Phan Quang Dan
An early to mid-20th century Vietnamese nationalist and friend of Bao Dai. In the 1940s, he had been in the Dai Viet nationalist party. He had a medical degree from Harvard, and was reported to have worked for the U.S. Office of Strategic Services during the Second World War.
He was allied with Nguyen Tuong Tan, an early VNQDD nationalist and leader of the Greater Vietnam People's Rule party. After the 1959 legislative elections, where he won the greatest plurality of any candidate,[1] he was one of only two opposition ministers in the government of Ngo Dinh Diem.
Diem later arrested him, and the International Commission of Jurists, in 1961, expressed concern over his disappearance after the coup of November 11, 1960. The ICJ described him as leader of the Democratic Party of South Vietnam.[2]
In 1968, he was stripped of a cabinet post four weeks after being named to it, for an allegedly treasonous statement. He had told a U.S. audience, that the Saigon government should be more liberal in agreeing to talks with the Vietcong. "Either you kill them all or you talk to them, and killing all of them is impossible." [3]
Later, he was Minister of Foreign Affairs and deputy Prime Minster for social welfare and refugees in post-Diem governments. He was head of the Ministry of Social Welfare and responsible for Operation Babylift in 1975. He came to the U.S. after the fall of South Vietnam.
References
- ↑ Jamieson, Neil L., Understanding Vietnam, pp. 238-239
- ↑ International Commission of Jurists, Vietnam - Dr. Phan-Quang-Dan's Disappearance
- ↑ Purnell, Karl M. (August 26, 1968), "Operation Self-Destruction: Planes Over Saigon", The Nation