Truong Nhu Tang
Encyclopedia
Trương Như Tảng is a Vietnamese lawyer and politician living in France. He was active in many anti-South Vietnamese organizations before joining the newly created Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam as the Minister of Justice. He spent many years in the jungles near and in Cambodia until the Fall of Saigon
Fall of Saigon
The Fall of Saigon was the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by the People's Army of Vietnam and the National Liberation Front on April 30, 1975...

 in 1975. He quickly became disillusioned with the new imposed North Vietnamese regime and escaped Vietnam via a boat in August 1978. He was sent to a refugee camp in Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

 before moving to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, to live out his life in exile.

Early life

Tảng grew up in Saigon as one of six sons of a rich father who owned a rubber plantation and a printing house and taught ("for pleasure") at the Collège Chasseloup-Laubat; since his father intended him to be a pharmacist, after studying (exclusively in French) at the Collège Chasseloup-Laubat, Tảng was sent to Hanoi University
Hanoi University
Hanoi University is a university in Hanoi, that specializes in language teaching including English, Japanese, Chinese, German, French, Russian, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Italian....

 for a year and then (after a delay caused by the violence attendant on the end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 in Vietnam) to France in 1946 to study pharmacy. While in Paris, however, Tảng was introduced to the movement for Vietnamese independence, met Ho Chi Minh
Ho Chi Minh
Hồ Chí Minh , born Nguyễn Sinh Cung and also known as Nguyễn Ái Quốc, was a Vietnamese Marxist-Leninist revolutionary leader who was prime minister and president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam...

, and transferred to the École des Sciences Politiques, where he focused on military and diplomatic subjects and was especially drawn to Marxist writings on colonialism. When he refused to return to Saigon at his father's command, he was cut off and had to work as a dishwasher to earn his living. By 1951, he had completed his studies, having earned a master's degree in political science and having gone on to take a licentiate in law at the University of Paris
University of Paris
The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...

. However, at the end of the year he returned to Vietnam at his father's urgent request to help put his brothers through school. To avoid draft into the South Vietnamese army he joined the newly created French School of Naval supply in 1954. At the end of 1955, he took a job as Controller-General of the Viet-Nam Bank for Industry and Commerce, but he also became involved in opposition to the Ngo Dinh Diem
Ngo Dinh Diem
Ngô Đình Diệm was the first president of South Vietnam . In the wake of the French withdrawal from Indochina as a result of the 1954 Geneva Accords, Diệm led the effort to create the Republic of Vietnam. Accruing considerable U.S. support due to his staunch anti-Communism, he achieved victory in a...

 government.

Anti-government organizer

Through contacts that he had made during his studies in France, Tảng became involved in the anti-government activities in South Vietnam. His position as corporate executive gave him access to the ruling circle and he could easily recruit non-communist anti-government people. Through this time he became close friends with co-conspirator Albert Thao
Pham Ngoc Thao
Colonel Phạm Ngọc Thảo, known to friends as Albert Thảo , a major provincial leader in South Vietnam and infiltrator of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, was a communist agent of the Vietminh and later the Vietnam People's Army...

 until Thao's death in 1965. In February 1965, he was arrested and held for six months by the National Police and held in jail under suspicion of being part of the Self-Determination Movement, an anti-government group opposed to the Diem regime (Diem regime had already ceased in 1963, two years earlier). After his wife paid a US$5000 (US$ in ) bribe to the South Vietnamese military tribunal, Tảng was sentenced to just two years which was then suspended. His arrest did not stop Tảng’s activities and he continued his urban organizing of anti-government forces before being arrested a second time.

Arrest and life in the jungle

On June 16, 1966, he was pulled over by agents working under General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan
Nguyen Ngoc Loan
General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan was the Republic of Vietnam's Chief of National Police. Nguyễn gained international attention when he executed handcuffed prisoner Nguyễn Văn Lém, a Viet Cong soldier, on February 1, 1968 in front of Vo Suu, an NBC cameraman, and Eddie Adams, an Associated Press photographer...

 the famed gunman who executed handcuffed prisoner Nguyễn Văn Lém
Nguyen Van Lem
Nguyễn Văn Lém was a member of the Viet Cong who was summarily executed in Saigon during the Tet Offensive. The execution was captured on film by photojournalist Eddie Adams, and the momentous image became a symbol of the inhumanity of war...

, a Viet Cong soldier, on February 1, 1968, in front of Vo Suu, an NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 cameraman, and Eddie Adams
Eddie Adams (photographer)
Eddie Adams was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American photographer and photojournalist noted for portraits of celebrities and politicians and his coverage of 13 wars.-Combat photographer:...

, an Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...

 photographer. The photo (captioned "General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Viet Cong prisoner in Saigon") and film would become two of the most famous images in journalism and started to change negatively the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 public's views on the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

. He was held at a National Police secret prison where he was tortured and held without charge for. An anti-government agent Ba Tra had been arrested and gave the South Vietnamese government extensive information on anti-government forces working in the city. Ba Tra was held and tortured for about two weeks before signing a confession that he was a communist. Another bribe by his wife of US$6000 (US$ in ) got him transferred to National Police headquarters where in a small cell he spent the next six months.

In February of 1967, he and two other women anti-government organizers, San No and Duy Lien, were part of a secret prisoner exchange for two American prisoners. The three were handed over to American forces and then flown out to the jungle where they were handed over to Vietcong operatives. During his stay in the jungles of South Vietnam, he was one of the founders of the Vietcong, or National Liberation Front (The NLF had already been established in 1960, seven years earlier), and Minister of Justice for the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam (PRG) during the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

. In April 1970, he was part of the escape of the Provisional Revolutionary Government
Escape of the Provisional Revolutionary Government
The Escape of the Provisional Revolutionary Government was a series of military operations conducted in eastern Cambodia during mid-1970 by the Republic of Vietnam during the Vietnam War...

 when the military and civilian leadership of PRG and NLF were almost wiped out by ARVN forces.

Disillusionment

After the Fall of Saigon
Fall of Saigon
The Fall of Saigon was the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by the People's Army of Vietnam and the National Liberation Front on April 30, 1975...

, Tảng emerged from the jungle after more than eight years. The nature of the collapse of the South Vietnamese regime and the total victory of the North Vietnamese military gave total control to the North Vietnamese. The nationalist forces in the south were brushed aside in favour of communist cadres from the north. In 1978, only two years after North Vietnam
North Vietnam
The Democratic Republic of Vietnam , was a communist state that ruled the northern half of Vietnam from 1954 until 1976 following the Geneva Conference and laid claim to all of Vietnam from 1945 to 1954 during the First Indochina War, during which they controlled pockets of territory throughout...

ese forces finally took Saigon and united Vietnam under the Communist flag, Tảng became disillusioned with the government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, which he believed did not give equal standing to southern sympathizers. Not helping matters was the imprisonment of two of his brothers in North Vietnamese reeducation camps. Supposedly only lasting for 30 days. His younger brother, Bich, a director at the National Bank, was released only after many months of lobbying on the part of Tảng. The older brother, Quyhn, a doctor who worked with the Health Ministry, was moved to a high security camp in the north where he was incarcerated at least till 1985. An estimated 1 million people were imprisoned without formal charges or trials.

After spending some time in exile in the Vietnamese countryside, Tảng took it upon himself to get out of the country before his conditions would get worse. Through friends of his wife, he and other people pooled their money to buy a boat which they boarded in August 1978. While on the open ocean, they tried to flag down ships patrolling the busy shipping lanes. However none of the freighters would stop to pick them up and they drifted further and further south. They were attacked by Thai pirates who stole money and valuables from the passengers but let the boat continue on. Their boat travelled almost to Indonesia before coming across an Indonesian
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

 oil platform. Stopping there, they were picked up by UN ships and taken to a refugee camp on Galang Island, Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

. From there, Tảng went into exile in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, and, in 1985, published a book about his life as a Viet Cong in the NLF and PRG. The book, A Vietcong Memoir, outlines not only his own experiences, but also the impact of the war among other revolutionaries.
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