State Department Official Talks With Millbrook High Class About Vietnam
October 29, 2001 - A U.S. State Department official recently
visited a Millbrook High class to talk about his connections
to and views on Vietnam.
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Robert Carlson, who now works at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota,
Colombia, worked the State Department's Vietnam desk when
the U.S. established diplomatic ties with Vietnam in the 1990s.
Carlson told Lindy Poling's Lessons of Vietnam class October
12 that his views on the southeast Asia country had changed
over time. His earliest memories of the war were news reports.
"I was a child during the Vietnam War," Carlson said. "I grew up seeing it on TV. It was the first war that was in our living rooms. Frankly, for a child, it was scary to see people being machine gunned and hand grenades being thrown while you are having dinner."
When Carlson turned 18, he had to register with Selective
Service, an issue made significant by Vietnam.
"My friends and I sat around and debated what we should
do," Carlson said. "We didn't know if we wanted
to sign up for the Selective Service because of the bad experience
that our country had in Vietnam. Nobody wanted to go to war
after that. During World War Two, the number of draft dodgers
was a handful. In the Vietnam War, the number of draft dodgers
was enormous. It was because a lot of people believed that
the war was wrong. The United States had not been attacked.
The United States was out meddling in another country, people
said. Finally, I decided I would register for selective service,
but that I would give very careful consideration to serving
in the armed forces if I was drafted to fight in a war where
my country was not attacked."
In college, Carlson took a course on the Vietnam War. The
course required each student to interview a veteran or refugee
of the war. That's when Carlson met Thanh.
"He was born in Saigon and grew up there," said
Carlson. "He was about 10 or 12 in 1975 when Saigon fell."
Thanh told Carlson the day Saigon fell, the schools were
closed.
"They were closed for a few weeks and then reopened.
He returned to find that all his teachers were gone and they
had been replaced by North Vietnamese teachers who changed
the history," said Carlson. "Thanh said they told
him how bad the south was, how inferior the south was, how
the Americans had invaded Vietnam, and how the North Vietnamese
had liberated the South Vietnamese from the Yankee Imperialists.
Than didn't really swallow that. He knew he had a good life
before the North Vietnamese arrived."
At school, Thanh focused his attention on math. But at home,
life became more difficult. His uncles were sent to re-education
camps and the new government had spies on every block. Thanh's
family fled the country. They bought their way onto a fishing
boat and made it to Malaysia. After months in a refugee camp,
officials put them aboard another boat, took it out into international
waters, and set it adrift. They were rescued by Indonesian
fishermen who took them to a refugee camp in Indonesia. From
there, his family was sponsored by a church group in Bloomington,
Indiana and made their way to the U.S.
 Teacher Lindy Poling introduces Robert Carlson to her Lessons of Vietnam class. |
"We used to think that maybe we were wrong to fight in a far-off country. It was the Cold War. It was like the people who were running this country were only fighting this war as a way to stick it to Russia and to keep the threat of community conspiracy from spreading throughout southeast Asia," said Carlson. "But Than made me think that maybe there really was a just cause here. I began to think differently. I realized what happened after the U.S. left Vietnam was really tragic. The communist regime executed a lot of people, tortured a lot of people, and enslaved almost the entire population. I don't think people in the U.S. really expected that."
In 1988, Carlson began working for the State Department and
in 1996 went to Washington to work on the Vietnam desk. To
acquaint desk officers with their countries, they take an
orientation tour.
"I was excited because I was going to get to go to the
country that everyone had always talked about, the country
that I had been studying, the country where events had changed
our nation's psyche," said Carlson. "Hanoi was a
dreary place. It was overcast a lot. Saigon, now called Ho
Chi Minh City, was a completely different city. It is a bustling,
booming city with a lot of commerce. That's probably what
struck me the most about the visit, the contrast between north
and south."
Carlson found North Vietnam to have a very conservative culture,
heavily influenced by China. He thought the south more liberal
and open.
In Ho Chi Minh City, Carlson visited the former U.S. Embassy
building shortly before it was demolished to make way for
a new U.S. Consulate.
"I couldn't believe it. I had seen pictures of it,"
said Carlson. "I had seen pictures of this building during
the Tet offensive in 1968 when the Viet Cong took over the
embassy and killed a bunch of foreign service officers before
they were finally routed out and killed themselves by U.S.
forces. Going into the building was like visiting a haunted
house. It was eerie with all the empty offices. I went up
to the roof and saw where the helipad was. I saw the stairs
and iron ladder that people used to escape when they evacuated
people out of there in April 1975. It was an experience that
left me speechless."
While Carlson worked the Vietnam desk, President Clinton nominated Pete Peterson as the first ambassador to Vietnam.
"Peterson was a POW in the war. He spent five and half
years in the Hanoi Hilton. He endured torture, but was one
of the lucky survivors," Carlson said. "He came
back to the United States, became a successful businessman,
ran for Congress, defeated an incumbent, and served two terms
in the U.S. House. He thought he could make a greater contribution
as the nation's first ambassador to Vietnam, because if anybody
could think about forgiveness and reconciliation, it was someone
like Pete. Not long into my term as Vietnam desk officer,
Pete Peterson was confirmed as our ambassador and he went
to Vietnam and opened the embassy with the Secretary of State."
In 1979, Vietnam invaded Cambodia and the U.S. had established policy that there would be no relationship with Vietnam until it withdrew from Cambodia. Vietnam left Cambodia in 1989 and Peterson arrived in Hanoi as ambassador in May 1997.
"When you don't have diplomatic relations with a country
and you don't have a dialogue with that country, you can't
expect to influence that country in any way," Carlson
said. "We were aware there were enormous human rights
violations in Vietnam and we could do nothing to help the
people. By re-establishing relations, we were able to create
a dialogue with the Vietnamese government, of which I was
part. Our human rights dialogue involved mid- and high-level
officials who would meet every six months to go over a list
of cases, and political prisoners, and try to get Vietnam
to loosen the reigns a little bit. For example, we were able
to persuade them to permit the Internet in Vietnam. We were
able to win the release of several political prisoners. Our
commercial relationship began to grow. That was what the Vietnamese
really wanted. They couldn't get their economy off the ground
and almost no country can get its economy off the ground without
having trade relations with the United States. By using that
as a carrot, we were able to produce changes in Vietnam and
I think what we will see there is a change in generations."
Carlson said that way over 50 percent of Vietnam's population
was born after the war and have no recollection of the war.
"Most don't care about it," said Carlson. "They want to live their lives, earn some money, and become prosperous. I think that's how things will eventually change in Vietnam."
Carlson visited Poling's class as part of her Community in the Classroom concept that involves students by hearing speakers who visit the classroom, corresponding by e-mail with a wide range of contacts Poling has developed as part of her course, and taking part in activities such as a dinner with veterans and a visit to the Vietnam War monument in Washington, DC.
Visiting speakers stimulate class discussions and Poling asked students to write letters responding to speakers like Carlson. For Poling a critical lesson for the students was Carlson's discussion about Thanh's life in Vietnam after the U.S. left.
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"Its amazing the hardships people must go through just to have a glimpse of freedom, to escape the home and everything you have known for so long and leave it behind," wrote Michelle. "It must be difficult; I cannot even begin to imagine leaving America to live in another country, because freedom no longer exists. You have opened so many doors and questions for me to look forward to learning more about Vietnam and its lessons for us." "I had never really paid much attention to a Vietnamese point of view until you told the story of your interview with Thanh," wrote Erika. "It really touched me because for the first time, I was hearing a totally different story. It has not just a war that had not purpose anymore, it was a war for ones own country. It became a war with a purpose, a huge purpose. This man's family depended on the outcome of this war. Thank you for giving me the turn around on the view." "Introducing the lesson you learned from interviewing Thanh and hearing his side of Vietnam was important for us," wrote Riannon. "It is difficult to live in America and have adequate access to a Vietnamese perspective. I think we should have some understanding of what the South Vietnamese were going through because it is one of the major strong points for why the U.S. even became involved in the war." |
Carlson told the class small decisions may have enormous unforeseen consequences on world events, "It's not just the world's leaders who drive history, its also average people like you and me." As an example he pointed to the attraction between two people and the impact it had years later on events in the U.S.
"A man and a woman in Austria at some point smiled at each other back in the 19th century and that completely changed the course of our world history," Carlson said. "They were the parents of Adolph Hitler. If they had never met, if they had missed each other by five minutes, the world would be completely different. If Hitler had never been born, its very likely there never would have been a Holocaust. If there had never been a Holocaust, then there wouldn't have been such an incredibly strong western sympathy for the creation of the state of Israel. And if the state of Israel had never been created, the Muslim radicals in the Middle East wouldn't hate the United States so much. And it would be very likely that Osama bin Laden would not have been converted into a radical and the events of September 11 never would have happened."
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"Our class had a discussion about your comment on two people smiling at one another," wrote Erika. "To believe that our world can change so much much because of the simplest things is amazing. In one way, it is a scary thought with your example of Hitler. I also see it as something good because even 'The Lessons of Vietnam' class is small, we can make a difference, too." "We have been taught to look at the big picture, but you broke it down all the way back to Hitler; it made me realize that if it was not for WW II and the Cold War, that September 11 might have never happened All our military technology and space advancement might have never occurred; how different life would be for us as Americans today," wrote Michelle. "I was amazed when you talked about how if two people had not looked at each other then Hitler would not have been born," wrote Norma. "I never realized that everything 'common' people do could have unimaginable effects. Over the weekend, every person I talked to and things I did, I questioned the effect that I might be making on someone else." |
U.S. Department of State: Vietnam |
U.S. Department of State: U.S. Embassy, Hanoi |