CANADIAN PEACEKEEPERS IN INDO-
CHINA 1954-1973: RECOLLECTIONS,
edited by Arthur Blanchette, Golden Dog
Press, 2002, $29.99
In 1631, a year before he died in Milan, Fr. Christoforo Borri, S.J., one of the first missionaries to Cochin-China, wrote in his “Relacione della nueve missione … al Regno della Cocincina” that the first strangers to arrive in Vietnam were shipwrecked mariners “who took such an affection to the country that not a man of them would go away”. The same cannot be said for the authors of this book, although it is striking that several write with evident affection for the countries of Indochina to which they were posted for a year or more and, no matter how frustrating their work as the International Commissions for Supervision and Control grappled with the implementation of the Geneva Accords, none seem to regret the experience.
Canadian Peacekeepers is, as the editor’s preface makes clear, a collection of personal reminiscences focused on what it was like to live and work in Indochina during an unprecedented international experiment in peacekeeping. It is not intended as history or political analysis and, although several of the contributions qualify as such, most recount the authors’ personal reactions to the difficulties and frustrations, as well as the diversions and pleasures, of foreign service in an exotic and unfamiliar environment. That repetition and monotony have been avoided in these accounts is due in part to the fact that the experiences related cover three different countries over a period of some twenty years of enormous change and, even more so, to the authors whose reactions to these experiences, anecdotal or reflective, are as individual as their personalities.
I rarely laugh out loud when reading but did so on several occasions in preparing this review. The humour of the contributions by, for example, Dick Gorham, Ross Francis and the editor is welcome leaven to the background to all accounts of the Indochina peacekeeping experience: the total disruption of an accustomed way of life, oppressive heat, physical discomfort, monotony and incredibly frustrating conditions of daily work. The truth, as is clear from this book, is that after their initial successes during the first year of the implementation of the Geneva Accords, the Commissions lapsed into progressively greater impotence. The causes of this are still a matter of debate but willful obstruction for partisan advantage within the Commissions played a major role and the resulting disillusion of our peacekeepers deeply colours the contributions to this book, not only in what is said but what is omitted. For example, my most vivid memory of Laos in 1955 is the enforced intimacy of the Indian and Canadian delegations and, to a lesser extent, the Poles. In formal and informal meetings, bilateral and trilateral chats, and on countless social occasions the Commissioners pursued their glacial task of eroding stubbornly held positions in the hope of reaching some form of common ground, be it on the latest complaint of treaty violation by one of the parties or, more ambitiously, on the facilitation of a political settlement. Yet this interaction is barely mentioned; perhaps it was unique to Laos or perhaps the experience was too depressing to recall?
How the individual reacted depended in part on time and place. Time in the sense that the situation in the three countries, and with it the work of the Commissions, changed as the years passed, and successive generations of peacekeepers faced significantly different challenges. With the decline in Commission activity there was more time for other work (for example the Canadian aid programme to which Roy MacLaren and the editor make reference) and for cultural or recreational travel.
Time and mortality have more subtly influenced the book: few if any of the principals of the early Commission days survive and there is thus no account of its first year of operation, a period of intense activity and some success in the implementation of the cease-fire, disengagement and population transfer phases of the Geneva Accords. The earliest contributions date to mid-1955 and their authors were new to foreign service (Vernon Turner wryly entitles his account “Learning on the Job”’). Their narratives are fresh and provide perceptive comments on life, peoples and political attitudes in the three countries but the authors were not present for direct experience of the Commissions at the height of their activity and success.
Place has also exercised a formative influence on these recollections. John Schioler’s account of his prolonged stay in Hanoi makes it clear that this was the most difficult and isolated of the Indochinese posts. He sought partial relief in travel and the cultivation of personal interests. At the other extreme, Phnom Penh offered the closest approximation to normal living conditions with the added attraction of glorious beaches nearby and the magnificent ruins of the Khmer civilization at Angkor. The longest memoir in the book is that of a young secretary, Louise Pommet- Dyer; engaged and then married to an Australian, she spent an exceptional three years with the Canadian delegation in Phnom Penh and gives the most lively and circumstantial account of what it was really like to live and work in Cambodia.
As mentioned above, a more explicitly analytical or historical perspective colours several of the contributions. In chronological order, Si Taylor combines personal recollections with an analysis of the intricacies of North and South Vietnam policies and how they impacted the Commission. Blair Seaborn interweaves impressions of his time as Canadian Commissioner in Vietnam in the mid-sixties with a unique personal account of the special mission with which he was entrusted by the Canadian government: to act as conduit for communication between the United States and North Vietnamese governments. Peter Roberts experiences an incident of war in Saigon and records evidence of political miscalculation, ignoring a consensus of expert advice as an element in the catastrophe that overtook the United States in Indochina. Geoffrey Pearson considers the impact on Canadian policy of our general relationship with the United States and the respective roles of Prime Minister Pearson and the Secretary of State for External Affairs in developing that policy. Finally, Daniel Molgat, then Director of External Affairs’ Far Eastern Division, presents a straightforward account of the events leading up to the formation of the new International Commission in 1973 following the Vietnam cease-fire agreement of that year, and of Canada’s later withdrawal from it.
This short review cannot do justice to the individual authors, although some have been mentioned to illustrate a point. Read the book for entertainment, for the light it throws on an important episode in Canada’s participation on the international scene — memories of which are fading in the shadows of time
– and for its relevance to the international crises of our times.
View the original scanned pages →
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 19, No. 3 (2002-2003) — Fall/Winter 2002/2003 // Automne/Hiver 2002/2003, pp. 21–22. Read the rest of this issue →
