The Twenty-Five Year Century: A South Vietnamese General Remembers The Indochina War To The Fall Of Saigon

by Lam Quang Thi

For Victor Hugo, the nineteenth century could be remembered by only its first two years, which established peace in Europe and France's supremacy on the continent. For General Lam Quang Thi, the twentieth century had only twenty-five from 1950 to 1975, during which the Republic of Vietnam and its Army grew up and collapsed with the fall of Saigon. This is the story of those twenty-five years.

General Thi fought in the Indochina War as a battery commander on the side of the French. When Viet Minh aggression began after the Geneva Accords, he served in the nascent Vietnamese National Army, and his career covers this army's entire lifespan. He was deputy commander of the 7th Infantry Division, and in 1965 he assumed command of the 9th Infantry Division. In 1966, at the age of thirty-three, he became one of the youngest generals in the Vietnamese Army. He participated in the Tet Offensive before being removed from the front lines for political reasons. When North Vietnam launched the 1972 Great Offensive, he was brought back to the field and eventually promoted to commander of an Army Corps Task Force along the Demilitarized Zone. With the fall of Saigon, he left Vietnam and emigrated to the United States.

Like his tactics during battle, General Thi pulls no punches in his denunciation of the various regimes of the Republic, and complacency and arrogance toward Vietnam in the policies of both France and the United States. Without lapsing into bitterness, this is finally a tribute to the soldiers who fell on behalf of a good cause.

Genres: Nonfiction

448 pages, Hardcover

First published February 13, 2002

Reviews

[Robert Marshall · Rating 4 out of 5]

A different take on an often misunderstood war. Thi explains how we we winning the war for all intents and purposes before the American withdrawal but this was hampered by a dishonest press that was sympathetic to the communist enemy. He destroys the myth that South Vietnam was fought for by unwilling natives and discusses in detail the military campaign that the south was winning until the Paris peace agreement. The fall of the south after the Americans left is a bit rushed but told from the perspective of someone who eventually has to flee. The book does jump back and forth in time which is the only reason I do not give it a 5 star as a historian this does not bother me, but people unfamiliar with the material may have trouble keeping track of the major events.

[Walk-Minh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lam Quang Thi’s book, “The Twenty-Five Year Century”, is awash in names and dates that challenge even the most astute reader to retain and regurgitate, if one were required to actually take a pop quiz on the tome. Eventually, I found myself flipping through the pages and skimming paragraphs until I reached passages that provided me with more of Mr. Lam’s personal insight into the development and dissolution of the Republic of South Vietnam. Luckily, Mr. Lam imparts quite a few insider tidbits about the nature of the two major regimes (Ngo Dinh Diem’s and Nguyen Van Thieu’s) that ruled South Vietnam on which he cut his military career’s teeth. Lam also adds his own candid commentary on the politics and personalities he had to confront.

Unmistakably, Mr. Lam comes across as a Francophile who’s indebted to the colonial culture and infrastructure for educating him, introducing him to French fineries, and training and promoting him through its Indochinese military ranks. When the Americans became involved after the 1954 partition of Vietnam and then became entrenched in the country’s affairs and political future, Lam was right there with them, continually proving himself to be an adept commander. All the while, Lam emphasizes his hopes for an idyllic non-communist Vietnam.

Lam, understandably, despises communist North Vietnam and her insurgents in the South and laments their final takeover of the country, since his sensibilities and political persuasion sit diametrically opposed to Marxist-Leninism. However, he paints a turbulent picture of South Vietnam’s major political and military actors who were charged with creating and running a viable alternative to the Communists. The level of intrigue and corruption within the two major South Vietnamese regimes disrupts at every major turning point any semblance of a cohesive national goal or philosophy that could compete with the “People’s Revolution” from the North. Ultimately, it was this corrosive political atmosphere that culminated in Lam’s house arrest shortly before the fall of Saigon in April 1975. Due to his incessant paranoia of a coup d’état, President Nguyen Van Thieu decided to reprimand Lam, as well several other generals, for supposedly abandoning his position in Hue, even though, according to Lam, President Thieu ordered the evacuation of Hue himself and Lam was simply following the orders of his superior.

Suffice it to say, such double-crossing and lack of credible leadership at the top of the South Vietnamese government, which finally cost Lam Quang Thi his stellar military career, derailed any promising future for the young nation. At least, that’s my own observation and interpretation of events according to not only Lam’s book but also other books I have read on the topic. In spite of that, Lam places much of the fault on South Vietnam’s demise on the media in the U.S. for mischaracterizing the regimes and the efforts of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and/or sympathizing heavily with the North Vietnamese Communists. Lam seems to insinuate that the American media were acting as collaborators with the Vietnamese Communists to degrade and dismantle South Vietnam’s credibility and right to exist in the brotherhood of nations. Obviously, I find this contention highly debatable, especially when Lam uses quotes from several Western journalists to bolster his perception of the righteousness of the South Vietnamese cause. Additionally, Lam apparently forgets his own extensive recounting of how Presidents Diem and Thieu laid the groundwork for system-wide nepotism and official corruption that undermined the principles that Lam thought he and his compatriots were fighting to uphold.

In the book’s Epilogue, Lam excoriates Vietnam’s current Communist regime and seems to be advising the country to work towards a more open and democratic future:

“In today’s global economy, emerging nations need to provide an environment of fair competition and safe investment if they want to attract the foreign capital necessary for economic growth. This requires the institution of the rule of law, the eradication of corruption and bureaucracy and, most of all, the dissolution of government-subsidized state enterprises. In other words, in an age where innovation and pluralism have become interdependent, economic reform, to succeed, must be implemented concurrently with political reform. But for authoritarian regimes, political reform means the erosion of the government’s grip on power and its ultimate demise.”

I find this quote highly ironic because this very same advice should have been taken to heart by the leaders and movers of the Republic of South Vietnam. Now, nearly 40 years later, that chance is long gone.

[Sabine Stolwijk · Rating 2 out of 5]

Incredibly strong military emphasis and view on the war written from a highly biased perspective

[Hunter Marston · Rating 4 out of 5]

An admittedly biased (pro Sai Gon) account of the war but a very insightful analysis of military strategy in the Army of the Republic of Viet Nam.