Overview
As a South Vietnamese government official, cabinet minister, Magsaysay Award winner, journalist, editor, historian and professor, Ton That Thien supported the independence of Vietnam from foreign political and cultural control including French colonialism, communist dictatorship and American dominance. Described by Daniel Ellsberg as an "outstanding Vietnamese journalist", he was a leading supporter of freedom of the press and vociferous in his belief that the most effective strategy in fighting the Communists was to counter their claim to be the true and only nationalists fighting for Vietnam's national independence. His life has seen the span of cataclysmic political and social changes in Vietnam from titular imperial rule under French colonialism to nationalist republican government to eventual communist rule.
In his life and writings, Thien upheld the ideals drawn from the old, essentially Confucian traditions of the country - service to society, rule of customs and laws and orderly government. At the same time, he advocated the western ideals of modernity, progress, freedom and democracy developed from his contact with western culture through his studies in Huế, London and Geneva. His conception of Viet Nam's post-colonial society echoed that of Phan Chu Trinh, a leading Vietnamese nationalist and Confucian scholar of the early 20th century who nevertheless supported modernization through unreserved westernization.
A generation of domestic and foreign journalists in the 1950s and 1960s were influenced by Thien's English-language critiques of the political crises in Vietnam, the political and social dynamics of the conflict and the consequent cultural impact. As an independent political commentator after 1966 he could be equally critical of misguided South Vietnamese government policies and abuses and the heavy handedness of U.S. intervention in Viet Nam. His writings on the Vietnamese communist threat and the negative impact of American cultural, economic and political interventions showed a balanced and analytical approach that was recognized as distinctive in its time.
U.S. Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker's assessment of Thien upon his appointment to the South Vietnamese cabinet in 1968 established the stature he held in foreign and Vietnamese political and social circles:
"The new Minister of Information, Ton That Thien, has been described as one of the best economists and one of the most articulate and intelligent of all Vietnamese in Saigon. He has also been known as a well informed, articulate critic of both the U.S. and G.V.N; but he is a man of ability, energy, and patriotism, and is certainly not anti-American. He should be a very considerable improvement over his predecessor, Tran Van An, who has been ineffectual in this important post."
In 1945-1946 Thien personally witnessed the momentous events which were to mark Viet Nam's post-war history: the overthrow of French rule by the Japanese and Emperor Bảo Đại's proclamation of the termination of the French protectorate over Viet Nam (March 1945), the formation of the first independent government of Viet Nam (April 1945), Emperor Bảo Đại's abdication in Huế (August 1945) and Ho Chi Minh's declaration of independence in Hanoi (September 1945), the arrival of the Americans and the Chinese (September 1945), the return of the French (March 1946), and the breaking out of the Franco-Vietnamese war (December 1946). He served for a year in Ho's administration before quitting upon realizing the true communist nature of the Viet-Minh United Front government headed by Ho Chi Minh. He was one of the first few non-Communist Vietnamese to perceive the August Revolution as a Leninist cover for the introduction of communism to Viet Nam as a part of a world revolution.
In 1947 he went to Europe to resume his studies. Although he distanced himself from the Ho-led Viet-Minh government, he did not support the various Bảo Đại-led governments. Like many other nationalists at that time he faced a dilemma in terms of where to direct support for Vietnamese independence. Supporting Ho would be to abet communism, and supporting Bảo Đại would be to prolong French colonialism. In his view, neither Ho nor Bảo Đại were true nationalists. As a result he remained non-committed to either side throughout the war until Ngo Dinh Diem became Prime Minister of the State of Viet Nam in June 1954. He considered Mr. Diem a true nationalist.
Thien served as press aide to Ngo Dinh Diem, and was with him when he was overthrown in an American-condoned military coup on 1 November 1963. Despite this close and loyal association, in the aftermath of the coup he was not persecuted by the coup leaders and the post-coup governments. In 1964 he voluntarily left government service to take up journalism, working for Vietnamese as well as foreign newspapers. In 1967, he accepted a professorship at Van Hanh University in Saigon. In 1968 he served briefly as Minister of Information during which time he enacted libertarian reforms that removed all government censorship. In the same year he was awarded the Magsaysay Award in Manila for "significant contributions" to journalism, literature and creative communication arts in Asia.
In April 1975, just before the fall of Saigon to communist forces he went into exile in Quebec, Canada. After a university teaching career at the University of Quebec, Trois Rivieres campus, he retired in Ottawa in 1992. He continued to write on Vietnamese social and political issues, in particular on the necessity – first advocated by Phan Chu Trinh - of making the appropriate changes in culture to enable Vietnamese to acquire the values required for rapid development, the basic condition of the advancement of the Vietnamese people.
Contrary to many educated Vietnamese, in his writings Thien considered development to be the primary objective of Vietnam, with independence as only a secondary objective. In his view, it was this error in setting the priority of objectives which led to the costly and lengthy wars from 1945 to 1975. He viewed these national traumas as unnecessary for the country to achieve freedom and independence, but indispensable for the Communists to secure and retain power. He holds the Communist Party accountable for this development and sees the consequence as the ruin of the country, the exhaustion of its people, and the establishment of a brutal dictatorship.
Throughout the political upheavals from the 1945 August Revolution to his exile in 1975, Ton That Thien remained consistently committed to his political and nationalist convictions and active in the political discourse of South Viet Nam. After the fall of the Ngo Dinh Diem administration he remained unattached to any political party or movement despite offers of government appointments. The Viet Nam Guardian, of which he was managing editor, maintained private ownership and an independent editorial policy.
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