In France, many people called the Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam the Vietnamese Communists and Southern revolutionary forces, who wore boonie hat, the Viet Cong. In Paris at that time, besides the large number of overseas Vietnamese who supported Vietnam against the U.S., there were people who provoked opposition. They used to demonstrate their opposition through uncultured forms.
However, the extremist force was faltered by the justice of the war in the South, the strong support of the French Communist Party, the French intellectuals, and most of the Vietnamese expatriates.
The Paris Conference initially consisted of only two parties, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the U.S. We resolutely demanded the U.S. to stop bombing the North. On October 31, 1968, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson announced an unconditional cessation of bombings in North Vietnam. So the Paris Conference between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the U.S. entered a new period. The U.S. accepted a four-party conference, in which the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam was an official party.
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Nguyen Thi Binh meeting with the press |
A new diplomatic front was opened. The delegation of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam would arrive in Paris and be an official participant in the negotiations. We were allowed to go to Paris first to make preparation for welcoming the delegation led by Foreign Minister Nguyen Thi Binh.
It is necessary to talk more about a fact that few people knew. That was the ingenious creativity of President Ho Chi Minh and the Politburo. We were officials of the Government's Unification Committee, also called the Southern Committee, led by First Secretary cum head of the committee Le Duan. The committee’s code name was Committee CP40 and later Committee CP72 under the Party Central Committee. It was tasked to carry out the foreign affairs missions of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam which was promoted to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam in 1969.
The headquarters of CP72 was nominally located in the South, but its working apparatus was in Hanoi. All officials in charge of foreign affairs for the South had two names. They used their Southern names when going abroad and their birth names when returning to Hanoi. Ms. Nguyen Thi Binh's birth name is Nguyen Thi Chau Sa. Mr. Ly Van Sau is Nguyen Ba Dan, Mr. Hoang Bich Son is Ho Lien, Mr. Tran Van Tu is Tran Van Thuc, Ms. Nguyen Thi Thanh Van is Binh Thanh, Ms. Nguyen Ngoc Dung is Nguyen Thi Hy...
The organization named me Phu in the word Phu Yen, my hometown. I bore my mother’s surname. In Hanoi, contacts with foreigners were limited. We only received foreign guests at 15 Hai Ba Trung (code-named M.15) which was the headquarters of the special delegation of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam in the North.
Before going to Paris, in Hanoi, we took a portrait of Ms. Binh wearing a striped scarf (kind of scarf used by women in Southern Vietnam) standing under the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam’s half-blue, half-red flag with a five-pointed yellow star in the middle to provide for the press.
Our agency at that time had departments in charge of different fields of foreign affairs. The State Diplomacy Department with codename Department 1A took care of the embassies of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam. The People-to-People Diplomacy Department, codenamed Department 1B, was tasked to carry out foreign affairs of mass organizations, such as the Liberation Front, Youth Liberation, Liberation Trade Union, and Liberation Women's Union. The Department of Cultural Diplomacy, named Department 1C, was responsible for the external affairs of agencies such as Liberation News Agency, Liberation Publishing House, Liberation Pictorial Newspaper, Liberation Radio, Liberation Film Studio, and hosted the publishing the Sud Vietnam d’études Newspaper.
There were few personnel, but we had to take care of many tasks. We worked for the South around the clock. One person concurrently undertook many duties. Other countries did not know this organization and thought that we all came from the South. Before coming to Paris, Ms. Nguyen Thi Binh had traveled to many countries and represented the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam to attend many international conferences. Mr. Tran Van Tu and Ms. Binh Thanh and Ms. Ngoc Dung had just returned from the 9th World Youth Congress. Ms. Binh Thanh, Ms. Nguyen Thi Binh’s Secretary, was a very good French speaker.
In the first night of November 1968, we could not sleep because the delegation of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam were going to arrive in Paris. I went to Paris and knew that the French Communist Party wholeheartedly supported Vietnam. The Vietnamese Association in France with the Party Cell as core with many famous intellectuals was also ready to take care of the delegation. The French government was very attentive, too. We were happy and excited as much as worried and anxious. French newspapers reported it as an unprecedented special event. Some newspapers hastily published the portrait of female Major General Nguyen Thi Dinh, captioning it as Mrs. Nguyen Thi Binh (It was normal when they could not distinguish between Binh and Dinh).
The historic moment finally came. At 14.00 hours on November 2, 1968, Paris was cold and the sky was gray. Ms. Nguyen Thi Binh and emissaries and soldiers of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam Duong Dinh Thao, Tran Van Tu, Thanh Van and a few staff got off the plane at Bourget airport and were welcomed by a crowd of people holding the flags of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
Ms. Nguyen Thi Binh wore a dark pink ao dai (traditional long dress of the Vietnamese people), a black overcoat, and a dark scarf. Reporters crowded around her and cameras were clicked continuously. Entering the VIP room, Ms. Nguyen Thi Binh made a speech and then announced the 5-point solution of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam to the press.
Although she was very good at French, Ms. Binh spoke Vietnamese. Ms. Thanh Van interpreted with an excellent Western accent which surprised and was admired by participating journalists. They said to each other: "The Viet Cong are so civilized!" "No one thinks they came from the forest." Mr. Xuan Thuy, head of the delegation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, greeted the delegation and got in a shiny black convoy with Nguyen Thi Binh.
The French government reserved the DS (Déesse means queen) car – Citroen’s new model with headlights like two eyes. Cars with the flags of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, escorted by four rows of the French police’s motorcycles, entered Paris. Overseas Vietnamese and Parisians holding flags and flowers stood on both sides of the road to welcome the delegation. There was not a soul of extremists throwing tomatoes and rotten eggs as they used to do. We were extremely happy. It was so proud and so victorious when the historical event lifted the position of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam and Vietnam and opened up a new future.
That night and in the next morning, a series of French and foreign newspapers carried such big headlines as "Viet Cong comes to Paris," "Viet Cong triumphs." A newspaper wrote, "Mrs. Binh as a queen was warmly welcomed like a head of state with all official ceremonies." "Madame Binh shocks Paris and the world," "The wonderful Viet Cong," "The miraculous landing of Viet Cong" were other headlines.
From the early days of May 1968 (since the beginning of talks) to January 27, 1973, in Paris, the negotiations on ending the war and restoring peace in Vietnam lasted for nearly 5 years, longest in world’s diplomatic history. During those 5 years, many happy and sad moments happened. There were hundreds of public and secret meetings, 500 press conferences and up to 1,000 interviews granted to newspapers and television from five continents. "Viet Cong Minister" Nguyen Thi Binh was favored and respected by international journalists.
(To be continued)
TRINH QUANG PHU, former Specialist of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam
Translated by Tran Hoai