Nguyen Cao Ky: Traitor?

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THE SUICIDES ON APRIL 30, 1975



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Evacuation

Below is a picture of one of my wife's sisters, Hue, in the plane crying.



"It left behind many South Vietnamese (250 to 400, depending upon which source is consulted) who had been promised escape. They were simply abandoned. It was the last of a long series of US betrayals in Vietnam. "

(A South Korean CIA officer , who had patiently waited in line, was among the Vietnamese. Nothing was ever heard from him, and I often think about his possible end. I hope he wasn't taken alive. Criminal. BT)

The man who stood in General Headquarters in Saigon, at the end and stated defiantly that he would fight to the death.......BT

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It was an about-face that outraged a generation displaced by war.

Nguyen Cao Ky, the former South Vietnam leader known for ruthlessly defending democracy, was suddenly, at 73, rubbing shoulders with communist officials — something that seemed unthinkable to those who had fled the country during the painful days after the Vietnam War.

Vietnamese Americans who had rallied around him felt betrayed, and Ky's once-revered stature in the small Orange County community the refugees had adopted was sullied.

Nearly seven years later, sentiments toward Ky among the fiercely anti-communist residents of Little Saigon haven't diminished. But his death Saturday in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, may have marked a changing of the tide.

"From a political standpoint, he represented parts of the Vietnam War at its height. With his passing, that era goes with him as well," said Van Tran, who fled Vietnam as a child and later became the first Vietnamese American to serve in the California legislature.

"Many leaders of the South Vietnamese government have passed on, and it's basically the wheel of time turning — that page of history is turning to another generation."

Among others, though, the wounds of war are still raw and Ky continues to be seen as a traitor.

"The overwhelming thought in the community was he was a traitor and most Vietnamese did not trust him," said political activist Ky Ngo, 58, who lives in Garden Grove. "Anyone can go back to the homeland, that's fine, but when you go and openly support the communist movement and criticize the former South Vietnam's government, you lose respect."

Ngo said he was sorry to hear about Ky's passing but said it meant little to a community that has denied him for so long.

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