Thieu: Divisive Even in Death

For young Vietnamese Americans, Nguyen Van Thieu is a figure from their history books. For older generations, the longtime Vietnamese leader’s name brings up a mix of emotions, many of them painful.

Thieu, wartime president of South Vietnam for a decade until just before the fall of Saigon in 1975, died Saturday. He was 78.

“Only history can tell whether he has any credit,” said Lan Nguyen, a Garden Grove planning commissioner and attorney.

In Orange County, home to the largest U.S. population of Vietnamese immigrants, reaction to Thieu’s death largely followed generational lines. For those in the Little Saigon area of Westminster who are old enough to remember him, the news elicited myriad emotions.

“It’s mixed feelings from the Vietnamese community,” said Westminster City Councilman Tony Lam, the first Vietnamese American elected to office in the United States, who met Thieu in Vietnam while working for the U.S. Embassy. “Some people blame him for letting Vietnam down and running away from Vietnam eight days before the fall of Saigon.”

One of those people is Hai Vo, 48, who served as a soldier in the South Vietnamese army under Thieu’s presidency.

“I hated him,” said Vo, who blamed the former leader for plundering the country and overseeing its takeover by Communist North Vietnam.

“He wasn’t the president for my country,” Vo said, “He was president for himself. He ruined everything. He lived too long--he should have had to pay a price, but I don’t feel that he ever did.”

Lan Nguyen said that Thieu “presided over a long period of time, fighting the war. Also, during that time he contributed to the defeat . . . because his government” was corrupt and plagued by political infighting.

But Nguyen said that Thieu’s passing is a loss for history, because key questions remain about some of his decisions that were pivotal in the war, such as abandoning South Vietnam’s Highlands in March 1975.

After Thieu left Vietnam, he kept a low profile and shunned attention. He never wrote his memoirs and rarely gave interviews.

He made a rare, invitation-only appearance in Orange County in 1990, speaking to 400 people at the Westminster Community Hall. As expected, he was greeted by numerous protesters.

“We’ve lost an important link in history,” Nguyen said. “I really don’t think the Vietnamese community will [mourn him]. We’re at a loss. We don’t know if he was causing the defeat . . . or if he was trying his best in the circumstances. We’re still debating among ourselves what he did and didn’t do.

“We don’t know if we should respect him or denounce him,” Nguyen said.

Tri Tran, 45, said he had mixed emotions regarding Thieu, whose hand he once shook during an official state visit. “As a president he was dishonest,” Tran said. “As a citizen he was [OK].”

He paused before expressing a thought that, in many ways, embodies the ambivalence felt by many of his countrymen. “[Thinking of him] as a citizen,” Tran said, “I didn’t want him to die. [Considering him] as president, I did.”

Once he fled the nation, Thieu failed to use his voice to bring attention to the plight of refugees stranded in Southeast Asia, said Cong Minh Tran, a community activist who lives in Irvine.

“He shunned the light since he escaped in 1975,” he said.

Radio commentator Thanh-Phong Tran, who knew Thieu from when he worked for the U.S. government in Vietnam, said that when he heard of Thieu’s passing, “frankly, there was no reaction.”

Tran fled the country in 1973 after Thieu issued a warrant for his arrest. He said he has no bitterness or anger.

Eventually on Sunday, Tran said, he began having mixed feelings about Thieu’s death: “Whether we should remember what he did or we just let . . . bygones be bygones.

“It’s too bad--he could have done many things since 1975. He had a name he could use and do good things, if not for Vietnam, then for the world. He wasted his time.”

Others who had little reaction to Thieu’s death were those too young to recall his life.

“I never heard of him,” said Michael Nguyen, 21, who left Vietnam in 1987 at the age of 7.

Hien Ty, 20, had a similar reaction: “I heard the name from my parents, but I don’t know him that well.”

But a generation of refugees will forever have ties to Thieu.

Relaxing at the entrance of Asian Garden Mall in the hot Sunday sun, Hai Nguyen, 56, who bore arms for Thieu, said, “I feel a little sad. . . . He was the commander-in-chief, and I was a soldier.”

Chuyen Nguyen, state Sen. Joe Dunn’s district representative, agreed: “For myself as a former service man under his supreme command, I have respect for the man because of his age and the position he was in. But I think I will leave it to history to judge his decisions.”