Bùi Diễm
Bùi Diễm (1 October 1923[1] – 24 October 2021) was South Vietnam's ambassador to the United States under President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu. He played a key role in the last desperate attempt to secure US$722 million in military aid to defend South Vietnam against the North in 1975. He was the nephew of Trần Trọng Kim, who served as the Prime Minister of Emperor Bảo Đại.
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Bùi was born in Hà Nam on 1 October 1923.[1] He was the founder of the Saigon Post, in South Vietnam.[2] After the fall of Saigon in 1975, he settled in the United States, living in Rockville, Maryland. He was a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and at the American Enterprise Institute, as well as a research professor at George Mason University.[3] Bui Diem was interviewed by Stanley Karnow for Vietnam: A Television History, where he recounts in a stunning allegation that Lyndon B. Johnson had unilaterally deployed Marine ground troops into South Vietnam without consulting the South Vietnamese government.[4]
He was the author of the book In the Jaws of History.[5] He was interviewed in Ken Burns's series The Vietnam War.
Bùi died in Rockville, Maryland, on 24 October 2021, at the age of 98.[6]
References
- "Biographic Report, Republic of Vietnam - Bui Diem - CIA Research Reports" (PDF). The Vietnam Center and Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University. 29 January 1965.
- The Saigon Post
- Massachusetts legal filing (pdf)
- "Vietnam: A Television History; Vietnamizing the War (1968 - 1973); Interview with Bui Diem, 1981". openvault.wgbh.org. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
- New York Times review
- "Cựu đại sứ Việt Nam Cộng hòa Bùi Diễm qua đời". VoA Vietnamese. 24 October 2021.