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Nguyen
Cao Ky has not been to Vietnam since he escaped in 1975. Ky is on a three-week trip to his homeland..
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HANOI, Vietnam -- It took more than half a
century of bloodshed and exile, but Nguyen Cao Ky, the ardent
anticommunist and former ruler of South Vietnam, has finally come
home to this communist capital.
A former air force pilot
who flew bombing raids over
North Vietnam
, Ky arrived Friday in
Hanoi
on government-owned Vietnam Airlines. At 73, he has made peace with
his former enemies and says he wants to help his homeland prosper.
He hints that he may even move back.
“My heart is very
clear,” the former South Vietnamese premier said. “What I am
doing now I am doing for my country. When you look back today, the
killing is nothing you can praise. It’s time to close that dark
chapter of
Vietnam
history and open a new one. The road of old warriors has ended.”
Ky, who has been assailed
by some Vietnamese exiles for setting foot in the country, arrived
in
Ho Chi Minh City
on Jan. 14 on a three-week trip of sightseeing and reconciliation.
It was the first time he had returned to
Vietnam
since he fled in 1975 ahead of the communist takeover. When he
landed in
Hanoi
, it was the first time in 53 years he had visited the city where he
grew up.
Standing on the balcony of
his 15th-floor suite at the Sofitel Plaza Hotel overlooking central
Hanoi
, he could see the elegant French colonial building where he went to
school, the pagoda where he prayed and
West Lake
, where he used to swim.
“To be frank,” he
confided, “this is my hometown.”
Ky’s trip is a milestone
in
Vietnam
’s postwar history, which has been a tale of rapprochement slowed
by wary former enemies. Other key moments include the creation of a
joint task force in 1991 to search for missing
U.S.
soldiers, the restoration of diplomatic relations with the
United States
in 1995, and return visits to
Vietnam
by former GIs seeking their own resolution.
Ky’s journey back carries
special significance because there was no fiercer defender of South
Vietnam, and his decision to travel home sends a strong, if
unwelcome, message of conciliation to many Vietnamese exiles,
especially in Southern California’s Orange County, which has the
largest concentration of expatriates.
“Some people in
Orange
County
think that my return symbolizes a surrender,” he said.
“Surrender to who? To what? Who did I betray? If you surrender to
your country, what’s wrong with that? This is my country, not
Little Saigon, not
Orange
County
.”
As
South Vietnam
’s air force commander, premier and vice president during the
1960s, Ky was famous for his black jumpsuit and violet scarf, his
ivory-handled revolver and his occasional outrageous remark -- such
as suggesting that he admired Hitler.
He still boasts that for
two years as premier, he held absolute power in
South Vietnam
. “If I didn’t like your face,” he said, “I could shoot
you.”
Living mainly in
Southern California
since 1975, he has long embodied the fight against communism. But in
an abrupt turn, Ky has been welcomed by the Vietnamese government,
which hopes that Ky’s visit will encourage other exiles to return
and help rebuild the country. “We are friends now,” he said.
Retired U.S. Army Gen.
Corbin Cherry, a chaplain and
Vietnam
veteran who accompanied him to
Ho Chi Minh City
, the former
Saigon
, said Ky had no political or financial agenda in coming back. This
is not, Cherry said, “the return of a king.”
Instead, Ky said he
believed that his homeland was gradually shedding its authoritarian
ways. “Communism is over,” he said. “That’s what I want to
prove on my trip.”
There has been little
coverage of his visit in the state-controlled media. As he travels
around, he often goes unrecognized. In a country where more than
half the population was born after the war, his is a name from
history. Younger people are much more likely to know of his
daughter, Ky Duyen, a popular entertainer.
Ky looks much as he did
during the war years. His hair is thinning and there are flecks of
gray, but it is still black, as is his mustache. He is slender,
stands straight, and stays fit by golfing. Sometimes stern and
aloof, he speaks bluntly and is accustomed to being pampered.
Although Ky’s trip home
has hardly caused a ripple in
Vietnam
, it has stirred up a storm of controversy among Vietnamese exiles.
Some call him a traitor and a hypocrite and accuse him of
legitimizing a corrupt and authoritarian government. In
Orange
County
, critics have ripped into Ky on Vietnamese-language radio shows.
Ky was born in 1930 near
Hanoi
and raised in the city by his aunt. He said it was only by chance
that he fought for the South instead of the North.
At 16, he had joined
thousands of other young Vietnamese in the countryside to resist the
return of the French after World War II. He came down with malaria,
and his family brought him back to
Hanoi
for treatment. After he recovered, he was drafted by the
French-controlled government and eventually sent to
France
and
North Africa
for training as a pilot.
By the time he returned in
1954, the war with the French was over and
Vietnam
had been divided into the communist North and the pro-American
South.
In
South Vietnam
, Ky rose quickly to command the air force. In 1963, the military
overthrew President Ngo Dinh Diem, and after several more coups, Ky
was named premier in 1965. He was 34.
He ruled the country for
the next two tumultuous years, then was elected vice president,
serving from 1967 to 1971.
Ky last saw
Vietnam
on
April 29, 1975
-- the day before
South Vietnam
fell to the communists. He escaped in his Huey helicopter and flew
to the
U.S.
aircraft carrier Midway in the
South China Sea
. So many were fleeing that the crew pushed his helicopter overboard
to make room for others to land.
Ky says he arrived in
California
with nothing. At first he supported himself by writing and
lecturing, then borrowed money to buy a liquor store, where he
worked the cash register and stocked the shelves himself. The
business failed, as did a boutique, and then a shrimp venture in
Louisiana
. He eventually filed for bankruptcy.
“I was not a good
politician,” he said. “I was not a good businessman.”
On Jan. 14, Ky returned to
Vietnam
. Staying at the five-star Sheraton Hotel in
Ho Chi Minh City
, he was wined and dined by old friends and some of
Vietnam
’s successful businessmen, including his former bodyguard, who now
has a movie production company. During the first three days, he
played golf with some of his former adversaries at two of the
city’s biggest and newest courses. Enough liquor has flowed during
the trip to stock his old liquor store.
Ky found
Ho Chi Minh City
teeming with motorbikes and studded with new high-rise buildings. He
visited a new upscale shopping mall and a planned suburban
community; either one could have been in
Orange
County
. But he avoided wartime sites and museums -- even the former
presidential palace he was instrumental in building.
“I’m not going to pay
$5 to see my own house,” he said. “I already know what it looks
like.”