IDEOLOGY IN URBAN SOUTH VIETNAM, 1950-1975 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Notre Dame in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Tuan Hoang ______________________________ Wilson Miscamble, CSC, Director Graduate Program in History Notre Dame, Indiana April 2013 © Copyright by Tuan Hoang 2013 All rights reserved IDEOLOGY IN URBAN SOUTH VIETNAM, 1950-1975 Abstract by Tuan Hoang This dissertation addresses the subject of noncommunist political and cultural ideology in urban South Vietnam during 1954-1975. It contributes to the historiography of the Vietnam War, specifically on the long-neglected Republic of Vietnam (RVN) that has received greater attention in the last decade. The basic argument is that the postcolonial ideological vision of most urban South Vietnamese diverged greatly from that of the Vietnamese communist revolutionaries. This vision explains for the puzzling question on why the communist revolutionaries were far more effective in winning the minds and hearts of Vietnamese in countryside than in cities. At the same time, this vision was complicated by the uneasy relationship with the Americans. The dissertation examines four aspects in particular. First is the construction of anticommunism: Although influenced by Cold War bipolarity, anticommunism in urban South Vietnam was shaped initially and primarily by earlier differences about modernity and post-colonialism. It was intensified through intra-Vietnamese experiences of the First Indochina War. Tuan Hoang The second aspect is the promotion of individualism. Instead of the socialist person as advocated by communist revolutionaries, urban South Vietnamese promoted a bourgeois petit vision of the postcolonial person. Much of the sources for this promotion came from the West, especially France and the U.S. But it was left to urban South Vietnamese writers to interpret and promote what this person ought to be. The third one concerns the development of nationalism. Urban South Vietnam continued to uphold the views of nationalism developed during late colonialism, such as the elevation of national heroes and the essentialization of Vietnamese civilization. Noncommunist South Vietnamese urbanites were influenced by ethnic nationalism, although they also developed the tendency to look towards other newly independent nations for nationalistic inspiration and ideas about their own postcolonial nation. The last aspect has to do with the relationship with Americans: The views of urban South Vietnamese on the U.S. were generally positive during the early years of the RVN. But there was also wariness that burst into resentment and anti-Americanism after Washington Americanized the war in 1965. The dissertation looks into two very different urban groups in order to extract the variety of sources about anti-Americanism. TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments………..………………………………………………………………iii Introduction Urban South Vietnam in the American Experience and Historiography……………………………...……………………..1 Chapter One Vietnamese Communism and Anticommunism Until 1954……..48 Chapter Two The Critique of Communism in Urban South Vietnam……..…...99 Chapter Three Individualism in Urban South Vietnam: Background and Context………………………………………………………….168 Chapter Four The Promotion of “Learning To Be Human”………….…..…...222 Chapter Five The Development and Continuity of Nationalism.………..……334 Chapter Six Perceptions of the U.S. before the Americanization of the War…………………………………………......…………….....408 Chapter Seven The Roots and Growth of Anti-Americanism…………..............464 Epilogue….………………………………………………………………………...…...515 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………523 ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In the summer of 1923, twenty-five-year-old C.S. Lewis was at Oxford University and wrote the following in one of his many letters to his father: Before everything else let me thank you heartily… I hope some day to repay these long years of education in the only way in which they can be repaid – by success and distinction in the kind of life which they aim at. But that is partly in the power of fortune and in the meantime I can only record that I am not foolish enough to take these things for granted and that the thought of how much you are doing for me is often, even insistently, before my mind. No longer young but middle-aged, thinking about not only my father but also many people during my graduate studies, I nonetheless share the sentiments of young man Lewis. After this dissertation, any formal academic acknowledgments will likely be short due to page limit imposed by publishers. So I shall seize upon this opportunity to pen a paean of sorts: an essay of appreciation, thanksgiving, gratitude, indebtedness. (I will try to keep it under ten pages.) A Vietnamese proverb goes, i mt ngày àng, hc mt sàng khôn: Travel for a day and learn a sieve-full of wisdom. Substitute “years” for “a day” and “history” for “wisdom,” and you get a fair idea about the long journey I had. As early as my first year of working on the dissertation, I jotted down the names of people and institutions that I wanted to make sure of thanking at the end. At some point I stopped keeping track, no doubt because it took me a lot longer to finish and because there were so many to remember. I am bound to forget some of the names that ought to appear in this section. Forgiveness is humbly requested ahead of time. iii The first acknowledgment must go to the Graduate School and the Department of History at the University of Notre Dame. Money talks – and it enables. Financial support from the Department and the Graduate School, in forms of fellowships and grants for research and travels, made it possible for me to engage in reading, writing, thinking, visiting archives, presenting papers, and, no less significant, teaching about the Vietnam War for the first time. Within the Department, I am much grateful for various Directors of Graduate Studies who helped me with institutional support over the years. A special thanks goes to Remie Constable who served as DGS during my first three years. She recruited me, dispensed wise counsel, and, for an important semester, led a valuable weekly meeting for teaching assistants. Having read more than a few dissertation acknowledgments, I was struck by a general lack of references to the people involved in one’s studies prior to the dissertation phase. It could not be a sign of ingratitude, but perhaps the consequence of a certain unspoken rule about acknowledging assistance during dissertation work only? Anyway, my pre-doctoral training was all-too-formative that I shall not let it pass unmentioned. “We little note,” wrote Michael Kammen not long ago in the Reviews of American History, “how often historians declare that their undergraduate mentors made all the difference, and in many cases are remembered with greater enthusiasm than their graduate school committee.” Prof. Kammen’s insight might well be true about many historians, even most. But perhaps because I did not major in history in college, a large chunk of my enthusiasm has to do with professors in graduate school. It began at the Catholic University of America, where I spent one semester and received a terrific introduction to graduate studies of history from three wonderful teachers: Uta-Renate iv Blumenthal, Stephen West, and Robert Schneider. Individually and collectively, they showed me the breadth and depth of historical inquiry and, indirectly, persuaded me that I was meant to go after Clio. In particular, Prof. Schneider, now editor of the American Historical Review, did a masterly job in his course on methodology and opened my mind to the glories and pitfalls about different historical approaches. At Notre Dame, I was blessed to learn from an assortment of specialists: Thomas Slaughter, David Waldstreicher, James Turner, John McGreevy, and Wilson Miscamble in American history; Gary Hamburg, Semion Lyandres, and Thomas Kselman in modern European history; and Dian Murray in modern Chinese history. Participating in their seminars and colloquia and individual studies constituted some of the happiest times in my life, in and out of academia. Each setting was unique for the composition of people, the selectivity of subject matters, and the interactions between the two. All of them were memorable. One instance will have to suffice here: Jim Turner’s colloquium on nineteenth-century America was as large in the number of participants as it was abundant and varied in humor – dry, wry, witty, otherwise. Excellence in teaching is close to my heart, and my first exposure of teaching came from assisting Jay Dolan, Steve Brady, Jon Coleman, and Marc Rodriguez in their courses. In my last two years in residence, I benefited from participation in the Graduate Writing Group led by Doris Bergen and, later, Alex Martin. In between were many valuable departmental colloquia and enhancing one-on-one conversations with Dan Graff, Julia Thomas, Gail Bederman, Brad Gregory, and Fr. Tom Blantz, among others. My experience of the Department was nothing but remarkable, starting with a faculty that were as top-notched in research as they were generous in time and spirit. Thank you all, Docs! v The ideal life, Mark Twain famously said, would consist of “good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience.” I hope that my conscience has been alert than sleepy. But I sure could claim to having had more than a few good books and good friends during the years in South Bend. There were too many conversations with too many people – both “intellectually stimulating” and “shooting the breeze” varieties; both within and without of the Department of History – that I will unintentionally forget some names here. I wish to thank Jennifer Dasal, Steve Nazaran, David Thunder, James Helmer, Matt Mendham, Matt Allison, Ryan Berndt, Maria Valenzuela, Dan Borses, Julie Bergner, Mimi Arima, Aida Ramos, Cong Nguyen, Sam Cahill, David Swartz, Danielle Du Bois Gottwig, Erin Miller, Neil Dhingra, Tom Rzeznik, Andrew and Suzanne Orr, Michael Kelly, Charles Strauss, Melinda Grimsley-Smith, and Teasel-Muir Harmony.