Abstract: In the 1970s, Gareth Porter, an anti-war American scholar,
published two articles on the land reform campaign in North Vietnam in
the 1950s and the massacre at Huế in the Tết Offensive 1968, calling
these myths. Porter’s articles are full of distortions and devoid of
scholarship. Porter committed several logical fallacies in his reasoning
and reflected a malicious misrepresentation of facts to suit his
political stand.
*
In the 1970s, Gareth Porter, an anti-war American scholar, has written a
number of articles opposing the Vietnam War (Wikipedia 2014a). Porter
is one of many anti-war American scholars including Noam Chomsky, Edward
Herman, and Marilyn Young. One of Porter’s specialties is to hunt down
statistical information provided by the anti-communist Vietnamese and
Americans, looking for errors or mistakes to make a case for accusing
these authors of lying, mis-representation, or exaggeration. While the
objective of truth finding is commendable, Porter’s one-sided approach
is seriously flawed and renders him a communist propagandist who uses
cheap and malicious tricks to attack others.
There are two myths that Porter has raised: the bloodbath in North
Vietnam’s land reform campaign (1953 – 1956) and the Huế massacre in
1968 (Wikipedia 2014). As will be presented in the following, the truths
about the bloody land reform program and the massacre at Huế have been
known for many years. Nevertheless, Porter’s articles still appear as
references in many sources, including the Internet, and are exploited to
the maximum by the Vietnamese communists in their propaganda.
A. The land reform campaign in North Vietnam from 1953 – 1956
In his paper titled “The Myth of the Bloodbath: North Vietnam’s Land
Reform Reconsidered” published in 1973, Porter (1973a) accuses Hoàng
Văn Chí, author of a book that detailed the land reform (Hoang 1964),
of using “gross mistranslations and misrepresentations” of “the actual
texts of documents relating to the errors of the land reform campaign”
(Porter 1973a, 9). Porter asserts that Chí and others, including the
South Vietnamese government with American support, launched propaganda
to attack the land reform campaign so that the President [Nixon] could
use it “as a major rationale for maintaining the U.S. military presence
in Vietnam” (Porter 1973a, 12). Porter specifically points out that “it
is Hoang Van Chi who has committed the most serious and most numerous
offenses” in “the ‘bloodbath’ myth by abusing important documentary
evidence” (ibid.,3).
Porter traces Chí’s background through Chí’s work history, alleges
that Chí worked for the CIA and concludes that Chí’s “purpose was
propaganda rather than accurate history” (ibid., 3). Porter’s criticism
of Hoang Van Chí’s book was vigorously refuted by Teodoru (1973) in a
congressional hearing before the Subcommittee to Investigate the
Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security
Laws. In addition to his own arguments and analysis of Porter’s article,
Teodoru provided a transcript of an interview with Hoang Van Chí
(Hoang 1972). Porter (1973b) later presented his counter-arguments to
Teodoru’s and Chí’s arguments in his testimony before the same
Subcommittee. Readers are referred to these documents for further
information. In what follows, I will focus my discussion mainly on
Porter’s quantifying analysis on the estimate of the number of deaths in
the North Vietnam Land Reform Campaign from 1953 to 1956.
Using sources from the government of the DRV, Porter produces two
numbers for the number of villages in the campaign and estimates of the
number of landowners and the percentage of landowners that were
executed. From these, Porter arrives at the range of 800 – 2,500 as the
number of executed landowners. Based on these estimates, Porter accuses
Chí of gross mis-representation in estimating the total number of
executions. According to Porter, Chí suggested that 5% of the total
population or 675,000 people were killed in the massacre (ibid., 11).
It is ironic that while Porter found fault with Chí’s translation and
representation, Porter himself committed even more serious distortions
and misrepresentations. Ignoring the low-blow personal attack on Chí,
Porter’s so-called accurate history is full of malicious
mis-representations and blatant distortions, as analyzed below.
First, Porter used the percentage of 5% of the total population,
estimated to be 13.5 million, given in Chí’s book to calculate the
total number of executions and came up with 675,000 people (ibid., 11),
which he later called absurd. In arriving at this number based on the
phrase “5% of the total population,” Porter committed the serious
logical fallacy of quoting out of context. In reality, this 5% figure
was given when Chí discussed the guilt complex of those who had
participated in the massacre: “In forcing them to denounce and kill
landlords, the party wanted to make the peasants share in the
blood-guilt. . . The guilt-complex which haunted the peasants’ mind
after the massacre of about 5 per cent of the total population has been
euphemistically described in official communist literature as ‘the
peasant’s consciousness of being master of his own fate’” (Hoang 1964,
212). It is clear from the above text that Chí meant “5 per cent of the
total population” as the subjective number in the mind of the peasants
who would carry out the executions, which gave rise to the guilt-complex
that haunted them. This concept of “5 percent of the total population”
was created by the party to inject a guilt complex in the minds of these
executioners. Chí never stated that this 5 per cent of the total
population objectively represented the total number of people who were
executed.
Evidence for this subjective thought in the minds of the peasants who
carried out the executions is given throughout the text. Chí did not
pull the “5 percent” from thin air. It comes from Trường Chinh’s
report as detailed in Chí’s book (Hoang 1964, 151). This report was
used as the training document for the correctional training course.
According to Chí, the students who attended the training course
completed the class with the impression that all of these landlords
would be executed when they heard what Hồ Chí Minh said when Hồ came
in person to address the course. Hồ said (Hoang 1964, 158-159),
“Imperialists are like tigers while landlords are like the bushes in
which the tigers hide. Thus, in order to chase the tigers from our
midst, we must necessarily destroy all the bushes at the same time.” It
is clear that “destroying all the bushes” where the bushes represent
landlords means killing all the landlords, or the 5 per cent of the
population. In other words, the people who were trained came home with
the mindset that 5 per cent of the population would be executed, and
that’s why they carried the guilt complex.
In the context of the paragraph, supported by Trường Chinh’s report
used in the training course, the phrase “about 5 per cent of the total
population” clearly refers to the subjective belief of the people who
participated in the massacre. Yet, Porter took the quote entirely out of
context, used it to arrive at the number 675,000, and accused Chí of
exaggerating the estimate of deaths.
Second, Porter first admitted Chí did assert “nobody has been able to
assess accurately the exact number of deaths” from the land reform, but
Porter implied Chí needed only to state “5 per cent of the total
population” and let others do the math by “casually [referring] in a
later chapter to the ‘massacre of about 5 per cent of the total
population’” (Porter 1973a, 11). Porter then volunteered to do the math
for Chí, and “[b]ased on a total estimated population of about 13.5
million in 1956, this would have represented a total of 675,000 people”
(ibid., 11). Porter deliberately performed this calculation despite
Chí’s unambiguous statement that nobody knew the exact number of
deaths. In fact, Chí had to rely on another source to provide the
estimate of “one hundred thousand deaths” (Hoang 1964, 166). This
estimate is clearly much lower than the number 675,000 that Porter was
trying to put in Chí’s mouth. Throughout his book, Chí repeatedly said
that the accurate estimate of deaths was unknown, yet Porter
deliberately accused Chí of suggesting 675,000 people were killed. If
Chí had wanted to say 675,000 people were killed, he could have done
the simple math himself. He didn’t have to give half the information and
let others do the math as if he didn’t know the population in North
Vietnam at the time. By ignoring Chí’s assertion that nobody knew the
number of deaths and misleadingly calculating the number 675,000 as the
estimate of the number of deaths, it is Porter who created the bloodbath
myth, not Chí.
Third, Porter intentionally ignored Chí’s own estimate of the total
number of deaths, substituted his own calculation of the number 675,000,
and claimed that it was what Chí said. It should be noted that Porter
was meticulous in presenting his analysis to quantify the myth. Porter
appeared to be thorough in examining Chí’s book with surgical precision
to find a possible flaw. Yet, Porter missed the most important sentence
in Chí’s book that gives Chí’s own estimate of the number of deaths.
Chí stated, “[h]undreds and thousands of people were unjustly killed,
jailed or starved to death without the all-powerful party raising a
finger to help any of them” (Hoang 1964, 213. Emphasis added). Chí
clearly states that “hundreds and thousands of people” were killed, not
“hundreds of thousands of people” were killed. Certainly, an author with
excellent command of the English language like Chí had could not
confuse “hundreds of thousands” for “hundreds and thousands.” The phrase
“hundreds and thousands of people” (hàng trăm hàng ngàn người)
refers to a large number of people in the order of hundreds or
thousands, but certainly not hundreds of thousands. Chí had the
opportunity to say “hundreds of thousands” in that sentence, but he
didn’t.
Did Porter see that sentence? Of course he must have seen it. That
sentence is on page 213, only one page after the “5 percent of the total
population” excerpt. In fact, the sentence is in the paragraph right
after the quote “It is better to kill ten innocent people than to let
one enemy escape” (Hoang 1964, 213), which Porter cited (Porter 1973, 14
n35). If Porter believed Chí mistakenly stated “hundreds and thousands
of people” instead of “hundreds of thousands,” he would have cited that
sentence without going through the calculation and would have commented
on Chí’s command of the English language. The fact that Porter didn’t
mention this sentence clearly shows that Porter knew Chí’s estimate was
“hundreds of” or “thousands of,” but chose not to report it. By
ignoring Chí’s own estimate and performing his own calculation in an
effort to show Chí said 675,000 people were killed in the land reform
campaign, Porter committed the highest crime in scholarly research:
blatant distortion of another scholar’s words to achieve his own
personal objective.
Fourth, Chí actually did provide an estimate of the overall land reform
program including deaths that did not result directly from the
executions and may have been caused by other factors. Chí wrote, “The
principal campaign in the anti-feudal phase was the Land Reform
(1953-1956) in which half a million Vietnamese (4 per cent of the
population of North Vietnam) were sacrificed” (Hoang 1964, 72). It
should be noted that Chí did not write half a million Vietnamese
landlords were killed. The key phrase is “half a million Vietnamese were
sacrificed.” This includes all deaths as the result of, and in addition
to, the massacre of the landowners in North Vietnam. What other deaths?
Chí described extortion of money and valuables (Hoang 1964, 174-177),
deaths in jails and in concentration camps, suicides (ibid., 166) and
the policy of isolation (ibid., 166, 189-191). Chí described the policy
of isolation as one in which “members of landlords’ families were
prevented from working” and as a result, “the majority of them died of
starvation, children and old people first, and eventually the others”
(Hoang 1964, 190).
Chí cited the speech by Nguyễn Mạnh Tường which stated that “during
the destruction of the land-owners class, we didn’t differentiate types
of treatment; we caused horrible deaths to old people or children whom
we didn’t intend to destroy” (Hoang 1964, 190; Nguyễn 1956). Along the
same line, Teorodu (1973) provided five causes of death other than
executions: imprisonment, suicide, shock and stress, hard labor, and
“isolation” policy. Teorodu (ibid.) noted that the majority of
landowners subject to denunciations were older people who would not be
physically and emotionally strong enough to survive the mental and
physical stresses. Porter disputed the existence of the “isolation
policy” and cited the official party Nhân Dân newspaper, which stated,
“[T]here should be no contact with the person imprisoned, but there can
be visits with the other members of the family” (Porter 1973a, 11). It
is shocking that Porter claimed to have accurate history while he
rejected Chí’s account and chose to rely on the government of the DRV’s
official account. The more significant aspect is that Porter chose not
to quote Chí’s phrase “half a million Vietnamese (4 per cent of the
population of North Vietnam) were sacrificed,” and instead chose to use
the number 675,000 people, as maliciously calculated by him, to conclude
that Chí said 675,000 landowners were killed. Porter certainly knew
the difference between “Vietnamese” and “Vietnamese landowners,” and the
difference between “sacrificed” and “massacred,” but he purposely
ignored Chí’s phrase so that he didn’t have to deal with figuring out
ways to refute it.
All of Porter’s distortions and misleading analysis above can be found
within Chi’s book, Porter’s target of attack, and Porter’s article. One
does not need to go beyond these two documents. The above discussion
focuses entirely on the logic of Porter’s analysis and criticism of
Chí’s book. If Porter, a scholar with a Ph.D. from the prestigious
Cornell University, had trouble understand Chí’s book and intentionally
distorted and misrepresented it, how can one believe or trust anything
he cited and relied on outside Chí’s book? In fact, some of his other
accusations reinforce his false interpretations and distortions. His
reliance on the so-called official accounts of the government of the DRV
clearly shows his bias and prejudice against Chí and the South
Vietnamese government.
Currently available information now firmly establishes that Porter’s
estimates are far lower than the actual numbers. The government of the
SRV, however, does not provide the complete statistical information,
including the actual number of executions, and it is likely that this
number will never be known accurately. Nevertheless, the government of
the SRV provides statistics regarding the landowners and the
classification. According to data provided by the government of the
SRV, the total number of landowners was 172,008 of which 123,266 were
wrongly treated (“bị oan”) (Đặng 2005, 85). Although the government of
the SRV never states whether the number 172,008 represents the total
number of landowners or the total number of executed landowners, it is
clear that the number 172,008 is the total number of executed
landowners. This is because the total number of landowners was much
higher than 172,008 based on calculations from the information provided
by the government of the SRV. There are 3,314 villages with 10 million
people (ibid.). During the rectification of errors, the government of
the SRV admitted that they set the percentage of landowners to be 5.68%
of the local population (ibid.). Accordingly, with a population of 10
million, 5.68% would equal 568,000 landowners. Since it is clear that
there were 568,000 landowners as set by the government, the number
172,008 cannot be the total number of landowners; therefore, the number
172,008 has to be the total number of executed landowners. This number
is also consistent with the number 170,000
In addition to the quantitative aspect of the executions, Porter made
many accusations, including Chí’s mistranslation of Võ Nguyên Giáp’s
speech (e.g., translating the verb “xử lý” to “torture” instead of
“discipline”) (Porter 1973, 9), Chí’s fabrication of the communist
slogan “Better to kill ten innocent people than let one enemy escape,”
as quoted from a speech made by Professor Nguyễn Mạnh Tường of the
Faculty of Pedagogy of the University of Hanoi (ibid., 7). Teorodu
(1973) and Chí (Hoang 1972) replied fully to Porter’s accusations.
It turned out that Porter’s accusations are completely false and it is
he who made a fool of himself when evidence became known. Torture was
indeed used during the land reform campaign. Hồ Chí Minh declared that
certain cadres “are still committing the error of using torture”
(quoted in Duiker 2000, 478). While he used “certain cadres,” it is
clear that torture must have been so prevalent that it prompted Hồ to
make the charge publicly. Hồ suggested its prevalent practice when he
asked, “Why must we, who are in possession of a just program and a just
rationale, make use of such brutal methods?” (quoted in ibid.). It
should be noted that the word "torture" was not used by Hồ. Instead,
he used "corporeal punishment" (Đặng 2005, 86). However, he also said,
"When we caused them so much pain, they had to admit guilt even though
they were innocent." Accordingly, "corporeal punishment" actually meant
"torture." Regarding Nguyễn Mạnh Tường’s quote, it is now settled
that Tường indeed said it. Specifically, Tường said, “When we bring
forth the slogan ‘it’s better to kill 10 people unjustly than to let one
enemy escape,’ not only the slogan is irrationally extreme leftist, but
it is also counter-revolutionary” (Khi đưa ra khẩu hiệu ‘thà chết 10
người oan còn hơn để sót một địch’ thì khẩu hiệu này không những quá tả
một cách vô lý mà phản lại cách mạng là đằng khác nữa.) (Nguyễn 1956;
Nguyễn 2011, 324).
The myth of bloodbath as called by Porter is actually a myth created by
himself. His attack on Hoàng Văn Chí is full of errors,
misrepresentations, and distortions and devoid of the integrity and
honesty expected of a scholar. He committed many logical fallacies,
including quoting out of context, appeal to authority, and personal
attack. Porter’s attack on Chí is unheard of in a scholarly work.
Furthermore, Chí was not the only person he attacked. He also attacked
Bernard Fall, a respected American historian. He even disputed the
estimate of 100,000 deaths by Gérard Tongas, cited in Chí’s book, as
“[representing] the figure circulated by those who still hoped for a
return to the status quo of the colonial period” (Porter 1973, 10). His
personal attacks on these people were so egregious that Teorodu (1973)
believed that Porter committed slander. But one does not need to look at
other accusations to evaluate the validity of Porter’s analysis.
The above discussion clearly shows that Porter’s analysis and arguments
are flagrant and devoid of scholarship. One can’t help but wonder
whether he was so stupid that he couldn’t understand Chí’s book written
in plain English or he was so fanatic in his anti-war stand that he
brushed aside the truth.
Now that the truth about the number of executed landowners has been
revealed by the Vietnamese Communists, Porter has become a laughing
stock to the world.
Porter’s article on the land reform and his attack on Chí received
heavy criticisms from Robert F. Turner, now a law professor at the
University of Virginia. Turner (1972, 33) said, “Porter has produced an
incredibly sloppy piece of propaganda.” According to Turner, Porter’s
effort to discredit Chí “is so absurd as to deserve little comment”
(ibid., 34). Turner proved Porter had been “wrong” or “in error” in his
criticisms of Chí’s book. Turner remarked that “Mr. Porter is being
less than honest if he denies knowing that children of landlords were
frequent victims of ‘justice’ during Vietnamese Communist land reforms”
(ibid., 39). Citing evidence of Porter’s full knowledge of communist
acts of killing children through Porter’s own interview of a senior Viet
Cong defector, Turner (ibid.) sarcastically said, “[Porter] is
suffering either a lapse of memory or of integrity.” Turner did not
respond all Porter’s charges against Chí’s book because he didn’t
consider Porter’s article “to be worthy of the time required for a more
detailed analysis” (ibid.)
B. The Huế massacre
Gareth Porter, together with his colleague, continued his anti-war work
by publishing a series of articles (Porter 1974; Herman and Porter 1975)
accusing the South Vietnamese and American agencies of fabricating
evidence in reporting the number of deaths in the 1968 Huế massacre.
Porter (1974, 2) asserted that the 10th Political Warfare battalion of
the ARVN had a “specific mission . . . to discredit the National
Liberation Front without regard to the truth.” He further asserted that
“the story of the ‘massacre’ reported by the U.S. press in 1968 and 1969
was based” on the word of the ARVN 10th Political Warfare battalion.
Like in his previous performance on the land reform, Porter’s articles
demonstrate his severe bias and prejudice against the South Vietnamese
government and the U.S. military information authority in South Vietnam.
In addition, as will be shown in the following discussion, Porter’s
articles again show his incompetence and malice in analyzing facts,
evidence, and witnesses’ accounts.
First, Porter reported, “Province chief Col. Pham Van Khoa announced at
the end of February that 300 civilian government workers had been
executed by the communists and had been found in common graves southeast
of the city” (Porter 1974, 2). Khoa’s announcement was actually made
on February 11 (Braestrup 1994, 212), not at the end of February. In
addition, Khoa’s rank was Lieutenant Colonel, not Colonel; and his last
name was Phan, not Pham. More importantly, Khoa was not a reliable
witness and could not represent the government of the Republic of
Vietnam. According to a study by the U.S. Army Center of Military
History, Khoa was said to have known about the offensive forty-eight
hours in advance (Villard 2008, 79). He “was found hiding in the rafters
of the hospital six days after the offensive began, initially insisting
that the attack had caught him by surprise but later explaining that he
had wanted the Communists to enter the city so that they could be
trapped and destroyed” (ibid.). Intelligence information also showed
that “Khoa had called a secret briefing on 30 January to inform his
political and business associates that a ground attack would take place
the next day” (ibid.). “The South Vietnamese government sacked Khoa in
the middle of March for his poor performance” (ibid.). These details
indicate Porter’s incompetence in carrying out news investigation. Using
an officer dismissed by the government as a star witness representing
the government shows that not only was Porter stupid but also wicked.
Porter (ibid.) next stated that French photographer Marc Riboud was
“repeatedly refused permission” to see the graves and when the “map
coordinates of the grave sites were finally released, there was no site
resembling the one described by Col. Khoa.” Just reading Porter’s report
on this incident, one can find several errors. Porter stated Marc
Riboud was not allowed to see the graves, but he did not or didn’t want
to give the reasons why Riboud was not allowed. He did not state from
whom Riboud asked permission and who refused permission. Porter (ibid.)
further stated that when Riboud was able to travel to the alleged site,
the pilot refused to land, claiming that the area was “insecure.” Was
Riboud allowed to fly in the helicopter? Was the pilot, who presumably
agreed to fly Riboud to the site, wrong when he said the area was
insecure? Porter wrote that no site resembled the one described by Col.
Khoa. Which one? According to Porter, Khoa referred to “common graves
southeast of the city.” How could the plural form of “common graves” now
become the singular form of “the one described by Khoa”? And “resemble”
in what sense? In the southeast direction? Evidence, which will be
shown later, shows that there were indeed several gravesites in the
southeast of the city. Was Porter looking for a single gravesite that
contained 300 bodies? But Khoa said there were common graves (without
specifying how many). Just by that paragraph alone, Porter displayed his
inability to write a simple report using straight English.
Second, Porter accused that there were contradictions in reports by the
ARVN’s political warfare department regarding the number of gravesites
and the average number of bodies in each grave, from 14 graves to 22
graves, and from 66 - 150 bodies to 200 bodies (Porter 1974, 3).
Porter’s accusation of contradictions in reporting deaths in disaster
areas, such as after a ferocious battle, is naïve to the point of
stupidity. The battle was just completed, refugees were returning home,
and the government was sending relief workers to help refugees settle.
It was hard to keep track of dead bodies lying on the streets because
there might be several teams working. Discovering and keeping track of
gravesites was even more difficult. Gravesites might be discovered one
by one and it was almost impossible to be sure if a final total count
had been reached and the government could only report what they found as
the task was in progress. In fact, evidence (as will be shown later)
shows that at the location in question (Gia Hoi secondary school) 14
gravesites were discovered that contained 101 bodies and later
additional bodies were found and the total body count eventually reached
203 (Vennema 1976, 129). By presenting information contained in
in-progress reports while the work was in progress and concluding that
the different numbers of gravesites and body counts in these in-progress
reports represent contradictions, Porter maliciously misrepresented and
misinterpreted the evidence to suit his conclusion.
Third, Porter wrote that findings by the most significant and highly
reliable eyewitness of the massacre, Dr. Alje Vennema, showed that
Vennema claimed there were 68 bodies, instead of the official claim of
477 (Porter 1974, 4). However, Dr. Vennema presented a completely
different account from what Porter reported. In his book, Vennema
admitted that he had been an opponent of the war and even had
sympathized with the National Liberation Front (Vennema 1976, Preface),
but the Hue massacre in 1968 had changed him. He published the book
because he felt that “the truth about the city of Hue should be made
known, to be inscribed in the annals of history alongside the names of
Lidice, Putte and Warsaw” (ibid.). He hoped to make the NLF and the
Hanoi government “realize that this type of approach – their folly of
violence, terror, and massacre – solves no problems, and only postpones
the peace and better life that all Vietnamese desire” (ibid.).
There is no record of what Vennema had said in 1968. Porter relied on an
unpublished report titled “The Tragedy of Hue” allegedly written by
Vennema (Porter 1974, 11, footnote 12). Porter conceded that Vennema’s
unpublished report came “immediately after Tet” (ibid., 4), and noted
that the official report in which the number of bodies was used to
compare with Vennema’s number was published on April 23, 1968. It is
unclear when Vennema wrote his unpublished report, but Vennema indicated
that ‘[b]y late March 1968, about 300 bodies of those executed by the
Vietcong had been discovered,” and he “left Vietnam in April 1968”
(Vennema 1976, Preface). It is therefore safe to assume that Vennema
wrote his unpublished report sometime in March 1968 or even earlier.
Porter claimed that according to Vennema, “the total number of bodies at
the four major sites discovered immediately after Tet was 68, instead
of the officially claimed total of 477” (Porter 1974, 4). On this basis
and “the refusal to allow confirmation by the press from first-hand
observation,” Porter suggested the South Vietnamese “may have inflated
the number of actual executions by the NLF by a factor of ten or more”
(Porter 1974, 4). The evidence, however, tells a different story.
Vennema’s published account shows the number of bodies was 300 as of
late March 1968, and the time difference between Vennema’s account and
the South Vietnamese official account was at least one month. In other
words, Porter was comparing two reports, on events that were still
unfolding, with a time lapse of at least one month, and using the
differences in numbers of gravesites and bodies in these reports as
evidence of contradictions. Either Porter was an idiot or he was so
driven by his anti-war zeal that he was willing to brush aside the
integrity and honesty expected of a scholar and misrepresented and
distorted evidence.
However, the main point is not about these minor and misleading
accusations. What matters is Porter’s final claim that “the official
story of an indiscriminate slaughter of those who were considered to be
unsympathetic to the NLF is a complete fabrication” (Porter 1974, 11).
Porter said that “[n]ot only is the number of bodies uncovered in and
around Hue open to question, but more important, the cause of death
appears to have been shifted from the fighting itself to NLF execution”
(ibid.). As will be shown in the following discussion, Porter’s claim is
full of distortions and misleading analysis that serve his anti-war
objective. His attack on Douglas Pike is also unprecedented and reflects
flagrant malice.
Porter relied on Vennema for his conclusion that the South Vietnamese
government inflated the number of actual executions. According to
Porter, Vennema “happened to be in the Hue province hospital during the
Tet Offensive and . . . made his own investigation of the grave sites”
(Porter 1974, 3). Therefore, Vennema’s account should represent the most
reliable account of what happened at Hue and should be the single most
trustworthy evidence. Let’s hear what Vennema actually said of the
massacre.
Regarding the discovered gravesites and the number of bodies, Vennema
reported the following sites (Vennema 1976, 129-141; re-reported in
Cao-Đắc 2014a, 368-372, and Cao-Đắc 2014b, 357-360):
1. Gia Hoi Secondary School (Vennema 1976, 129-131): Total gravesites:
14 and an additional unknown number of graves. Total number of bodies:
203, including men (young and old) and women. Among the dead were a
26-year-old woman “with legs and hands tied, a rag stuffed into her
mouth” and who “had no obvious wounds”; a 42-year-old policeman who was
buried alive; a 48-year-old street vendor woman whose “arms had been
bound and a rag stuffed into her mouth.” She had no wounds to the body
so probably had been buried alive.
2. Theravada Pagoda, called Tang Quang Tu (ibid., 131-132): 12 trenches
containing 43 bodies. Among the dead were a tailor, arms tied and shot
through the head; some people having their arms tied behind their backs
with barbed wire; and some had their mouths stuffed with rags. “All the
dead were victims of reprisal and vengeance” (ibid., 132).
3. Con Mo Bai Dau (ibid., 131): 3 trenches with 26 bodies.
4. Behind a small seminary where the tribunal had held its sessions
(ibid., 133): 2 trenches with 6 bodies (3 Vietnamese employed by the
U.S. Embassy, two Americans employed by U.S.O.M., and a French high
school teacher mistaken for an American). “All had their hands tied.”
5. Quan Ta Ngan (ibid.): 3 trenches with 21 bodies, “all males, with hands tied, and bullet holes in the head and neck.”
6. Five miles east of Hue (ibid.): 1 grave with 25 bodies, “all had been shot in the head, hands tied behind the back.”
7. Near the tombs of Emperors Tu Duc and Dong Khanh (ibid., 133-135): 20
trenches with an additional unknown number of small graves. A total of
203 bodies had been discovered. Among the dead were a French priest,
Father Urbain, who had his hands tied and no wounds to his body, and
another French priest, Father Guy, having a bullet wound in his head and
neck. No bodies of women and children were found, indicating that “the
victims were killed in cold blood and not during military activity.”
8. An Ninh bridge (ibid., 135): 1 trench with 20 bodies.
9. Dong Ba gate (ibid., 135): 1 trench with 7 bodies.
10. An Ninh Ha Elementary School (ibid., 135): 1 trench with 4 bodies.
11. Van Chi School (ibid., 136): 1 trench with 8 bodies.
12. Cho Thong, a marketplace (ibid., 136): 1 trench with 102 bodies.
“[M]ost had been shot and tied; there were several women among them, but
no children.”
13. Area of the imperial tombs of Gia Long (ibid., 136): nearly 200
bodies were found. Several people had their hands “tied behind the back,
and they had been shot through the head.”
14. Halfway between Ta Quang pagoda and the Tu Gy Van pagoda, 2.5 km
southwest of Hue (ibid., 137): 4 bodies of Germans (3 doctors and a
doctor’s wife).
15. Dong Gi, 16 km directly east of Hue (ibid.): 110 bodies, all men and
“most had their hands tied and rags stuffed into their mouths.”
16. Vinh Thai village, Phu Luong village, and Phu Xuan village, about 15
km to the south and southeast of the city (ibid., 137-138): 3 sites
with over 800 bodies (including 135 at Vinh Thai, 22 at Phu Luong, 230
and later 357 at Phu Xuan): Most were male with a few women and
children. Among the dead were Father Buu Dong and two of his
seminarians.
17. Thuong Hoa village, south of Emperor Gia Long’s tomb (ibid., 139): 1
grave with 11 bodies. “All bodies showed the same type of wounds to
head and neck, presumably inflicted at execution.”
18. Thuy Thanh and Vinh Hung villages (ibid.): over 70 bodies, “mostly
males with some women and children.” “[S]ome had died presumably during
warfare as they had various types of wounds and dismemberments; others
exhibited a single wound to the head and neck, the victims of
execution.”
19. Da Mai creek (ibid.): 500 skulls. “Among the many skeletons lay
pieces of ordinary clothing, not khaki nor the green cloth of North
Vietnamese or Viet Cong uniforms. The skulls all exhibited a similar
compressed fracture of the frontal bones as a result of a blow with [a]
heavy instrument.”
The above list of gravesites shows a total of 19 gravesites and about
2307 bodies. Most of them exhibited wounds caused by execution and not a
result of warfare. Many had their hands tied and rags stuffed into
their mouths. As late as September 1969, several hundred people were
still unaccounted for (ibid., 140). In addition, Vennema noted that
“[b]esides the mass graves, there were the individual, cold-blooded
murders” (ibid., 141).
Porter attempted to shift the blame to heavy fighting at one of the
burial sites where 22 bodies were found. According to him, “American
planes bombed the village repeatedly, destroying hundreds of homes and
killing civilians” and “some 250 communist soldiers were killed” in one
all-day battle (Porter 1974, 4). He wrote further that “the 250
skeletons found at Da Mai Creek (not 400 as claimed by Pike) were also
killed in battle or by American B-52 strikes” (ibid., 5-6). However,
Vennema (1976, 140) pinpointed with the precision of a doctor that the
creek contained 500 skulls and “[i]nvestigation of U.S. Army records
does not reveal any wide-scale action or B-52 bombing in the area except
for a battle fought near Loc Son, some 10 km. away from the area, in
late April, 1968.” Vennema (ibid.) stated that “to assume that any dead
from a B-52 strike were taken through the rough terrain to be buried in
the creek does not seem justified.” He (ibid.) further asserted that the
“skulls all exhibited a similar compression fracture of the frontal
bones as a result of a blow with a heavy instrument” and the “other
bones did not exhibit evidence of fractures which surely would have been
the case if they had died as a result of warfare.”
Porter’s conclusion that “the overwhelming majority of the bodies
discovered in 1969 were in fact the victims of American air power and of
the ground fighting that raged in the hamlets, rather than of NLF
execution” (Porter 1974, 6) stands in contradiction with the testimony
of a doctor eyewitness whom Porter himself relied heavily on (Cao-Đắc
2014a, 368-372; Cao-Đắc 2014b, 357-360).
In an effort to discredit Douglas Pike, Porter (ibid.) further argued
that the term “eliminate” as translated from the Vietnamese word “diệt”
in “diệt 1,892 tên tề” in a captured communist document does not mean
“kill” or “liquidate,” but it “had been previously used to include
killed, wounded or captured among enemy forces.” Porter’s interpretation
of the word “diệt” is unbelievable to the point of comical. The
captured document states, “We eliminated 1,892 administrative personnel,
39 policemen, 790 tyrants, 6 captains, 2 first lieutenants, 20 second
lieutenants and many non-commissioned officers.” Within the context of
that sentence alone, the term “eliminated” clearly means “killed” or
“caused death to.”
Porter further argued that the word “tề” in “diệt 1,892 tên tề” has a
broader meaning, including both civilian and military (Porter 1974, 7),
and therefore the translation “administrative personnel” was
inaccurate. Porter’s attempt to show his expertise in the Vietnamese
language is laughable. The term “tề” in Vietnamese, according to a
Vietnamese-English dictionary, means “village temporarily under French
control (during the war of resistance against the French colonialists)”
(Bùi 2000, 1804); “tề ấp” means “hamlet council”; “tề ngụy” means
“puppet administration in villages (during the war of resistance against
the French colonialists and the American imperialists)”; “tề xã”
means “village council.” The term “tề” has always connoted a civilian
meaning associated with hamlets or villages. Even without referring to a
Vietnamese-English dictionary, the above sentence clearly separates the
1,892 “tề” from the rest. The rest of the list includes military
officers. It was a list that itemized all the victims: “We eliminated A,
B, C, D, and E.” Interpreting that A includes B, C, D, or E defies
simple logic. Again, either Porter was extremely stupid or his anti-war
zeal had blinded his sanity.
In any event, the captured document shows a total of 2749 people had
been “eliminated” which seems to match the number found by Vennema of
2307 bodies and several hundred still unaccounted for. Estimates of
victims of the massacre by others show higher counts, about 4,000 to
6,000. The majority, if not all, of these cases was the result of
deliberate executions, and not result of warfare, including B-52
bombings.
Porter made other accusations directed toward Douglas Pike. However, the
above discussion is sufficient to show Porter’s obvious bias against
the South Vietnamese government and Pike in particular. In addition, it
shows Porter’s malicious misrepresentation and distortion of evidence.
His myth analysis itself is a myth created by him. In fact, it is more
than a myth because he launched a personal attack on several people,
including Douglas Pike. For these reasons, Porter’s articles are
worthless.
Porter’s scholarship, competence, and character have been under heavy
criticisms by many scholars. In his review of Porter’s book, “Perils of
Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam,” published
in 2005, Robert Buzzanco, a professor of history, questioned Porter’s
originality (Buzzanco 2006, 939, 941) and calling him a “one-trick pony”
with respect to his views on Vietnam (ibid., 941). Remarkably, Buzzanco
recognized Porter’s habit of using sources that suit his views, saying
“[b]ecause it suits his thesis, Porter seems to rely heavily on a few
oral interviews given after the war” (ibid., 942). Porter’s ethical
value as a journalist has also recently been under attack (Atzmon 2014).
David Albright (2014), President of the Institute of Science and
International Security, notes Porter’s “journalistic malfeasance and
incompetence,” stating that “he was a propagandist with a great deal of
disregard for the truth” and “it is Porter who has a history of willful
distortions.”
The Vietnamese communists love people like Gareth Porter because they
have the same habit of deceiving, lying, and distorting the truth. The
truths about the bloody land reform program and the massacre at Huế
have been known for many years. In countless sources, Hosmer (1970)
describes in great details the brutality of the Vietnamese communists in
executing and kidnapping South Vietnamese officials and innocent people
during the war, including specific details about the Huế massacre.
Nevertheless, the communist government in Vietnam still tries to cover
up these crimes with blatant lies and distortions, such as the 12-part
television series "Mậu Thân 1968" by director Lê Phong Lan broadcast in
January 2013 and the failed land reform exhibition in September 2014
(Cao-Đắc 2014c). It is no wonder that Lê Phong Lan listed Gareth
Porter, together with other American anti-war scholars, in her
television series.
C. Conclusion
In the 1970s, Gareth Porter wrote several articles accusing the
governments of the Republic of Vietnam and the United States of creating
the myths of blood-bath in the land reform campaign in the 1950s in
North Vietnam and the Huế massacre in 1968. Porter’s articles are full
of errors, logical fallacies, distortions, and mis-representations of
facts. Nevertheless, his articles still appear as references for several
sources, including those on the Internet. In particular, as of now, his
article on the Huế massacre is still quoted in Vietnamese Wikipedia to
support the communist denial of the massacre while the information
provided by Dr. Vennema is not fully quoted (Wikipedia 2014b). On the
contrary, on the same subject of the massacre at Huế, Wikipedia in
English gives a much more complete report (Wikipedia 2014c), including
Vennema’s report and communist own documents confirming the massacre of
more than three thousand people. Porter’s article is not cited in the
Wikipedia in English.
It is important to maintain historical accuracy so that crimes committed
by the Vietnamese communists are exposed. Articles such as those
authored by Gareth Porter should be disregarded for their blatant
distortions and inaccuracies. The Vietnamese communists, with their
enormous propaganda budget and staff, have been working hard to block
information flows to and from Vietnam. They want to deceive the
Vietnamese public with distorted facts and low-quality articles like
those of Porter. One of the most important objectives of the
pro-democracy activists, domestic or overseas, is to widely disseminate
accurate and truthful information to the people in Vietnam.
_________________________________________
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© 2014 Tuấn Cao-Đắc
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