Transcripts For CSPAN3 Post-War 20240705

Minutes. All right, so this next panel is a little different. The first two, in a sense. You had a military power. You had a panel. And this is what i call a disparate panel. Each of these folks represents something quite different. But the theme that brings it together is, postwar vietnam and all the different ways it has evolved. And rather than go through the tedious nature. Long introductions. Keith Washington Posts brilliant Foreign Correspondent man about town currently runs the journalism at the university of hong kong, which is worth its own panel. Right. And hong is a professor of distinction at columbia and. I can tell you, having been to one of her events just the other day, it was completely fascinating for reasons i think well get into, which is what is the nature of todays vietnam and ambassador burckhardt was not an ambassador when i first met him. He was a Junior Service officer who, unlike the rest of his people, actually talked to a reporter, which may have been the reason it took him so long to, get to be an ambassador. But thats nature of these three folks. And really, i want to do i want to start with you hank. So yesterday, susan and i were in atlanta. We went to this great big food mall, which is now a big hot thing. Everybody has, these multiple and the biggest and most successful one in the place was a vietnamese one. She had three boots. She left in 79. Her family just had to go and they got and they came in and i said, so how do the 2 million vietnamese or as many of them as we could guess, feel about vietnam today . And she said, you know, the last ten years weve become very proud, proud of our vietnam which i think is a is a is an irony of great consequence given we went through. So talk about the vietnam of today. First and then the vietnam of the vietnamese americans who have now been here. 50 years. Big questions we have 10 seconds big question great question. I wanted to change the panel a little bit to say and vietnamese after 1975, thats and i think that that might tie some of the points i want to make about sort of where the vietnamese today and vietnamese are global vietnamese and, you know, over the past, close to now, 50 years, particularly as we get to 25, one of the things i was going to say about legacies is that, you know, that that that war that ended and april 30th, 75, really did it in many ways and that it continued for the vietnamese so vietnam of course has that great quote that even after you know the last american leaves the war doesnt end and thats particularly true for the vietnamese in vietnam as well as the vietnamese who left in the diaspora. And it felt like for of us in country and then also abroad that this was our forever war. And in many ways the vietnamese civil war continued in vietnam as well as, in the United States of america, in particular, the largest Diaspora Group of vietnamese live. And i can only say, you know, to the second part of your question that what i hoping to see today is that reconciliation really needs to happen with. Regards to vietnamese in vietnam and vietnamese in the diaspora. I think that is the is the you know, the area that can can get the can basically needs the most work done not so much us vietnam reconciliation not states to sort of state relations not you know American Veterans and viet veterans of vietnamese descent but really between vietnamese and im starting to that so i will hopefully come back and say its no longer the forever war and that its changing and i we were joking around that we want to be the bob kerrey of the panel. And i want to im going to be the bob kerrey here and say that, you know, there is one institution thats really promoting that and thats Fulbright University, vietnam. And so i think through what is basic, i think the best face of us, vietnam reconciliation, this university, its also for me, i see it as a vehicle to allow vietnamese vietnamese in vietnam and vietnamese in the diaspora to really promote reconciliation, reconciliation amongst ourselves. Okay, ray, you were there in the seven days as a young Foreign Service officer, and then you came back as the American Ambassador. A post war, vietnam. So when you were there as a junior political officer, could you have imagined what you find when you came back as ambassador spanned those two experiences for us. When we when we were there, i was and i began my time in vietnam in the seventies up there from 1970 to 73. I think i seven months with a private with a u. S. Advisory team, one of the provinces mainly dealing ethnic vietnamese who had fled from long knolls pogrom against in cambodia and then two years in the embassy we had a small group of seven young guys, all men all mostly in their twenties, who spoke vietnamese. And we were out there dealing with the vietnamese every day. The civil society, my kids, religious groups, veterans groups, a lot of angry student groups and we sometimes felt we were like the only americans who were doing that. There day and what we came up with was a sense, yes, there was a real civil war. There were large parts of the population, particularly the catholics, that i was dealing with. The the the whole howard religious group down in the delta, others, they really were very were very anticommunist. They really not want the government to fall. The other things the other thing we came to understand was this was probably not going to turn out. This was as Frankie Fitzgerald put it, very i mean, this was a government of one of one lousy general after another. And it was completely top down rule. There was no there was no no popular support. This government. Absolutely not. And you know, even even a 25 years old or whatever we were we were to figure out that probably was not going to turn out well, whereas the people on the other side had real dedication, real dedication to their fight. But one thing, you know what . I came back to vietnam. I mean what year was it when you came back . I went i actually made a brief trip to vietnam, 82. It just to begin the negotiations on the issue of allies in reagan administration. I with richard armitage, who was a just a Deputy Assistant secretary of state. I a look, you know, you know, sort of middle level guy in the state department, just the two of us. It only took 13 years from then to finally get normalization. But we took the first step. Then i really went back in and at the end of 2001 as ambassador, and ive been and was there for three years, and ive been back many times since then and most recently last. You know, i think the one the greatest constant really was it was obvious to anyone who worked with vietnamese in any period in the last 50 years or maybe longer, that these were very entrepreneurial, these were hard working, entrepreneurial people. They also had, as my chinese friends always point out, these are these are fellow you know, these are people who education, who respect the values of parents pulled, you know, have given them theyre theyre theyre theyre theyre and as a result very successful people and as a result we chinese want to talk about my taiwanese friends. We want to invest there and its you know weve done well so that entrepreneurial spirit was still there and that and the sense of humor that has also kept going. Humor or irony . Both both. You know, the fact that some some vietnamese like to say, you know, actually we are a lot like Chinese Culture and everything, but were chinese with a sense of humor, you know, so thats my vietnamese sort of joke, you know thats true. Thats true. With no disrespect for. My chinese friends. So those were constants. And so i, i wasnt i was not surprised that vietnam taking off even in 2000 when you could see it taking off. I was not at all surprised. It was also interesting to see that the south was taking off economically a bit better than the north. You know, if there any legacy that came from horrible experience of french and then american rule in that in in the south for all those years it was that did develop a sense of to operate a private sector and and its one of the reasons why it continued today. Like you know when intel was trying to decide where to go and, you know, when they made their, you know, critical, that turned around the sort of the nature of American Investment in vietnam in thousand three, 2000, four. They they said we have to go to the south, know at that. Thats where the skills are thats where the also the best part of government wanted them to go to the north. But they they so so you know it was it was wonderful see what had become but it was not total surprise. So you anticipate that the war the american war end as it did . Yeah and when you came back, you were not altogether surprised that the country had started to what it has become, correct . Thats good summary. And when when i was at your event the other day, which was discussion between a group of vietnamese, as i guess they were all officials, i took an american in and. The consensus seemed to be on the american that it was the decisive mission to enable the internet that made such a profound difference in vietnam that 60 million vietnamese are on facebook. Thats a astonishing fact. What is it you think, aside from the spirit and the sense of humor what was it that has given modern vietnam its character in the way that it has it . I wish i could take ownership of that feel about the, you know, the that the the most important event is the deregulate of the internet and facebook. But that belongs to that man over there in the audience should probably pull up a chair here and thats mr. Tommy balsillie who really you know the founder of Fulbright University vietnam, tom valley, as chair of the fulbright chairman, of the board of chairman of the board of the fulbright, just and so you know, i, i definitely agree with that, i think vietnam in certain goes a different way of china. I know if that will continue in the future as, vietnam may continue to i mean, could clamp them down but that was a huge decision that did change the face of the way vietnam is developing and, going to our great event that we had with this committee that is going to inform the next Party Leaders regarding the party congress, about capitalist development and what road vietnam should take. You know, i thought it was amazing. I amazing for me, as someone whos parents were actually from South Vietnam and father fought in the republic of vietnam and of the things that struck me when i told them, like theyre going to come to columbia, theyre going to have this this, you know, meeting with with with call them practitioners are capitalist country to academics who study capitalist development in the 20th century, in the 21st century. And one of the things he said to me and i thought this was quite striking, the fact that they came you to set up this meeting and to bring about academics, the practitioners really means a lot to him. Now he from he was from the north, from ireland and left in 1954 at the partition following the geneva conference. And then of course, we fled in 1975. You know he kept drawing this line for me each time i would go back because im a historian of actually of of North Vietnam of Party Politics during war era. And he kept saying, you know, and i was meeting more and more vietnamese government officials. I met the former president , the former Prime Minister, and would always say, this is fine, just dont meet the general secretary of the communist party and then after this, theres this meeting we had that. Peter, thank you so much for and making great points. He said, know what . Its over. Vietnam is, you know, the government really knows to lead. You know, the people in the 21st century to develop the economy. Who are we to say the losers in . The United States of america, the vietnamese of the former republic of vietnam . How do we know we would run the country any better . Now, im not saying that vietnam and the current government wont encounter problems or wont the wrong decisions in this process. But i love to hear those words from my father because for me what that meant too, was that living particularly in america, that we can now see our future in this country, you know, with that that shadow cast by history of that war. So that i mean, you know, we i know well get around and theres so many people who are much more of an than me on vietnam road to development. What will happen to vietnam, the 21st century. But one of the things i always take away and as my teach my students at columbia, is vietnam. The vietnamese suffered the most the global cold war. We suffered, as frank said, you know, because the global cold war really became about decolonization in the third world. And it was not about this eastwest rivalry in many places. It much more about the sinosoviet split. But the vietnamese suffered the most, in my opinion. But we cannot let that happen in the 21st century. And so in many ways, vietnam has this you know, its in this great position to oversee and potentially hopefully kind of point the world towards peace, particularly in this rise and in tensions between the United States and china. Thats markedly different from where vietnam. And the vietnamese stood in 1945. Keith, youve got a double barreled responsibility partly, and you are where the Southeast Asia correspondent of the Washington Post, based in thailand, is i recall where based on the philippines alternative, even worse. So you would go back and forth into vietnam i want you to talk a little bit about what it was as a reporter postwar. You were not one of the generation that covered the war were the generation that came after it. I mean, and then im going to come back and ask you to carry the responsibility of an africanamerican because vietnam was a it was, in a sense, the first fully integrated war and a great deal of the american culture, black africanamerican culture comes out of that war. And you study it, although you did not live it. And id like you to talk about first, whats it like being a reporter, going back to a country that we lost the war first . Yeah, sure. Absolutely. To put it into some perspective, i was born in 1958, so 1968, i was ten years old. I became a reporter because i became journalist. I wanted to be a journalist from a very young age because of two things watergate and vietnam. I wanted to become a reporter because of watergate, and i wanted to become a foreign correspond it because i remember watching on television the vietnam war. You know, i remember watching these dramatic reports about the tet offensive. My parents, you know, walter cronkite, you know, i know up there. And i said, well, i want to i want to do that. And then they would switch in the next the next segment always be from paris. The paris peace talks. And that would be Peter Jennings in his trench. I said, well, i want to go to paris, too. So so ultimately, i got my wish because i got to go Southeast Asia. Then i went to paris as a correspondent so so that was how i went there. But i kind of went there like a lot of reporters. So my first trip to vietnam was probably 1988 or so, and this was just after lang van nguyen announced the doi, the opening and reform was kind of the vietnamese version of glasnost and perestroika. I went there with really the wrong thing. I went there. I went there to, cover the war. I went there to cover the aftermath of the war, not to cover what was happening in vietnam. Right away. I wanted to go see wanted to go see these places i had seen as a i wanted to see hawaii. I wanted to see, you know, you know, where would the where were the tunnels. Where are the where is the whole chi minh trail, really . All these battles i had known about as a kid, i wanted to go write stories about that. Jeon bin fu. So i did go and i did. Ill do all of these. I went to hawaii. I went to you know, i went to kaesong, i went to the dmz and all this stuff. So i was writing about war, but the vietnamese were interested in saying, you know, thats past thats over. Know right about where we are now. Thats what i thought was most interesting. It and there was no, among other things was absolutely no hostility towards an american there. They kind of indulge me its you know saying oh, yeah, yeah, well take you to see the ho chi minh trail. Well take you to see this. But why do you care about all that . That was all in the past. We dont care about that anymore. So one of the things i found in that period, this was late early nineties, was they were for normalization with the us they really were desperate for normalized and they couldnt understand we had a trade embargo. And so it was, you know, in the late eighties, it was still desperately poor. They didnt want to be reliant on the russians. You know, there was a statue. There still is, i think, of lenin and, you know, of of gentleman jean bien phu street in, hanoi and the vietnamese used joke standing there with one hand in his pocket and pointing in the vietnamese. Yes. Hands in his pocket, because the russians are so cheap, you know, im not making this up. The vietnamese would say, yes, the russians are so cheap. How come the americans arent here . You know, we should be you know, the americans should be here. And so, you know, over by time, many, many trips going in and out, i started say, you know, theyre kind of right. Why dont we have a trade embargo on vietnam . Why arent we here, you know, doing business . These are really interesting. You know, you know, entrepreneurial, industrious people. But we have a trade embargo on getting into vietnam in. Those days was very difficult. You had to actually you had to send in a telex until they got fax machines and you had to send in a fax machine. You had to say where you wanted to go, and then, you know, and then sometimes they would fax back or telex you back. And it took months to actually organize one of these trips. Parenthetically, i was in the philippines, was based in the philippines at the time. That actually was one of the easiest places to get in and out of because the philippines recognized vietnam and they had they they opened direct flights on Philippine Airlines and Vietnam Airlines going from manila to ho chi minh city, other that you had to do this kind of, you know, trek bangkok and you had that you always had to go to hanoi. But because i was in the philippines, they allowed me to fly in directly to ho junction, which was terrific. And overall, over time, i got to actually realize that, you know, this is not a place that we should be, you know be enemies with. And ill tell you one other story. Once i was in, i had to cover i was based in hong kong in the nineties, had to get into china for some thing. But i was actually in vietnam doing some stories, so i thought id, take the train over the border. And they had just reopened the border. And so i took this. I was one of the first foreigners. They actually allowed on this train to go up the route from hanoi through the north, and you end up in Southern China there. And i saw the absolute deepest station that the chinese had wrecked during that small border. It was just these villages literally just wiped out. And this was years later and nothing had been rebuilt. There it was just horrific. And vietnamese were telling me, yeah, yeah, we know we hate the chinese more than we ever hated the americans. So why arent you here . So that was kind of what i was hearing. Yeah, youre laughing, too, right . Absolutely. Yeah. So what ive just heard in this is that interestingly that the too you said the war is over. Come back to the vietnamese as in this country, were still struggling with the war and you re said the vietnam you encountered when you came back as ambassador was not a surprise because were watching the vietnamese the war went on with a certain degree of expectation for what would what would come of them. So we had this extraordinary thing where in vietnam itself, war was over dust off move on right . The vietnamese were left. Who came here found it more difficult to do that. And god knows, lord knows the americans have wrestled with, which is again, one of the major themes of this entire day is the reckoning that weve gone through for so long since the end of the. Keith, i want to take to the second part, because i think we all know that race issues. You know, the original sin in American Society and. Youre of course were not there and are not of that generation. But when you look at what the role of the black gi was and how evolved into american culture, music, language. Societys interest in black culture, i think it actually started to very large extent in vietnam. Whats your sense of it as someone who is not of that generation has benefited, i suppose, or been part of the generation that came after . Yeah, not not none of that generation, but my l i have older we went to vietnam. In fact they back and one of them gave me his army jacket. So thought it was kind of cool Walking Around the neighborhood wearing this, you know, army jacket. Even though i was too young. They had gone to vietnam. But, you know, vietnam was of i grew up in detroit, michigan, by the way. Vietnam was ever present. You know, one of the earlier guest, fred was talking about, you know, being in canada and how always look to the u. S. , you know, when youre in detroit, you always look to canada, because my parents said, oh, boy, if you get drafted, are you going to go to canada . Are you going to try to join the National Guard . What are you going to do . Because windsor was just literally 10 minutes over the bridge from detroit, michigan you know, but so it was it was ever present in my neighborhood, you know, because young black kids were, you know, get drafted and sent off vietnam. But, you know, the its interesting, the the the civil rights and the vietnam war were kind of intertwined. You know, in many ways i mean, people forget, you know, lyndon signed the Voting Rights act, you know, in 65, you know, around the same time as the, you know, 65. Right. Of august, im sorry, right around the same time that he signed the gulf of tonkin resolution 64. And so the and the escalation kind of began at the same time. And it was only around 1967 that Martin Luther king decided to come against the vietnam war. And then once that happened, you started to see the civil rights leaders saying, you know, we cant have civil rights, the vietnam war at the same time. And you started to see this kind of split and it was really a lot of kind of antiwar sentiment that was coming along know in detroit, you know, the up there, the biggest memory i have from being ten years old or nine years old was the 1967 riots that happened very difficult. 43 people killed. Still one of the worst riots in urban history. People forget how it actually started. There was a there was a welcome home party, two black gis who had come back to detroit from vietnam. And they partying in this after hours place. They called the blind pig. And the police decided raid it. And that kind of crystallized for a lot of people who then were rioting in detroit this idea that they were fighting for liberty in vietnam and they come back and theyre being harassed by police back at home. And so this kind of and this this kind sentiment kind of, you know, went along for a long time to get to the 1968, you had the tet offensive and then you had the assassination of Martin Luther kings. You had people protesting on military bases in vietnam against the king assassination. They had the order no protest would be allowed. But it was you know, that kind of crystallized this sentiment that even the you mentioned music, even the black music coming along at the time. You know, it was right around. It was 1968, right after, you know, the assassination of king, the telephone said that. Martin that james brown started to sing say it loud, im black and im proud. Right . The next year, John Lee Hooker started his famous came out. I dont want to go to vietnam, you know, and the line in there is, i dont want to to vietnam, because ive got enough trouble here at home. Its like you started to see this, you know, and a couple of years later, marvin gaye was singing whats going on . You know, in a war is not the answer. So again, you started to see this kind of antiwar sentiment taking hold in the United States and in my neighborhood, just, you know, at the same time, you started to see the public opposition, you know, because the tet offensive, you know, growing against the war at home know. But, you know, you talked about also the cultural going on because of the riots of 67 in detroit and then 68, the most other places, the military actually started to change. You know, the military was was integrated in the sense that there were a lot of black soldiers working alongside white soldiers. You cant look at a Pulitzer Prize winning of, you know, soldiers in vietnam without seeing black faces in there. But until then, 68, 69, if went into the is the military bases, you know, most of the most of the products, most of the magazines were not they didnt have jet magazine or ebony magazine in there. They started to suddenly stock those. They started started the stock black Hair Products for the black gis radio armed forces, the armed forces and television used to play mainly country music. All of a sudden they started playing more r b and soul music and all that, recognizing that you had 300,000 black soldiers in vietnam, but many of them in combat units, like 30 of the combat units, were black, you know, far higher than the percentage of the population. And you had blacks and blacks soldiers and white soldiers suddenly working together on things and doing things, you know, some of you know, the old whats the old saying . Theres no color in the foxhole. Right. And thats i do think that the vietnam war helped integrate america because you had black soldiers and white soldiers coming back who had worked together, who had saved each others lives, etc. So i do think that, you know, the integration really didnt start happening until after 668, really, 69 . Yeah. That had a huge impact back here. And the vietnamese, i should say tried to exploit that as the back home as well. You know, the the propaganda broadcast out of hanoi were constantly saying, hey soul brother, why are you fighting here when your people are being killed back home . You know, and i think that had an impact. And i just want to show there were a lot of gis who left behind children, many whom were black. What was the vietnamese attitude towards the children of black parents and vietnamese, i guess mothers, yes, ill answer that question. And then tied into something that you had said earlier about about how the how the vietnamese in vietnam have either let go or there wounds of war have healed quicker. I would actually disagree with that with myself, im just saying that. But in short, you know, the children left behind after the war in 1975 were called. You know, they were called task children. They were lower than the dirt that you walk on. So there were painful reminder of of war, of devastating war. And so it wasnt until the 1980s that you had the amerasian homecoming act first in 82 and then in 87, that allowed for these children to come to the United States. 87 was when it allowed the parents as well to come. But that gets to a bigger which, you know, one of the things that one of the lessons or legacies that i understand of that war is that it actually flips, you know, who won and who lost. And here again, ill talk about it from, the prism of the vietnamese in ways, of course, you know, the the country was reunified under communist party in 1976. And so in that way, of course, the North Vietnamese were the victors. But if you look at, you know, sort of voting with your feet in many ways, another one of these themes that comes out post 1975, vietnamese is basically people moving. And in that, you know, the four waves that came after 1975, i think testament to actually know that that says Something Else about victors. Why was there all of this, you know, sort of why was there was this exodus from from vietnam not only in 1975, but then again in 1979, and then pretty much through the eighties and nineties, speaks to a different kind of record, another sort of example of, you know, sort of the vietnamese and vietnam being unable to really get past that war, and understandably so again, vietnamese suffered disproportion nearly 3. 3 million vietnamese died. And from 65 to 75. But you have what were called reeducation camps. And while there about 100 to 200000 South Vietnamese officials and in the military who remained in vietnam, 1975, more than 1 million would pass through the doors of those reeducation camps. They closed down late into the 1980s, early 1990. So that says something about, you know, the inability to move past that war. And then again, if you look at how well vietnamese are doing in america, again, war wounds, they heal very well. But where the vietnamese up until recently, you know in comparison to their vietnamese brethren in country are very different. We have to question victors and losers. And then i guess the i lost my thread. Oh, the final thing ill say and this gets to generational change. I think one of the one of the big changes and this answers your question about, you know, sort the the the change taking place in vietnam is demographic. I the more that you have vietnamese after 1975 we dont have the same kind of baggage about that war when they get into positions of power then we will actually real change and well see reconciliation between the vietnamese. But just like the United States of america, you right now the most powerful man in vietnam will win put down who should not be in an office because they do have a law that says, you know, older than 65, you have to retire. Hes in his eighties. And while i dont think he be general secretary for president of for for perpetuity like jinping you know you have a lot of young asking what going on when is it our time and in many ways i think you know the the sea change that i hope to see happen can only happen when you have you know, these postwar generations really have a say in policymaking, have a say in the way the country is run and. I have to say i have to point out another group in addition to Fulbright University, vietnam but the u. S. Institute for peace that, you know, andrew wells dang is here, really promotes conversation between the vietnamese and next to him, Aaron Steinhauer with vietnam is really trying to, you know, sort of adopt this sort of global vietnamese posture. And i think in this way, this is how you can have real reconciliation. You know, one of the more interesting things i saw in recent years when i was going back was how many viet q who were born in the states or, you know, because you know, their parents left in 75, but they decided they could make their money back in vietnam and they were going there doing Investment Banking instead of doing startups because they had the language, but they had Us University degrees to reinforce that and in 2001, before i went out as ambassador to vietnam, i met with a group of vietnamese expatriates in in an arlington outside and i it was a little tense there the there were people who got up and said, we know you, we respect you. We think youre going to do a better job than that guy who was who who was who just left. But we we dont think there should be. An American Ambassador in vietnam and there was a certain amount of, you know, real hostility and and then and then later when there was some food served afterwards as their own, it has to be in a vietnamese meeting. So very good food, a young guy came up to me, he said, i said, that was my father it gave you a hard time there. He said, im sorry about that. I said, i understand us down here. I mean, i know all about the reeducation camps. And said, yeah, he was in a reeducation camp. Hes still pretty bitter. He said, but just want you know, i go back to vietnam every year and ive got to start a business going there. So in the first two panels, particularly first one and two very large extent, the second one we were talking about the failures of american policies, strategies and military activity. Ultimately between 63, four and 73. So the three of you can assess how american policy towards postwar vietnam has evolved, because if look at it from the perspective 2023, it looks pretty good. So how is it. That having screwed up so badly . We somehow found way to deal with postwar vietnam in a kind of logical programmatically success artful way, right . You want to start with i just we we rebuilt. Im not sure what we were brilliant enough to think at all out ahead of time. But the the way we rebuilt relationship, first of all, very important that the relations started to between nongovernment groups, very important ngos were very active in vietnam in the years before normalization, Vietnam Veterans of america and their foundation, which bob and i were both on the board of for a while, we were kicked off and and then there was the there were a lot of artists american artists who who worked with vietnamese artists that had that had actually had a fairly fairly interesting impact. And then finally, bit bit the normalization process was also first we put it well even long before we actually had an embassy. We put an office in in ho chi minh city, which dealt with reunifying divided families and had american officials in that office. Then we put an office, hanoi, which was to search for the remains of of american sold of of amis, and those were there before. We took the first step toward normalization, toward toward, you know, more serious normalization, which was january eight, 1995, when we put a sort of an interest section, a kind of not totally official embassy in hanoi, followed by the embassy in july, was the first ambassador and expo w i right about that. The first ambassador was an expert. W first passenger was an expert ex p. O. W. I was the second ambassador to a normal tour, you know, reunified vietnam. But then then from then on there were these layers of and the first layer was dealing with the legacy issues, which was reunifying families searching for remains is clearing up mines and. And and and i unexploded ordinance which a lot of private organizations like the v va were involved in and many others and working from chapter two of the economic relationship our bilateral trade relations was signed the week before got there in december 2001. Clinton administration. No, no. Well it was negotiated mostly during the Clinton Administration and so assigned during a by the very beginning of the bush administration. And then then the question was, when i went there, the mission i was given by bosses in washington, colin powell others was rich. Rich armitage was there are three things missing. Were not totally normalized yet. We dont have military military relations. We dont law cooperation, and we dont have we dont have an intelligence liaison relationship in which were sharing intelligence. And of course, those are all the hardest things to do because. They were the people on both sides who would be most wary of of of improving relations. But we did it. And it really the major came from the vietnamese in the summer of 2003. They had a party plenum in which they concluded they didnt they didnt like the way the world looked. And that all had to do with and they were as they were, they came to to me, they came to my defense. I had a chair. They said the triangle out of balance triangle in their minds even now is the us, china and vietnam. And they had patched up lot of things with china in turn, including their land border differences. That was a great accomplishment, but they did not like the increasingly aggressive attitude china was taking in the south sea. They did not like the way countries they thought they were their clients like laos and cambodia had. Now really moved into a chinese orbit. They didnt trust tuckson and thailand. They didnt like the picture, and they wanted to be closer to us and being vietnamese. They took a very pragmatic, businesslike approach to it and they said, you know, that visit by our minister that you proposed, we want that to happen this year. You know, that ship it. You keep requesting. We want that to be that to be right after the defense minister goes. And then they came back the next day and oh, we have another item we want our deputy Prime Minister to visit the United States and meet with your leaders about two weeks after those other things were finished. And it all happened. Boom, boom, boom, right like that. And and it completely that all of that that happened in the end. And the second half of 2003 set the course for for relations from then. So what youre saying it wasnt we we moved on to the geostrategic relationship youre not saying it was our shrewd careful we thought out right it was that the vietnamese knew what they wanted the vietnamese knew what they wanted. So the one thing the vietnamese going back to some of the things were talking about before was on the one thing i think we maybe could take some credit was that we sort of push them to try to reach out to improve with the vietnamese americans, and we pushed them. I remember having meetings. We went on zoom when he was the deputy prime Prime Minister, soon after became Prime Minister. You know, maybe it just sort of sent some delegations there and then they decided to do it. They actually did it. And then we looked at the delegation list. I said, these are all northerners know. I mean, you need some southerners the list. And zuma said, yeah okay, good point. And they them over. Im friends of mine in the states said, maybe you should suggest that they invite to visit, you know, and did he came doing khaki the former Prime Minister he came when he but was he armed we suggested to him yeah yeah he came of course it wasnt a total because then i heard that a lot of vietnamese in america said, well, you know, he was a northerner, so, you know, prove anything. So, you know, so. But, but you know, all these things were and then there was a whole the whole of how they dealt with the the, the x South Vietnamese military cemetery. And there had been war and that had been kind of not ignored. And, you know we would sometimes think that maybe you ought to, you know, show some respect there and fix it up and, you know let people come back and visit it and they you know, it was of on and off all the time. But they got it you know, i mean, they were sort of open ideas about how to bring the vietnamese back and from your perspect it. How did american policy evolve towards vietnam given lets stipulate the of the war how did american policy having left failure how american policy evolve. One kind of thread see run through is the sort the focus too much on china when the United States figures out policy towards vietnam. And i think you can see that pretty much in the post 75 era all the way to today. And theres problem with because you know again, if do say there is a 20 pre cold war going on, it is so much more complex it because the integrated economic systems not just between the United States and china but then looking at Southeast Asia, the number one trading partner for all of these Southeast Asian countries is china. So one of the things that i see for vietnam. So im going go in tianjin, but i will answer your question about the us policy is that know the vietnamese have to figure out vietnams policy towards china. You know, right now what you is cambodia, laos and thailand is tilting towards china. Vietnam, indonesia, others. No, not so much. And in fact i would say probably the number one ally to the United States is either vietnam or singapore. This point. And so one of the things that i think vietnam has that even singapore doesnt have to worry is how china can look around vietnamese Party Politics in, ways that the way they would do, how they muck around and singaporean politics is more disinformation. What theyre basically in other regions of the world, in other countries. But for vietnam think its much more direct. So you have potentially on the ground mass protests and demonstrations antichinese. What the party has to deal with. This is much trickier. Thats, i would say, about vietnam. These would be china. And in terms of the united you know, i think pretty much all the way, you know, when when carter makes the decision. Listen to brzezinski and not vance and follow much more sort of pro chinese line one again it wasnt about vietnam in terms of reconciliation. And then fast forward through the decades, its still in the sort of, you know, the way that United States sees vietnam sometimes. Its about, you know, healing war wounds. Its about our shared past. But when it is not about that. Its about china. And i think that thats going to be very limiting and constraining for the United States, as it deals vietnam and once vietnam did do certain things, once you know, the United States to potentially or how should step up to china, that cant happen for for a whole myriad of reasons so that would be my one takeaway i would just say to to random things i live down the street from church, which is where Martin Luther king made his when he ties the civil rights Civil Rights Movement and the vietnam war movement. And when i first decided to be a historian of the vietnam war, my said, you will be beat up by the vietnamese american community, because i decided to on hanoi and politics and not not write a glowing history of the republic of vietnam, the South Vietnamese war effort. I never got beat up, but i always feared that. And at some point after my book came out with scott hanois war, i was both labeled a maoist, but i was also labeled basically a, you know, a sort of an apologist winckowski and others like that. I think its a good thing when all sides hate you. Good. Well, thats speaking of all sides hating you, keith as a journalist and one of our one of our one of our basic axioms as journalists is to look at situate actions with precision and skepticism what do you see as a postwar correspondent in asia . What do you see as the role of the United States in a as a as factor and . Is it something that when you look, you say, well, maybe we have gotten some things right . Yeah, i mean, you know, you could say thats a good question. You could say, we did get some things right. The whole idea behind the vietnam war was, number one, to prevent this domino from falling. But it was also to give the Southeast Asian countries time to consolidate their their political systems and to build up their economies, which did happen. The asian the between the time that we got in vietnam and the time we left the asian tigers, you know it became, you know, economic leap, you know, you know, thailand you know, became wealthier singapore, became, you know, one of the wealthiest countries, you know, so so you could argue ably say that the american involvement there did give time for the Southeast Asian. Dont forget, they were battling their own communist insurgencies. You know, in malaysia in indonesia, in thailand at the time. So, you know, but by the time we left vietnam, you know those those insurgencies were basically negligible. Nothing left going there. And then those countries were economically more solid, you know, but for us, for the americans, i think this legacy, fear and failure kind of lingered for many, many years after the Southeast Asians had forgotten about it. You know, i remember covering somalia. I was based in nairobi in the early when we went into somalia. And i remember the smith gemstone was the ambassador then, and i remember he wrote a piece about how this could be another quagmire, another vietnam. So the fear was always, we dont want another vietnam. Whenever we thought we got involved in any military adventure anywhere, you know, but to go back to the geopolitics of it and how you know, how the normalized ocean came about, interestingly i would say, you know, when i again, go back to the late when i first started going in and out of vietnam on a regular basis, i remember thinking its nuts. Not only did we not have relations we had a trade embargo, you know, we had sanctions. I couldnt use my credit card, had to go in with wads of cash because was no other way to pay. Your the Washington Post gave wads of cash at the time i did my time, i you this was the so we still had display ads you know you would go in with literally with thousands of dollars in your pocket because you couldnt use a credit card. Now remember, you know, while youre there, you see that you know the french are there. The japanese are there, the korean products are in the marketplace. I was thinking to myself, this is insane we dont have relations with this country. You know, why is that . And dont forget, then you had the invasion, cambodia, and then for a while the excuse and ill use that term, but for lack of a better one for for us not normalizing relations because they had gone in and toppled the khmer rouge regime in cambodia, which was a cambodia, which was a chinese backed responsible for a million deaths, but because vietnamese to topple them, that was a reason and we would not normalize relations until pulled their troops out of cambodia. And i remember this was so insane that when i when i left, i took some time off and went to the Eastwest Center in hawaii in 1999, 1991, i wrote a piece of cover story on Foreign Affairs magazine, basically saying, you know, we need to normalize with vietnam. This is insane. Lets get the cambodia thing which is off the front burner. That should not be the issue, holding this up. Lets get going. Id like to that is responsible for us normalizing, but absolutely no impact whatsoever. But i would say the two things i would say that very prescient. The two things besides my foreign bs, which i think would have an impact was number one, you had a new government in thailand under a Prime Minister named chuch h and hogan, and he started thailand investing and begin being involved. Vietnam, which to the us, to the us, was basically just, you know, not not involved, not interested in this at all. But thailand, you know, basically just started going in and just doing more investment in business. And i remember interviewing this Prime Minister and he said, we have to start. You americans have, to start remembering vietnam is a country not a war. So that was his famous thing. Very good point. The other thing that happened, i would say would be besides bob kerrey, john kerry and john mccain, but that push to get. Yeah. So you had to have people who had fought and were who had recognized credentials be the ones leading that effort. And they came out with their famous, which concluded that we had not, in fact, left any any people behind were who were still being kept as prisoners in hanoi. That was yeah, there was american p. O. W. Whose entire issue was was getting back our who were being held in hanoi. And it was the kerry mccain report which actually directly led to the trip that i made with John Armitage in 82 after that. Exactly. And i mean, the irony the irony of that is, you know, a lot of Vietnam Veterans were ones who were the first ones going back in there saying we need to get involved here. People like chuck who still there, he started there on a lot landmine clearing project, etc. So i think in the us, the americans, if i may say so, i think the american left was terrified of vietnam they didnt want to you know, they didnt want to go anywhere near. It so it took people who had fought there had been there and had the credentials to actually, you know, its time to move on. This is whats fascinating about this is because if you if we all agree that the vietnam, american vietnam war was a tragedy. Somehow and one of the reasons it was a tragedy because our level of ignorance when we went in was so profound. I mean, ive always thought that the revelation in the pentagon papers was how ignorant we were when we went in. We just had no idea. So what do you think the subtle with which weve handled it, if you call it that or the way weve handled the postwar vietnam, is a reflection of what our ignorance so therefore we leave them alone, let them do their own thing. The lessons of failure is another possibility. And, you know, the whole nation notion of just time does heal because what those of us who see the rest of the world, our relationship with the russians our relationship with the chinese, the relationship to the middle east are so fraught. Yeah. And heres a war we lost, and yet weve managed to navigate the postwar period. And what i think would all agree is a successful way how to set i, i, i think part of it is, is we for once we listened. We listened to the vietnamese getting back the point hung right about also about about the china angle the vietnamese from the beginning we when when they told us in 2003 that they now wanted to have a geopolitical relationship with us and that they thought we had finally woken up to the dangers of some of the problems that china to the region. They said. But, you know, were going to have to be careful about this. There are things we cant do. You are people saying you want to reopen a navy base in cameron bay . You know, thats not going to happen. And as one very wise vietnamese who was still around an important vietnamese, i wont name him, but he told me, he said, look, there are three things we always say about our relations with china. Theyre very big. Theyre right next door. And most important, unfortunately, theyre always to be there. And no bases. No, no u. S. Bases in cameron bay. And and the vietnamese are always very careful about managing aging. This relationship, this triangle. So very often see if they are going to have an american visit or if one of their officials is going to go to the United States. Therell be a trip to china right around the same time. You know, it was done with great with great, great finesse and care. And i think we took that on board. We understand that chinas always going to be there. Theres case to be made that our handling of the rise of china has actually been better than perhaps some of our other forays around world. I just have an interesting looking at this. The people here today, how many of have a phone now . How many of you how many of you the people who chose to come today had a direct relationship to vietnam . Between 65 and 75. Raise your hands. Well, i mean, you were there. You had a relative who was there. You were drafted. Well, im just interested because because and let me do it again. Because at the lights here, whoever a great many of you, but not all what im interested in is the degree to which when were talking about. Vietnam in the seventies, 50 years after the fact, in the seventies, where were we talking about the 20, 50 years after the fact. And whats very interesting and striking to me is much more on the whole vietnam present in our culture in the way we see the world, the lessons weve learned than you would think after half a century is that is that a you know, how would you deal with that particular proposition hey, i agree. I see it in teaching my students that know theres vietnam still resonates and whether that be because even you know, as as baby boomers we want to have recede in the background still exert a very you know, powerful over american Cultures Society consciousness even even you know if that generation steps even further back theres still something about vietnam that stays and that could be because of the memory of the war, even afterwards into the subsequent decade. I think now its, combined with vietnams meteoric in the region going from being a Regional Power to potentially now know in the next few decades becoming a global that more young people will be like, what . What was that country . What was that . Whats that country about . We the shared history, my great great grandparents, you know, had an involvement with with that country in some form or other but i want to be there because you know, theres this amazing economy and society that i want to be a part of. So so i think, you know, its going to be that kind of of combination of factors that youre to have vietnam still stay a part of of the United States. So i lost my tour i keep losing my train of thought today but i was the last thing i was going to say is i mark you know, sort of how how much weve i was born in 74, so getting close to 50 that, you know this generation and when you ask this question of the future, were not going to have as many people. So we only have a very one minute and 52 seconds, right . Yeah, right. Whats your answer to that . Why is it that vietnam is so present in our lives . Its a it was a Great National drama that we went through and its a its still fascinates us or and still frustrates to try to understand it. And i think also the vietnamese have risen and have created a vital economy and and and great food and and and other and people know about it its gotten the attention of of of of people of of so many generations in america and so that. Keith whats your vietnam lives on in in the music we listen to it lives on you know because backpackers are going im amazed now when im in and theyre like american backpackers going around young people who are saying, well, wait, you mean we fought a war here . Why . And the food is delicious. Ive been to that spot where it where obama ate with Anthony Bourdain and that i love does become a tourist attraction now. And people young people cant believe we actually were fighting in vietnam and its since one of them are extraordinary elements of were about to finish the morning speaking of food there is a lunch for everybody and i want to urge you, if you can to stay for the afternoon because the panels in the afternoon are also touching on exactly point, which is the presence of in our current American Life and society. But thanks very much. This is really good. Thank you. Ours years later. Im christopher bracey, pearl provost and executive Vice President for academic affairs