The People Make the Peace

Lessons from the Vietnam Antiwar Movement

Karín Aguilar-San Juan, Frank Joyce

• Publisher: Just World Books
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781935982586
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Vietnam War
• Index: History

Forty years after the Vietnam War ended, many in the United States still struggle to come to terms with this tumultuous period of U.S. history. The domestic antiwar movement, with cooperation from their Vietnamese counterparts, played a significant role in ending the War, but few have examined its impact until now. In The People Make the Peace, nine U.S. activists discuss the parts they played in opposing the War at home and their risky travels to Vietnam in the midst of the conflict to engage in people-to-people diplomacy. In 2013, the "Hanoi 9" activists revisited Vietnam together; this book presents their thoughtful reflections on those experiences, as well as the stories of five U.S. veterans who returned to make reparations. Their successes in antiwar organizing will challenge the myths that still linger from that era, and inspire a new generation seeking peaceful solutions to war and conflict today. Contributors include: Jay Craven, Rennie Davis, Judy Gumbo, Alex Hing, Doug Hostetter, Frank Joyce, Nancy Kurshan, Myra MacPherson, John McAuliff, Becca Wilson

SEEING VIETNAM WITH MY OWN EYES

RENNIE DAVIS

Editors’ Note: The stories of this chapter are more fully presented in a forthcoming book, Generation Arise, by Rennie Davis.

It seemed hard to imagine I was going back to Vietnam with an American antiwar delegation 40 years after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords. It was harder still to explain what I experienced when I came back to the United States. This book was organized to share the experiences of our delegation to Vietnam’s 40th anniversary of the Paris Peace Accords. We attended official meetings and ceremonies from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City. We met the president of Vietnam, the U.S. ambassador to Vietnam, the head of Vietnam’s national assembly and Madame Nguyen Thi Binh, a living icon in today’s Vietnam. What happened on our trip is set out in this book. It was the continuing love and appreciation that the Vietnamese have for the millions of Americans who joined massive mobilizations against the war that most stood out for me during this trip back to Vietnam. To share my own experience, I want to paint a picture of who the Vietnamese actually are and what really happened during those years of war between the United States and Vietnam.

In January 2013, nine Americans with their spouses and significant others returned to Vietnam. We had all previously traveled to Hanoi during the war. On our first night back in Hanoi, Madame Nguyen Thi Binh unexpectedly invited Frank Joyce, his wife, Mary Anne Barnett, John McAuliff, Kirsten Liegmann, and me to a private dinner with her son and grandson. She held hands with me most of the night and presented me a gift of her autobiography, recently translated into English and just off the press. ²

When I read her book, I saw again her incredible love and appreciation for the U.S. antiwar movement. She described her relation to me like “a mother to a son” and since first meeting her in 1967, I have always felt the same. Before the negotiations in Paris began, the American public had a blurry image of Vietnam’s resistance leaders. No one imagined the official representative of the South Vietnamese National Liberation Front would be a woman, much less the enchanting and elegant Madame Nguyen Thi Binh. When she first stepped onto the world stage on November 4, 1968—a wise, sensitive, and articulate spokeswoman—she stunned and inspired the public. As hundreds of delegations made the trip to Paris to meet her, she won their hearts with her sincerity and kindness as she patiently explained the deeply flawed and brutal American war policy.

Madame Binh’s grandfather had been a beloved national scholar and early advocate of democracy for Vietnam. Her father had been a surveyor with the French administration who moved to the Mekong Delta when she was a child. Growing up, she lived with her family and later attended a French school in Cambodia where she excelled in math and sports and competed in cross-country races and basketball. In April 1951, her education was halted when she was imprisoned by the French. She spent three years in the most notorious French prison of the time after someone who had been brutally tortured gave up her name. In her autobiography she wrote, “I was cruelly beaten without stopping because an earlier arrestee had broken down under torture and given my name. First, they tortured us by savage beatings. Then they submerged us in water, then with electricity, then—I wanted to die so they would finish—I was most worried about breaking under torture and giving names, leading the enemy to arrest others.... Fortunately, the torturers saw they couldn’t wrest any information from me.” In recalling those brutal years, she said it gave her strength—the strength “to survive the most intense conditions imaginable.”

U.S. reporters who covered the events in Paris had little if any awareness of this personal history. Instead, many wondered why a woman was selected for Paris at all. Ho Chi Minh, the president of Vietnam, had traveled abroad and even lived in the United States. The time he spent in New York City and Boston was during the woman’s suffrage movement before World War I when he came to deeply believe that a woman should represent Vietnam to the world. He also knew that Madame Nguyen Thi Binh possessed the intelligence, openness, and kindness to win over the skeptics.

When the Vietnamese launched their final nationwide mobilization that overran Saigon, ending the Vietnam War in 1975, Madame Binh became Vietnam’s minister of education and integrated two very different systems of education. During 1992 to 2002, she was subsequently elected twice by the National Assembly to serve as Vietnam’s vice president with oversight of state diplomacy, health, education, and judicial reform. When she “retired” in 2002 at age 75, her close friends watched her become busier than ever. About her retirement she said, “I can’t be still. I must continue to take a full part in life” until Vietnam is “truly democratic, equal and cultured.”

I visited her frequently during her years in Paris. Now it was the 40th anniversary of the Paris Peace Accords and she was in front of me again, still expressing her appreciation for the Americans who opposed the horrific U.S. war. In her book, she acknowledged many of the specific U.S. groups that came to Paris during the war, from Congressional delegates to families of American prisoners of war to antiwar activists. She wanted the people of Vietnam to remember the names of the Americans who had fought to end the war, especially those who sacrificed their own lives, some setting themselves on fire to protest the war. She specifically mentioned the work of Dave Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Jane Fonda, Cora Weiss, Benjamin Spock, and myself.

For the 40th anniversary of the Paris Peace Accords, Vietnam decided to host a national event in Hanoi with past and present political and military leaders, ranking members of the national assembly, chief justices, members of the secretariat and politburo, the minister of foreign affairs and other ministers, along with diverse representatives of foreign governments, NGOs, and organizations that had supported Vietnam during the war from around the world. The national ceremony included the past and present political and military leadership of the country. Our delegation joined the gathering along with hundreds of representatives of foreign governments, NGOs, and antiwar organizations around the world that had supported Vietnam during the U.S. war.

Following stunning performances from dancers, singers, and leading artists of Vietnam, President Truong Tan Sang spoke of the January 1973 Paris negotiations as the ultimate achievement in Vietnam’s “history of diplomacy.” Acknowledging the pivotal work of Madame Binh, she was awarded Vietnam’s highest recognition that evening, the military’s hero award.

Today, Madame Nguyen Thi Binh is Chairperson of Vietnam’s Children’s Fund, Honorary President of the Association of Victims of Agent Orange, and President of the Peace and Development Foundation where she is devoted to supporting Vietnamese victims of chemical Agent Orange. To paint a picture of who the Vietnamese people really are, I should begin with my first visit to Hanoi during the fall of 1967.

Dave Dellinger, David Ifshin, and Rennie Davis confer near the White House, February 8, 1971.

Photo courtesy of The Baltimore Sun.

My first contact with a Vietnamese person was at a Vietnamese-American conference held in Bratislava (now the capital of Slovakia). Forty-two Americans came. Martin Luther King was invited but declined at the last minute due to a scheduling conflict. The U.S. delegation was a cross-section of antiwar, civil rights, and women activists with a handful of journalists. We flew to Paris, then to Prague before taking a bus to Bratislava where we met 23 Vietnamese delegates, including members of the North Vietnamese national assembly and ranking leaders of South Vietnam’s Provisional Revolutionary Government.

I slowly came to realize during the conference that the Vietnamese delegation was the highest-level gathering of officials outside of Vietnam since the Geneva Convention in 1954—the historic conference that had ended the Indochina War between France and the Viet Minh. That’s when I first met Madame Nguyen Thi Binh. I had no idea at the time that she had traveled six months from South Vietnam to attend this conference herself. She greeted us warmly, wearing a simple but elegant full-length, high-collared Vietnamese dress. In a few short years, she would become a world sensation, appearing in Paris as the articulate individual to head the South Vietnamese “Viet Cong” delegation—one of the four parties to the U.S.–Vietnam peace accord.

I could have left this Bratislava conference with a richer perspective on Vietnam if I had simply returned to the United States as planned. I would have come home more educated. But something unexpected happened—shifting my Vietnam awareness from educated and informed to up close and personal. At that conference, I was invited with six others to visit Vietnam and see for myself. I had no idea what that meant but knew I wanted to go. In Bratislava, I sensed correctly that I might be seizing the moment of a lifetime by saying yes to this invitation and seeing Vietnam with my own eyes.

Every American invited felt the same. We wanted to go. As risky as travelling to Czechoslovakia may have been, there was no comparison with the possible consequences of an unsanctioned trip into “enemy” territory. While I never considered declining the invitation, I found it hard to evaluate the risks. I could be bombed by U.S. Navy war planes stationed on carriers near Vietnam. I could be vilified by the press upon returning home. Believing the United States had strayed from its greatness—and longing for its return to democratic ideals—I felt motivated to be among the first Americans to evaluate the Vietnamese claim that American air raids routinely targeted civilian infrastructures resulting in large-scale casualties.

And so I joined one of the first delegations of antiwar activists to see what our Defense Department did not want any American to witness—the effects of the U.S. air war raining down its anti-personnel and 2,000-pound bombs on North Vietnam. Our delegation to Hanoi that year was Tom Hayden, Carol McEldowney, Vivian Rothstein, Norman Fruchter, Robert Allen, Jock Brown, and myself. We boarded an International Control Commission (ICC) aircraft heading for North Vietnam. ICC was an off-shoot of the Geneva Convention established to monitor the implementation of the international agreement that followed the French war in 1954. When its purpose to unify the country with nationwide elections was blocked by the United States, ICC continued to provide an airline connection to the divided country with flights from Saigon to Hanoi through Laos.

Our nighttime flight into Hanoi from Laos was the final leg of a journey that had begun in Prague and taken us through Beirut, Dubai, Bombay Rangoon, Phnom Penh, and Vientiane, Laos. We faced stormy weather that night that hurled our tiny prop plane sharply upwards before dropping it hard, over and over, making the passengers tightly bound to their throwup bags. I was relieved not to feel sick as we descended into the pitch darkness of this mysterious Asian city. At the last moment, just before touching down, a row of bright lights went on to illuminate the runway and then turned off quickly as the wheels made contact with the ground. Walking down the plane’s stairs, a group of excited Vietnamese welcomed us like U.S. tourists from the mainland are often greeted by natives in Hawaii. As I got my travel bag and walked to a caravan of jeep-style military vehicles, I felt overwhelmed with questions. Given the need to turn off the lights of Hanoi’s airport, were we in danger from bombs being dropped by our own country tonight? How would we get into a blacked-out city if the bridges into Hanoi had all been bombed?

Traveling by train from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) in 2013, with stops in Quang Tri and Da Nang. From left to right: Alex Hing, Rennie Davis, and Judy Gumbo.

Photo courtesy of Judy Gumbo.

Returning to Vietnam in 2013 and returning again in January 2015 just after Hanoi’s new terminal had opened, it is clear that Vietnam on one level has dramatically changed. These days, international flights to Hanoi don’t use ICC prop planes anymore. Instead, 500 passengers crowd onto one Airbus. The old airport is gone. Terminal two of the Nội Bài International Airport was inaugurated January 4, 2015, boosting the total capacity of the new Vietnam airport to 19 million passengers a year. Traveling the 17 miles from the airport to downtown Hanoi uses a brand new world-class highway that crosses the spectacular Nhật Tân Bridge, where many circles of gardens are in development but not yet finished.

When I came to Hanoi the first time, getting into the city was not that easy. The Red River—a major waterway flowing from Yunnan in Southwestern China to the Gulf of Tonkin—had to be crossed and the main bridge into the city had been repeatedly bombed. While it was never destroyed, it was deemed safer for us to board a ferry and cross the Red River discreetly. The United States was at war with Vietnam but on my first humid Vietnam night with its bright tropical moon casting a liquid silver light onto the faces of every Vietnamese passenger, they looked friendly and open to me. Except for the sound of the boat’s motor and one radio tuned to the music of a bamboo flute, all was quiet on the Red River. The music was elegant too. As I took in the idyllic scents and the serene scenery, I felt like a person who had stepped out of a modern world and time traveled into some ancient century.

Looking directly into the faces of the people around me, no one seemed stressed or worried at all. Not one person looked guarded or hateful like I typically experienced taking a commuter train from the O’Hare airport into downtown Chicago. If I had to pick one word to describe the demeanor of these war-time passengers, I would say innocence. Strange to say; nevertheless, that was my first impression of the Vietnamese people and it took me by surprise. Vietnam was being bombed every day by the United States of America, yet ordinary Vietnamese seemed entirely comfortable with our group of Americans and strangely free of any body armor, defenses, or cunning. Suddenly the radio music was interrupted by the voice of an announcer. Everyone hushed to listen. Unable to understand the language, I could only watch in amazement at everyone’s rapt attention to every word. Then the boat erupted in celebration with cheering and clapping. I turned to our guide to hear his translation as he said, “it was just reported a U.S. F-16 flew over the country and was shot down by an 18-year-old woman with a rifle.”

Now I was truly stunned—and conflicted too. My immediate thoughts went to the pilot. A U.S. serviceman had been shot down by a woman’s rifle and I was surrounded by a heart-felt flood of excitement and passion. Frankly, it is only possible now decades later to share this story publicly. That night on that ferry, I wanted the war to end but wasn’t prepared for this. I did not think it was possible that an American advanced fighter plane could be shot down by a Vietnamese teenager with only a rifle. As my emotions slowly settled down, I let myself see how the Vietnamese actually felt about this war. There was a genuineness in them I would witness again and again in the coming days. From my very first hours in Hanoi, I realized the United States might not be fighting an ideology after all or the narrow agenda of a rigid political elite. None of these people appeared like they were forced to celebrate the cause of their military. They seemed more like the perfect nation for “containing China” as our State Department mission had stated the United States was determined to accomplish.

Throughout my first trip to Vietnam, I watched everyday Vietnamese demonstrate over and over this was their country and their duty to fight for their freedom and independence. I felt like someone who had slipped into an American colony from Great Britain to witness a small band of freedom fighters during our own country’s war of independence. I was like that invisible Brit that got to overhear the news of a victory won by a ragtag American army fighting for its freedom and independence. In Vietnam, I was witnessing something similar.

It never previously occurred to me that the Vietnamese might actually succeed in defeating the world’s most powerful and advanced military on the battlefield. The Vietnamese, however, seemed completely convinced that, in the end, they would prevail, just as they had many times in the past—against the French at Dien Bien Phu, against the Japanese during World War II, and against the Chinese and Mongols to the north repeatedly over many centuries. The Vietnamese I met clearly lacked the sense of desperation one might expect from hopelessly outgunned underdogs. Instead, they displayed a confidence that caused me to consider, for the first time, the possibility that the war in Vietnam could be more than just a misguided foreign policy about containing China. Anyone visiting Hanoi in those early days of the U.S. air war had to wonder if this was a completely foolish military strategy as well. It was difficult to believe the American argument that Vietnamese guerrillas were Russian or Chinese pawns in a global cold war game of chess. The people I met seemed like genuine patriots, fighting to preserve a nation they deeply loved and respected.

Where I lived in Chicago, most people had only a vague idea of what the Vietnam War was about. Unless a person was part of a military family fighting in Vietnam, there was little stake in the outcome beyond the safe return of loved ones in combat. Everyone on this river ferry, however, appeared to have a passionate stake in the outcome.

During my first visit to Vietnam, I realized what most Americans never fully got to appreciate: The Vietnamese people loved America’s founding principles and cheered us on as millions of Americans figured it out and turned against this misguided war. In Vietnam, we were the heroes as we still are today.

One evening in 1967, I strolled through the streets of Hanoi with one of my hosts. We came to a large truck caravan parked and waiting. Its destination was clearly South Vietnam. I noticed many of the waiting trucks had pictures on their windshields. A picture of Ho Chi Minh, the President of North Vietnam, was proudly displayed as I would expect, but a Western face was also common. I asked several drivers through my translator who that was—the Westerner next to Ho Chi Minh? Norman Morrison was the response. I had heard the Morrison story. He was an American Quaker who had committed suicide in an act of self-immolation at age 31, protesting U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. The date was November 2, 1965 when he doused himself in kerosene and set himself on fire just b...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Back Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Editors’ Introduction: The People Made the Peace
• 1. Seeing Viet Nam with My Own Eyes
• 2. Viet Nam Time Travel, 1970–2013
• 3. Journey to the East
• 4. The People’s Peace Treaty
• 5. A Pacifist in the War Zone
• 6. Journeys to Remember
• 7. From Hanoi to Santa Barbara
• 8. The Making of a People’s Diplomat
• 9. Voices of Veterans: The Endless Tragedy of Vietnam
• 10. Unwanted Memories Erased in Electroconvulsive Experiment
• 11. Connecting the Dots
• Afterword: A Vietnamese Perspective
• Notes
• Resources
• About the Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• About the Editors