World: The Safe, Unhappy Exiles

“Who brought me to this forlorn place?” goes an old Vietnamese song about exile. It was hardly an apt description of the scene in Paris last week when South Vietnamese expatriates celebrated Viet Nam’s National Day at the Maison de I’Amerique Latine. Consul General Nguyen Huu Tan, dressed in tails, greeted the guests, who drank bottle after bottle of cold champagne—Moet et Chandon 1949, Brut Imperial —the best. Along the Left Bank, the North Vietnamese were throwing their own ball at the headquarters of their diplomatic delegation. Not a bad life for an exile, whatever his politics.

Vice Lord. Some 25,000 Vietnamese live in France, about 60% of them recent political refugees. Though their ranks include six ex-Premiers and hosts of other once-powerful men, their schemes to return to power are little more than stimulating cafe topics. Bao Dai, the French-sponsored Emperor of Viet Nam for 20 years, has all but forgotten the old days before he went into exile in 1954. Cold-shouldered by De Gaulle (the government no longer subsidizes him), Bao Dai is the guest of a count in Lorraine, spends his time hunting or visiting his concubine in Paris. General Le Van Vien, ex-chief of the notorious Binh Xuyen sect and a former Saigon vice lord, lives in retirement in a mansion outside Paris.

To be sure, Bao Dai is not typical. A large percentage of the Vietnamese came to France in 1940 to work on farms or in factories. Some 5,000 are students (64 from North Viet Nam). In general, the expatriates are taller, heavier and have better teeth than their countrymen back home. Part of what a Catholic priest has described as “an unprecedented brain drain from an underdeveloped country” is an estimated 1,200 lawyers, 600 doctors (more than in all Viet Nam) and 300 engineers. High-ranking exiles include Three-Star General Nguyen Van Hinh, the army chief of staff who plotted against Premier Ngo Dinh Diem in 1954. Today he is a deputy commander of the French air force. Prince Buu Hoi heads Paris’ National Cancer Institute.

Uncle Ho’s. In Paris the exiles can gather in any one of some 200 Vietnamese chop-chop houses, ranging from a Communist bistro called Uncle Ho’s, to a hangout called the Gathering Place of the Wise Men, which, like the others, reeks with the home flavor of nuoc mam, the fish sauce used on most Vietnamese dishes. More than half the men are married to French women, many hold French citizenship, few seem inclined to return to Asia. “They have their families here and are safe from the horrors of war,” says a former Ambassador to the U.S., Tran Van Kha.

Like the anti-Castro fugitives from Cuba, the Vietnamese bicker about politics back home. Publications written for Vietnamese in Paris cover every political viewpoint. Though Viet Cong agents provide them with constant propaganda, the vast majority of the colony is antiCommunist. Most, however, are antiwar and vaguely leftist.

The emigre “parties” are mere cliques that are largely ignored in Viet Nam itself. Typical is the new Central Left Party organized by General Nguyen Khanh, the strongman who was overthrown last year by current Premier Nguyen Cao Ky and other generals. So far, the party has only 60 members and has put forth no program.

Those Who Die. Some question whether life in Paris is really so gay for the Vietnamese. Said one Vietnamese

Catholic priest: “For the most part, they will remain exiles in France, unhappy but rich and well fed.” Most of the expatriates recognize that their day in Viet Nam has passed. Typical is Father Gian, a missionary who runs a restaurant for political moderates (“We serve bigger helpings of rice than Uncle Ho’s”). He asks: “How can we speak for Viet Nam? It is for those who are suffering and dying to forge a future.”