách có rất nhiều thông tin hữu ích về cuộc chiến Việt Nam, đặc biệt là thái độ của Hoa Kỳ (chính phủ, Quốc Hội và người dân).

So với nhiều quyển khác về chiến tranh Việt Nam vốn rất tự tin về nhận định của mình, điểm nổi bật nhất của quyển sách này là mô tả một cách trung thực tình trạng hỗn loạn, rối ren của thời chinh chiến. Hiếm có tác giả nào khác chịu hạ mình nhìn nhận là mình mù tịt về tình thế. Nhưng thực tế dễ thấy là, xã hội là một thực thể phức tạp, đặc biệt ở giai đoạn chiến tranh, mà người trong cuộc (và cả ngoài cuộc) khó ai hiểu được tận tường, giỏi lắm chỉ như thầy bói xem voi thôi.

Điển hình là thái độ của Hoa Kỳ. Tác giả chỉ rõ ra, qua nhiều năm kinh nghiệm làm việc trực tiếp với chính giới Hoa Kỳ, rằng thực ra thái độ của họ không bao giờ nhất quán và cố định, mà là sự giằng co giữa nhiều nhóm người (một điều tất yếu trong xã hội dân chủ) và dư luận xã hội. Thí dụ, năm 1964, Quốc Hội và báo chí Hoa Kỳ đều đồng lòng ủng hộ việc tham chiến, nhưng 10 năm sau thì không những đã rút hết quân về mà còn cắt giảm viện trợ, một thay đổi thái cực không ai ngờ tới.

Đó là một điều mà ít người ở Việt Nam thời đó (và cả bây giờ) không hiểu nỗi, do thiếu kinh nghiệm tiếp xúc với các nền dân chủ. Hậu quả là thiếu sót những sách lược cần thiết để duy trì cảm tình của quốc tế và viện trợ của Hoa Kỳ. Đó là một trong số nhiều chuyện đáng tiếc xảy ra ở Việt Nam Cộng Hòa.

Dù mang tính chính trị, suy cho cùng đây vẫn là một hồi ký cá nhân, chứa đẫm những trăn trở suy tư của người trong cuộc. Sự nghiệp chính trị của cụ Bùi Diễm đầy những oái ăm của một người quốc gia nhưng không tìm được cách đóng góp tích cực vào công cuộc kiến thiết đất nước: khi thì bị kìm kẹp giữa Cộng Sản và Pháp, sau làm Đại Sứ lại không được Tổng thống Thiệu trọng dụng. Có cảm tưởng, quyển sách là một cái thở dài ngao ngán của một người tâm huyết nhưng bất lực nhìn thế cục đẩy đất nước và nền dân chủ sơ khai vào chỗ đường cùng.

Thiết nghĩ, những ai quan tâm đến chiến tranh Việt Nam, đặc biệt những người tự cho mình hiểu đúng về nó, nên đọc quyển sách này để thấy những chiều sâu và sự phức tạp của hoàn cảnh, ngoài những cuộc hành quân và trận đánh.

Tất nhiên, cũng không nên nghĩ rằng quyển sách này bàn luận hết mọi khía cạnh của cuộc chiến, nhất là khi nằm ngoài công việc chính của tác giả: nội tình chính phủ miền Nam, diễn biến quân sự, thảo luận giữa Hoa Kỳ và Tổng thống Thiệu, etc. Chiến tranh Việt Nam là một đề tài rất lớn và hao tổn nhiều giấy mực của các Sử gia và chiến lược gia, mà quyển sách này là một đóng góp rất quan trọng.

[Smoothfin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book written by a man with the benefit of an education, from a family with a background of mandarins, a man who, apart from a brief time in his youth involved with a nationalist group in opposition to the nascent Viet Minh in northern Vietnam during WWII through the early 50s, did not experience the war from the perspective of a soldier. His world was the world of politicians. His book is written from that perspective. It's nothing at all like the work of Bernard Fall, and it does not delve as deeply into the history and sociology of Vietnam as Francis Fitzgerald's Fire In The Lake. The actual military aspect of the war does not really intrude into his narrative until the Tet Offensive of 1968. He presents a very different piece of the puzzle from other books I've read on this topic, that of an official of the South Vietnamese government. At times he seems woefully naive in his dealings with the US government, and especially about US society and culture, and even unfamiliar with his own people outside of the elite of Saigon. But he is a keen observer and learns quickly, and ultimately is a good judge of people. He quickly identifies the duplicitous behavior of the Nixon administration, especially Kissinger's, and in the end speculates about whether the anti-war movement in the US had more to do with the protestors' own frustration and loathing of their own government than with the actual struggle of the South Vietnamese. He nicely ties up his experience in the last couple chapters. Well worth the time for anyone interested in the subject.

[Hoang Duc · Rating 3 out of 5]

Có đến 2/3 cuốn sách này là về thời gian ông Bùi Diễm làm đại sứ VNCH tại Hoa Kỳ (67-72). Đây cũng là giai đoạn quyết định số phận của VNCH khi mà nỗ lực ngoại giao giữa Hoa Kỳ và Hà Nội, chứ không phải hoạt động chính trị hoặc diễn biến quân sự, làm thay đổi cục diện của chiến tranh Việt Nam.

Dù vậy, khắc khoải xuyên suốt cuốn sách là sự thất bại của miền Nam, trải dài từ Ngô Đình Diệm tới Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, trong việc tập hợp các phần tử quốc gia để đương đầu với miền Bắc.

Cuốn sách cũng hữu ích cho những ai muốn tìm hiểu sự trấn áp phong trào quốc gia của Việt Minh giai đoạn 45-46; những cuộc chỉnh huấn và đảo chính liên miên giai đoạn 64-65; và thái độ của Sài Gòn khi Mỹ đột ngột đổ quân vào Đà Nẵng (1965). Phần cuối sách biện giải những câu hỏi kinh điển về sự can thiệp của Mỹ vào VN.

Ngoại truyện: Như một sự trớ trêu của lịch sử, việc Ngô Đình Nhu tiếp xúc Hà Nội (1963) là một trong những nguyên nhân khiến Mỹ ủng hộ nhóm quân nhân đảo chính. Nhưng chỉ 5 năm sau, Mỹ âm thầm thương lượng với Hà Nội để tìm lối thoát và cả hai về cơ bản đồng ý là Sài Gòn sẽ đóng vai trò ngoài lề. Ngoài sự thay đổi về hoàn cảnh, thái độ coi thường Sài Gòn của Hà Nội khi đó có thể đến từ chính sự tôn trọng (và nể sợ) họ dành cho Ngô Đình Diệm trước đây và, ngược lại, sự khinh miệt của họ với nhóm lãnh đạo miền Nam sau này.

P/S: Cuốn này nên đọc kèm với Khi Đồng Minh Tháo Chạy của Nguyễn Tiến Hưng

[Quang Dung · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tôi muốn đọc nghiên cứu về một số vấn đề đã xãy ra trong quá khứ của VN