Supervising a Peace that Never Was: Recollections of Canadian Diplomatic Personnel in Indochina, 1954–1973 is an edited volume of essays by former diplomatic personnel who were assigned to international commissions in Indochina to initially oversee the implementation of the Geneva Accords in 1954 (the ICSC) and in 1973 to ensure adherence to the Paris Peace Agreement (the ICCS). This collection of essays is intended as a primary source to illuminate a largely forgotten chapter in Canadian diplomatic history.
Supervising a Peace that Never Was is edited by Helen Lansdowne (Associate Director of the Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives) and former foreign service officers Nick Etheridge (posted in Vietnam, Cambodia, Europe, and former High Commissioner to Bangladesh), and Phil Calvert (posted in Beijing and former ambassador to Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos).
The following excerpt is taken from the eighth chapter of the book. The section is made up of extracts from a letter by Foreign Service Officer Chris Dagg to his family in Vancouver, begun on February 5, 1968. Letter and photos by kind permission of Lindsay Dagg.
Chris Dagg Writes Home from the Continental Palace Hotel
Well, as you have no doubt heard, the Vietnamese New Year came in with a bang. It has been a very interesting (and rather exciting) week but – I hasten to add – a very safe one, as far as I and the other Canadians on the delegation have been concerned. We have been confined to the Continental Palace Hotel throughout it all. For all sorts of reasons, this is known as the safest hotel in Vietnam. The prime dangers all week have been a) the danger of having to wear dirty socks for the third straight day; b) the danger of getting a worse Bridge score in my next game than I got on my last one; and c) the danger of being given canned ham in the dining room tonight, since we had canned ham last night, and the night before, and the night before that …
As soon as it all began, we received orders from the Acting Commissioner (our Brigadier General, since Mr. Dier
is away) to stay in our hotels, to stay off the streets, and under no circumstances to try to go to the office. This was, as I said, a sensible precaution, and in this business we obey orders …
I’m sure that the press reports have been pretty gruesome and, indeed, the fighting here in Saigon was pretty intense. But one must remember that Saigon is a city covering a huge area and that the fighting was confined to a very small proportion of it. The fighting was also of the “close order” type, i.e., around certain buildings and installations. There was certainly no indiscriminate shelling or mortaring.
The closest fighting was on the first night at 3 a.m., when the American Embassy was attacked. It’s about 8 blocks away.
Since then, action has been confined to certain American installations far removed from the hotel, and to Cholon, a suburb of Saigon some miles away. The only taste I’ve had of the action has been the increased number of booms that waft in my window from the outskirts of the city, and the sound of small arms fire on the first night. Through the telephone, though, and through press friends who have been roaming around, I’ve been able to keep in touch, more or less, with what’s going on, and have found it a very interesting week, obviously. Rumours fly thick and fast, as ever, but usually by the end of each leisurely meal in the dining room we have – or rather, we think we have – sorted the rumours from the masses of information that manages to reach us. It all makes for a rather grim picture of the situation in the country as a whole, at least in the short term. I’m sure there wasn’t anyone who wasn’t surprised at the scale of the attacks. The loss of life in the immediate vicinity of some of the house-to-house fighting (and there was very little in Saigon, but a lot in Cholon) is bound to be heavy. It will be a while before the South and the USA can recover the ground that has, inevitably, been lost over the past few days. Through press people, I’ve heard some terrible stories about refugees; as ever, the poor peasant in the countryside gets the worst of it.
As is to be expected, Saigon is even more like an armed camp now than before. The streets are deserted of civilians most of the time, since they’ve been told over their ever-present transistor radios to stay home, and troops and police are everywhere. They have the remnants of the attacking force more or less bottled up, and they react quickly to any flare-up.
With the people told to stay home, the hotel has to struggle along on whatever food it had stored, and with whatever staff it can get in, so it’s been a bit austere, but we can hardly complain. It’s been one opportunity to meet some of the people in the hotel, and an interesting bunch they are. Many of them are press, and almost wholly non-US press: BBC, ITV (Britain), German radio, London Times, etc. (It seems to me that the management makes a conscious effort to keep American personnel out of the hotel. In any event, there are very few of them.) Frederick Nossal of the Toronto Telegram is here, and I’ve had quite a lot to do with him. He’s a very pleasant and interesting chap.
We went to work today for the first time in a week. The backlog of stuff was depressing, but I didn’t have a chance to get to it because I had to spend most of the day (or the half-day, as we only stayed until noon) trying to find out about the well-being of some of the Canadian missionaries, doctors etc, up-country. We have had no reports of any injuries to anybody Canadian.
There is a curfew in effect from 7 p.m. to 8 a.m., to keep the streets clear while the government forces try to flush out the remaining VC in Cholon. So, the streets are absolutely deserted, but the hotel is hopping, as everyone drops in on everybody else for drinks and to talk in order to ease the boredom. As we are the only accessible diplomats in the hotel (the Poles are here, as are the Indians, but they aren’t very sociable, especially to newsmen) and – as diplomats – the only people with a seemingly endless supply of good Scotch, we Canadians are very popular. Since all the Canadians also have Ottawa-supplied refrigerators in our rooms, and we actually have ice (which the hotel ran out of days ago) our popularity is assured. Since the press here are a pretty well-informed bunch, having been to areas of action, and are good company, as well, I don’t begrudge them the Scotch they drink. At something like $3.50 for a bottle of Chivas Regal, I could hardly complain, anyway!
As is to be expected, Saigon is even more like an armed camp now than before. The streets are deserted of civilians most of the time, since they’ve been told over their ever-present transistor radios to stay home, and troops and police are everywhere. They have the remnants of the attacking force more or less bottled up, and they react quickly to any flare-up.
With the people told to stay home, the hotel has to struggle along on whatever food it had stored, and with whatever staff it can get in, so it’s been a bit austere, but we can hardly complain. It’s been one opportunity to meet some of the people in the hotel, and an interesting bunch they are. Many of them are press, and almost wholly non-US press: BBC, ITV (Britain), German radio, London Times, etc. (It seems to me that the management makes a conscious effort to keep American personnel out of the hotel. In any event, there are very few of them.) Frederick Nossal of the Toronto Telegram is here, and I’ve had quite a lot to do with him. He’s a very pleasant and interesting chap.
We went to work today for the first time in a week. The backlog of stuff was depressing, but I didn’t have a chance to get to it because I had to spend most of the day (or the half-day, as we only stayed until noon) trying to find out about the well-being of some of the Canadian missionaries, doctors etc, up-country. We have had no reports of any injuries to anybody Canadian.
There is a curfew in effect from 7 p.m. to 8 a.m., to keep the streets clear while the government forces try to flush out the remaining VC in Cholon. So, the streets are absolutely deserted, but the hotel is hopping, as everyone drops in on everybody else for drinks and to talk in order to ease the boredom. As we are the only accessible diplomats in the hotel (the Poles are here, as are the Indians, but they aren’t very sociable, especially to newsmen) and – as diplomats – the only people with a seemingly endless supply of good Scotch, we Canadians are very popular. Since all the Canadians also have Ottawa-supplied refrigerators in our rooms, and we actually have ice (which the hotel ran out of days ago) our popularity is assured. Since the press here are a pretty well-informed bunch, having been to areas of action, and are good company, as well, I don’t begrudge them the Scotch they drink. At something like $3.50 for a bottle of Chivas Regal, I could hardly complain, anyway!
It’s hard not to be amused by the many ironies and anomalies that one finds here, especially at this particular time. The highest hotel in Saigon is the Caravelle, across a small square from our hotel. It has a famous bar on the roof, and the pastime of many “round-eyes” (westerners) in Saigon is to sit on the patio of the Caravelle bar and watch the war. From there you can see the bombing on the outskirts, and the flash of gunfire in Cholon, all for the price of a Scotch and soda. And then there’s the huge British correspondent in this hotel, with his equally huge wife, who walk their two tiny white poodles in the square every night at the same time, regardless of what curfew has been imposed. The police who guard the (National) Assembly Building across the street thoroughly enjoy the spectacle. Then there’s the fact that it’s 11 p.m, and there’s the sound of bombs on the outskirts, and I’ve just finished watching “Mission Impossible” on a friend’s TV, and have had an American beer, and nibbled on imported Planter’s peanuts. It’s all so unreal.
(Six days later) Downtown Saigon is pretty well back to normal today. The streets are crowded again, and the black-market stalls are out. There are many more beggars on the street, though. But with something like 100,000 refugees in the city, that’s not surprising. This afternoon, I took a long walk in the downtown area (in circles) with a friend, to stretch my legs. There’s no evident damage, except at the US Embassy, and that is being repaired rapidly.
The airport is returning to normal. We went out there on Friday. Once a week (approximately), the commission plane – a charter aircraft that the commission has used for 13 years – flies from Saigon to Phnom Penh (Cambodia) to Vientiane (Laos) to Hanoi. There are several chaps going to Hanoi on this run: our courier; the Indians’ courier; etc. Their baggage was, of course, marked with a tag reading “CIC2 – destination Hanoi.” The expression on the faces of the American servicemen waiting at the airport when they spotted those tags was something to see! I’m sure they are still thinking it over.
