Ngo Tu Ha

(by Mai Thanh Hai in HAI Nong Thon Ngay Nay (Countryside Today-Newspaper), translated by Nhan Dhan)

The person who opened the first meeting of the first session of the first National Assembly of Vietnam in 1946 was a 60-year-old Catholic deputy. He was also the first citizen to voluntarily donate all his factory and rice fields to the country. He was Ngo Tu Ha.

Ngo Tu Ha was born in 1887 in a very poor family in Quy Hau parish in Kim Son district, northern Ninh Binh province. He left his family at the age of eight for Nam Dinh city and later for Hanoi to earn his living. With dynamism and intelligence, he became a rich capitalist who owned many big houses in Hanoi, large rice fields in many rural areas and a big printing house.

He died peacefully when he was a member of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee, member of the Standing Board of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Central Committee and standing member of the National Liaison Committee of Vietnamese Catholics Who Love Peace and the Country.

In the early days of the new government, Ngo Tu Ha knew that he was too weak to joint the fight against the enemy in the south, he volunteered to print books free for the anti-illiteracy movement, and became the head of the Association in Support of Wounded Soldiers. When the National Assembly was convened, a coalition government was established. Ngo Tu Ha was appointed to be the deputy minister of the Ministry for Social Affairs in the context that the country just escape a famine which killed two million people and the French colonialists were returning to occupy the south.

In late 1946, Ngo Tu Ha was sent to work in Bui Chu-Phat Diem dioceses. Other patriotic personalities were also sent to different localities to help the local people develop production to fight hunger and illiteracy.

Ngo Tu Ha was the first person to donate voluntarily all his factory and rice fields to the cause of socialism which was started up in the north. He made careful recommendation to Vu Huy Vien, his credited collaborator to transfer everything so that the State and people could start production right away.

The National Assembly Office suggested sending a car everyday to take him to work and other places that he wished to. He just said thanks and refused. He only used the car when he had to travel far. Normally he used a cyclo.

In 1964, US war planes regularly attacked Hanoi. The National Assembly office arranged for Mr Ha and some other members of the National Assembly to evacuate in Duong Lam commune, Ba Vi district, Ha Tay province. Ngo Tu Ha lived in the house of Mr Phan Van Tai who recalled those days: “Mr Ha lived with our family. We were as close as relatives. He taught our children carefully. When he was weak, we offered our help but he always tried to do everything he could. We later discovered that he was an important member in the National Assembly and the government. He lived a very simple life. He treated us, ordinary people, as family members.”

Nguyen Van Cu

Nguyen Van Cu, a brilliant Party leader

(By Nguyen Van Tran, Former Secretary of the Party Central Committee)

In late 1935 I received Party training only in “revolution of the land and fields.” But in the period between 1936 and 1938, the Party Central Committee established the Democratic United Front which rallied people from all walks of life in the common struggle against imperialism and war.

This correct line was initiated by Party General Secretary Nguyen Van Cu and adopted by the Party Central Committee. This line, which was adaptable to domestic and international realities, developed into a popular movement which was in full swing from 1936 through to1938. The biggest outcome of the movement was the establishment of mass organisations, a network of Party organisations, and the training of many cadres as well as the strategy for great unity. Upon later imperialist repression, the movement calmed down, but already, a background had been laid for future activities.

After the outbreak of World War II, the French imperialists took advantage of the situation to stage a comeback while Japanese fascists threatened to invade Indochina. It was in this life or death moment, Party General Secretary Nguyen Van Cu suggested the establishment of the Anti-Imperialism United Front in late 1939.

So within a short period, the Party initiated two strategic tasks for revolutionary struggle. The strategy was adaptive to the change of external relations while still upholding the revolutionary banner for the liberation of the nation.

At detours along the course of revolutionary evolution, the Communist Party of Vietnam, especially the Party leader, have always been quick in giving correct direction to rally integrated national strength. After the failure of a movement, the primary task was to reorganise the Party.

After his release from prison in 1936, Nguyen Van Cu and some of his comrades joined hands in setting up the Party Committee of North Vietnam which rallied Party members into different levels of Party organisations.

Nguyen Van Cu then together with comrades from the south and central regions, established the Party Central Committee for nationwide leadership. For his contributions, knowledge and competence, Nguyen Van Cu was appointed Party General Secretary at a Plenum of the Party Central Committee although he was much younger than his comrades Le Duan, Ha Huy Tap and Le Hong Phong.

At the initial difficult state, problems arose from within the Party leadership because of the lack of unanimity in guidelines and of some signs of individualism. Nguyen Van Cu was determined that such problems had to be solved as soon as possible because internal unity would insure development of the Party.

He wrote the book 'Self-criticism' and asked all Party cadres to be engaged in criticism and self-criticism. As a result, the contingent of Party cadres throughout the country, were single minded in their view and action. This represents a major lesson in Party building in which criticism and self-criticism was later adopted as a regular practice at different levels of Party organisations.

Party building is also reflected in the ideological front against rightist deviationism, as well as trotskyist leftist deviationism.

Nguyen Van Cu was one of the first Party leaders. He was Party General Secretary for only a short period but made huge contributions which laid the groundwork for the revolutionary campaign and Party build-up.

Our current studies of Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh Thought, have enabled us to understand revolutionary strategies  and methods as well as fundamental principles of Party building. But imagine, what the campaign was like more than 60 years ago when the people were leading miserable and illiterate lives under imperialist yoke.

Nguyen Van Cu's strategic view on Democratic United Front, enabled Vietnam to shake hands with French democrats while setting aside the slogan of fighting feudalism or the land issue, which was no easy task at all. When the situation changed, he initiated the Anti-imperialism United Front aimed at smashing imperialism while still leaving behind the slogan of fighting feudalism and the land issue. Such correct ideas came from thorough understanding and analysis of the situation.

Revolutionary methods first of all involved the organisation work, mobilisation of the masses, and directing the people towards the struggle. The new feature was seizing opportunities while combining overt, semi-covert and underground activities. Under whatever circumstances, when the people rose, there must be analysis of the corresponding strength of both sides to determine final victories.

Party building must be carried out comprehensively. To this end, each Party member is required to be exemplary and a focal point in each mass organisation. Party members must themselves to sacrifice for the sake of the people and the nation; never retreat from the enemy; never ignore things that may be detrimental to the people; abide by and protect all Party and State guidelines and policies. They must lead a healthy, simple life forging unity in viewpoint and action.

Tran Dai Nghia: Patriotic Engineer 

(VNS Article by Ham Chau)

Engineer Pham Quang Le (Professor Tran Dai Nghia) was born on September 13 1913, in Chanh Hiep commune, Tan Binh district, Vinh Long province. His father, Pham Van Mui, was a poor mandarin who used to teach him since his childhood the Oriental virtue of humanity, justice, culture, intelligence and confidence. Pham Van Mui named his son "Le" which means the culture of a scholar. Pham Thi Dieu, his mother, was a Buddhist believer.

Having excelled in his school leaving exams in My Tho province, Le went to Saigon and studied at Petrus Ky school. In 1933, he came top in exams for the local bachelor’s degree. Soon afterward, he also shone exams for the western bachelor’s degree in mathematics and then attained high distinction in the western bachelor’s degree in philosophy.

Learning the national history, Pham Quang Le realised that most insurrections against the French colonialists were defeated owing to the deficiency of necessary weapons. He admired the Huong Khe resistance led by Phan Dinh Phung who was a successful candidate for the doctorate degree in the metropolitan exams held by the feudal Vietnamese state. Cao Thang, one of Phan Dinh Phung’s excellent generals, devoted much thought to self-arming. Under his instructions, hundreds of smiths in Ha Tinh province successfully produced rifles by reproducing the French 1874-type rifle. Almost half of the righteous armies were equipped with this type of rifle.

Pham Quang Le took Cao Thang as an example to follow but he transcended his predecessor.

During his stay of 11 years in France (1935-1946), Pham Quang Le pursued only one aim: to learn how to produce weapons after western methods. But the French colonialists were not so foolish as to let Vietnamese people, including those who had been given French citizenship, either to study at colleges with weapon programs, or work at weapon institutes or weapon factories. That was why during his lengthy stay of 11 years in France, he could only undertake these studies by himself in total silence and secrecy.

To grasp military engineering, one first needs to thoroughly comprehend civil engineering. Pham Quang Le passed the exams for the Civil Engineering University, a major college in France where the Ministry of Colonies granted him a scholarship. He then studied at the Electrical University, the Mining University, University of Technology and the Institute of Aviation. He got a number of engineer’s diplomas and, at the same time, passed exams to get certificates for a number of basic sciences at Sorbone University.

Through his many contacts, Le quietly tried to obtain military secrets and weapon designs. He managed to gather, bit by bit, some thirty thousand pages of documents on weapons, most of which were secret ones. Following President Ho Chi Minh back to Vietnam in 1946, he had almost nothing except one tonne of valuable documents.

As soon as he arrived in Hanoi, engineer Le went to Thai Nguyen to test a US bazooka shot with Ta Quang Buu with a view to learning how to produce this type of weapon.

Back to Hanoi from Thai Nguyen on December 5 1946, he was invited to Bac Bo Phu (the Palace of the former Governor of Tonkin) where President Ho Chi Minh appointed him to the post of Head of the Arms Department under the Ministry of Defence and named him Tran Dai Nghia (Great Cause Tran).

Half a month later, the nationwide resistance broke out. Workers were working day and night in small arms factories where steel rails were miraculously turned into components for bazookas with tolerance of below 0.5mm, in accordance with engineer Nghia’s design. Our bazookas blazed enemy tanks, destroyed enemy machine-gun redoubts and burned enemy brick barricades. Bazookas also sank French warships in the Lo river in the Autumn-Winter campaign of 1947.

Big blasting charges and mines were used to destroy the enemy in reinforced concrete blockhouses. However, they also caused danger to our shock forces who had to get as close to the enemy lines as possible. In other countries, medium and heavy guns or kachiusa (a kind of Russian rocket) were used in this case. But we had no kachiusa at that time. As for medium and heavy guns, they were resorted to only in major military campaigns because they were too large and bulky. Engineer Nghia dreamt of making a light gun which could be carried on the shoulders of our soldiers with destruction power equivalent to a gun of six tones. He thought of SKZ, the recoilless gun. This was a modern weapon which appeared for the first time when American troops landed Okinawa island (Japan) late in World War II. Of course, all the research, design and production secrets of this weapon were strictly kept.

Engineer Nghia and his close associates such as Nguyen Trinh Tiep had to do everything from the beginning, independently of their American colleagues. He was successful finally. Some years after the advent of the American SKZ, the Vietnamese SKZ appeared for the first time in the Pho Lu battle and destroyed French concrete bunkers with a thickness of one metre.

In 1950, the front in Central Vietnam received 10 SKZs with 150 shots from the Viet Bac war zone. Later, the front in the South, Tran Dai Nghia’s native land, began to receive SKZs.

As soon as the SKZ was produced, engineer Nghia thought of producing kachiusa. He was successful in producing a rocket of 30 kilograms which could destroy targets at a range of four kilometres .

After the victory of the Autumn-Winter campaign in 1947, President Ho Chi Minh and the State promoted military ranks, for the first time. As early as those days, engineer Tran Dai Nghia was promoted to Major General. He was also the first Vietnamese intellectual to be awarded the Hero title in 1953.

Recently, he was posthumously awarded the Ho Chi Minh Prize for his research works in, and technical guidance on, the production of the bazooka, SKZ and SS weapons from 1945 to 1954.

Major General Vu Ngoc Nha, an outstanding secret agent

(By Nguyen Duc Vinh, World Security Newspaper)

The real battle the secret agent Vu Ngoc Nha had to fight started on the morning of December 1958. Spotted and informed on by Ta Den, a side-changer, Nha was arrested by the group of spies under Ngo Dinh Can’s special mission. After over one month in detention at a secret place on Ben Van Don Road, District 4, Saigon, Nha was removed by the spies to Tao Kham Camp, Hue City. For over eight months, the enemy could not get any information from Nha even though they had resorted to all dark schemes and the true identity of Vu Ngoc Nha had not been exposed. They could only learn what Nha’s organisation had trained him to “reveal” when he was about to be sent to live inside the enemy ranks: His name: Vu Dinh Long, born on March 30, 1928 in Vu Hoi commune, Vu Thu district, northern Thai Binh province; joined Viet Minh (Vietnamese Independence League, set up in 1941) after the nationwide Resistance War ; admitted into the Communist Party in 1947, in 1951, a member of the Thai Binh provincial capital’s Party Committee. Having been discriminated against for coming from a landlord’s Catholic family, he left the Viet Minh and came back to live in his mother’s home village in Phat Diem, Ninh Binh province. At this stage, he joined the ‘Phat Diem Militia General Committee’ led by Bishop Le Huu Tu and Priest Hoang Quynh, becoming an assistant of these two priests, notorious as anti-Communist elements. After 1954, he followed the French troops’ withdrawal in the hope of having an education in the West. But this hope was dashed when he could only find an odd job in a vineyard in France and then helped bishop Hoang Quynh at the Binh An parish, Saigon, until he was arrested. The precious object to back up this confession was a photo he took together with bishop Le Huu Tu and bishop Jean Cassaigne, the French general chaplain in Indochina. It was taken in Phat Diem in 1952.

This life story was a brilliant mixture between the fact and fabrication to fool the enemy. A Catholic at heart, Vu Ngoc Nha had experienced different phases in his life. He was one of the three hundred representatives of the Resistance War movement at the Guerilla War Conference of the Northern Delta. At this conference, after several meetings with President Ho Chi Minh, Vu Ngoc Nha was later admitted into the ranks of the pioneer secret agents of the Vietnam People’s Army. In preparation for a long war against the US and its henchemen, he was sent by President Ho Chi Minh in person to the South to start his operations. To create his cover, the communist Vu Ngoc Nha was embodied into the army of the French Union and had a chance to take a photo with Father Le and Father Cassaigne in Haiphong in late 1954, before embarking onto a ship to evacuate to the South not long after that. In Saigon, with his vast erudition, Vu Ngoc Nha became a priest and was trusted by bishop Hoang Quynh who never doubted Nha’s co-operation with the Phat Diem Militia General Committee.

In the Toa Kham Camp, Vu Ngoc Nha made contact with and was assigned by Mr “Muoi” or Tran Quoc Huong with the task of climbing up and sneaking into the Saigon administration’s rank. With his report analysing in detail four dangers “threatening the regime Ngo Dinh Diem had extensively cultivated,” he had caught the attention of Ngo Dinh Can, Ngo Dinh Nhu and Ngo Dinh Diem. When asked about it, Vu Ngoc Nha hinted  well about bishop Le Huu Tu’s main ideas and what he could do in turning them into a report. Highly valuing the responsibility and thoroughness of the report and, at the same time, thinking that they could grasp the chance to avail themselves of the support of the evacuating Catholics led by bishop Le Huu Tu and bishop Hoang Quynh, the Diem brothers invited Vu Ngoc Nha to be their advisor. And thanks to Nha, the discord between Phat Diem and the Ngo brothers was removed. This made Father Le and father Hoang happy, considering Vu Ngoc Nha as their half brother. Bishop Hoang Quynh had taken his family name to turn Vu Ngoc Nha’s name into Hoang Ngoc Nha.

In the Independence Palace, Vu Ngoc Nha’s profound ideas about the stratagem, strategy and tactics for the situation at that time had made the Diem brothers pay deference to him. Soon he became a confidant who had constant meetings and discussions on the confidential and vital matters of the Diem brothers. He became the “fifth dragon” of the most powerful family in the South with the name of Hoang Long put by Ngo Dinh Nhu himself. The other four “dragons” were Hong Long (Ngo Dinh Thuc), Bach Long (Ngo Dinh Diem), Thanh Long (Ngo Dinh Nhu) and Hac Long (Ngo Dinh Can).

 “Super secret agent”

Having opened the power door of the Ngo brothers, Vu Ngoc Nha quickly linked up with his comrades such as Le Huu Thuy, Vu Huu Ruat and Nguyen Xuan Hoe to form a network dubbed A22 to take the top positions in the Saigon puppet administration so as to be able to relay strategic information for the revolutionary struggle. The most beautiful success of the A22 secret agent group was to organise Huynh Van Trong, a man rich in national sentiment, into the network who then took a position of an assistant to President Nguyen Van Thieu. Huynh Van Trong was a minister under Bao Dai, but he was abandoned by Ngo Dinh Diem. Vu Ngoc Nha had shown the way to Huynh Van Trong to gradually create his reputation which later was used to help Nguyen Van Thieu to race into the seat of the President of the Republic of Vietnam. Thieu promoted Huynh Van Trong as assistant to him to show his thanks and favour to Trong. In such a position, Trong had conditions to contact and obtain many top secret documents of the US and their puppets, which were later handed over to Vu Ngoc Nha. With these documents in hand, the Party Committee of the South was able to launch a correct and timely struggle. In August 1968, arranged and advised by Vu Ngoc Nha, Nguyen Van Thieu sent Huynh Van Trong as head of a mission of the Republic of Vietnam to the US to explore the attitude of the Johnson administration toward the US war in Vietnam. These pieces of information that made a priceless contribution to the revolution before sitting down at the Paris Conference table with the US.

The success of the Huynh Van Trong mission was great to such an extent that Nguyen Van Thieu himself could feel greatly satisfied, without his realising that the mission of the Republic of Vietnam had been placed completely in the hands of Viet Cong’s secret agents!

As a faithful catholic who was ready to die for the religion, with his achievements made in all the regimes in the South, Vu Ngoc Nha had never received any privilege or title or premium from the heads of these regimes. In compensation for that, he had won the trust of these regimes, that could help him get many confidential strategic documents, from the plan to build the strategic hamlets, the Stanley Taylor Plan under the Diem regime, to the rural pacification plan, the Phoenix plan, the landing plan of US troops, the special war plan under the Thieu regime, and these documents had helped the Party work out the correct line in the struggle.

One oddity was that when the 1968 Tet offensive and uprising was launched, Vu Ngoc Nha, as planned, would be the commander of the Saigon special detatchment to capture or kill Nguyen Van Thieu. Fortunately for Thieu, he was in his mother’s home village together with his wife and children for the Tet holidays. On the eve of Tet, Vu Ngoc Nha was on duty at the Independence Palace on Thieu’s behalf, so he opened the president’s wine cellar for the soldiers to drink, resulting in leaving all the guards on all fours. However, the attack plan had changed, so after Tet, Nguyen Van Thieu ladled out his compliments and thanks to “Mr Advisor” for his initiative of opening the wine cellar to raise the soldiers’ spirits, so that the Palace could be kept intact, while the US Embassy, only 300 metress away was heavily damaged by the liberation fighters!

From the “Infeasible spy case” to the “All-time greatest political trial”

The CIA sniffed out and later discover the A22 spy network due to some loopholes in the process of collecting information. Apart from the timely withdrawal to the liberated zone of Mr Tran Quoc Huong, the top commander of the network, all the others, including Vu Ngoc Nha, were arrested by the Saigon special police in mid-July 1969.

After over one month of detention, the puppet police and the CIA had conducted over 32 cruel tortures on Vu Ngoc Nha, but he had reported nothing. But he could not bear seeing the whole network being discovered by the enemy. So, to be able to struggle openly in the court, Vu Ngoc Nha decided to admit everything for which the enemy had enough evidence.

In the hope of having Vu Ngoc Nha’s co-operation, the CIA sent their men to see him and ask him to admit that he was another CIA man! The proposal seemed to be a well-calculated move, which could both raise CIA’s prestige and have an opportunity to untie the political bundle. The CIA said it would pay Vu Ngoc Nha US $2 million and he could open his account in any bank he liked, with a very high monthly salary if Nha nodded. But he did not. He also refused the help of the lawyers at the court in an attempt to make the court a futile one.

This had led the US and its Saigon puppet regime into a messy political scandal. All the duties carried by the defendants were entrusted or ordered by the constitutional president. So the most important witness of the “case” would surely not be summoned by the court because it was the very president himself.

All the work and details were related to the policy and affairs of the government and had something to do with the top officials of the administration, including the president, ministers, representatives, CIA, even the US president. This made Nguyen Van Thieu very angry, because, as he said the CIA had intentionally orchestrated it to cut off his arms.

The Vatican and the Catholic community also held that this was the scheme of the CIA and the Thieu administration to weaken Catholicism in Vietnam. So the court case quickly became the “century’s greatest political trial.”

The court became so confused that it could not declare any death sentence. All the four main men including Nha, Trong, Thuy and Hoe were sentenced for life imprisonment and deported to Poulor Condor (Con Dao). It was ironic enough that in Rome on June 23, 1971, Vu Ngoc Nha was recognised as a “filial son of God” and was bestowed with a medal by the Pope. Two days later, on June 25 a Vatican bishop came to present the award to Vu Ngoc Nha right in the Chi Hoa prison.

The reward of Pope Paul VI helped Vu Ngoc Nha earn more prestige. All the years being detained in Con Dao, many representatives, politicians, religious dignitaries and even the chaplains of the US army wrote letters or came to see him or solicited his ideas about something!

On July 23, 1973 Vu Ngoc Nha was returned at Loc Ninh with the title ‘liberation bishop.’ Up to the then, still nobody in the whole South Vietnam showed any doubt about his position and influence on the political stage in the South. Bishop Hoang Quynh and many other dignitaries of the Vatican had kept regular contacts with him in the liberated zone. Their confidence was so great that on November 12, 1974, that notorious anti-Communist bishop Hoang Quynh was ready to follow Lien, Vu Ngoc Nha’s eldest daughter, to the liberated zone in Dong Lon (Upper Trung Lap, Cu Chi) to discuss together with him about the third force and the three-party government in the South in accordance with the Paris Agreement.

And in his capacity as a man of the third party, on 30 April 1975, Vu Ngoc Nha standing by the side of the last President of the Saigon regime Duong Van Minh when he declared his surrender unconditionally to the revolution. In his confused mind, possibly the last president could not see that the small man by his side was smiling a fresh and satisfied smile, the smile of a victor.

(Chairman Mao interviewing the famous Vietnamese female hero Xie Shijiao)