Every U.S. ambassador to Vietnam must meet with Vietnamese Americans living in Orange County, California, where shopping centers fly the yellow flag that once flew over South Vietnam. In Little Saigon, it’s easier to find phở than tacos.
Both our societies live with ghosts, with memories, and with legacies. With the aftermath.—Drew Gilpin Faust, Harvard University President from remarks delivered on March 23, 2017, at the Hồ Chí Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities.
We began preparing for a visit by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright - her first trip to Vietnam - just six weeks after Ambassador Pete Peterson’s May 1997 arrival. This trip was important in its own right but also because we knew it could be paving the way for a visit by President Bill Clinton.
Buchanan tells the powerful story of the women who defended the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a network of roads and trails used by the North Vietnamese to supply their troops, defeat the Americans and their South Vietnamese allies, and unify the country.
