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March 7, 1968

Record of Conversation between L. I. Brezhnev and N. Ceausescu on 7 March 1968

A record of a conversation in which Brezhnev and Ceausescu discuss weather or not to say that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty will only be signed once the United States ends its actions in Vietnam. Brezhnev advises not to raise the issue, while Ceausescu claims that it must be stated in order to advance a solution towards disarmament.

February 26, 1971

From the Journal of M.G. Podol’sky, 'Record of a Conversation with R. Berthold, Counsellor of the GDR Embassy in Hanoi, 18 February 1971'

A Soviet official in Vietnam recounts a meeting with an East German diplomat. The two sides discussed the nuclear threats from the United States in the Vietnam War, as well as relations with China.

2003

Tran Quang Co: A Memoir

The memoir of Trần Quang Cơ (1927-2015), former member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) and First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), brings to light the intense diplomacy among great powers and regional players over the continued conflicts in Indochina after the unification of Vietnam as well as the bitter disagreements within the Vietnamese leadership over the country’s political priorities during the period of 1975-1993.

Cơ put together his memories and thoughts on “many sensitive developments” in Vietnamese foreign relations that he believed had been “intentionally or unintentionally” forgotten (rơi rụng) in the state-endorsed history “to ‘smooth over’ (tròn trĩnh) the historical record.”  Completed in Vietnamese in 2001 (updated in 2003) and informally circulated on the internet, Merle Pribbenow’s English-translation makes this valuable historical source available to wider audiences.

April 1984

Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, 'Briefing Material for the President's Trip to China'

Includes memoranda on "China's Independent Foreign Policy in Perspective," "The Foreign Policy Positions of China's Senior Leaders," "Deng-Zhao with Brzezinski--An Assessment," "Sino-Soviet Relations," "China and a Korean Dialogue," "Sino-Soviet Trade and Economic Relations," "China and Japan: Building for the Long Haul," "China's Taiwan Policy," "China-Southeast Asia," "China: Leadership and Succession," "China: Economic Reforms," "US-China Economic Relations," "China: Expanding Market for US Energy Firms," "China: Nuclear Power Prospects," and "China: Changes in Military Industrial Development Policy-Implications for the United States."

December 2, 1980

Politburo Resolution No. 31-NQ/TW on the Protecting Political Security and Maintaining Law and Order in Our Society in the New Situation

In response to this perceived growing threat against the regime, on 2 December 1980 the Vietnamese Communist Party Politburo issued Resolution 31-NQ/TW on maintaining internal political security and law and order in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, with a specific focus on increasing the power and the responsibilities of Vietnam’s Public Security and Police forces, which were subordinate to the Ministry of Interior. 

December 15, 1980

Speech Given by Comrade Le Duc Tho to the Leaders of Public Security’s Departments, Bureaus, and City and Provincial Offices during the Conference to Discuss the Three Specialized Drafts and to Implement Politburo Resolution 31 [Excerpts]

A speech given by Party Politburo Member Le Duc Tho during a three-day conference of the Ministry’s top Public Security officers along with the Directors of Public Security of all of the nation’s provinces and major cities, where the attendees received instructions on three new Ministry of Interior Party resolutions - one on “the struggle against Chinese spies”, one on “the struggle against American spies”, and one on  “the struggle against the enemy’s ideological attacks.” At the time of the speech, Le Duc Tho was viewed as Vietnam’s second most powerful leader, second only to Party General Secretary Le Duan. 

Le Duc Tho commented that while recruiting Americans would be easy, requiring only “money, women, and drinking and carousing”, recruiting Chinese would require a careful process of political education of the target

September 1988

Record of Meetings in Prime Minister Takeshita’s Visit to China

Detailed summaries of Japanese Prime Minister Takeshita's conversations with Li Peng, Yang Shangkun, Deng Xiaoping, and Zhao Ziyang. Topics of discussion include Sino-Japanese political, economic, and cultural relations; China's economy and politics in the 1980s; the "history" problem; and the status of Taiwan. The two sides also discussed a range of international issues, including relations with the Soviet Union and the United States; developments on the Korean Peninsula; the Cambodian-Vietnamese conflict; the Iran-Iraq War; and Pakistan.

September 1, 1979

Cable from the Foreign Ministry, 'Notice on Vice President Mondale's Visit to China'

A summary of Walter Mondale's meetings with Chinese officials, including Deng Xiaoping and Hua Guofeng. Topics of conversation included bilateral relations and the situation in Indochina.

July 2, 1957

Remarks of Senator John F. Kennedy in the Senate, Washington, D.C., July 2, 1957

On July 2, 1957, US senator John F. Kennedy made his perhaps best-known senatorial speech—on Algeria.

Home to about 8 million Muslims, 1.2 million European settlers, and 130,000 Jews, it was from October 1954 embroiled in what France dubbed “events”—domestic events, to be precise. Virtually all settlers and most metropolitan French saw Algeria as an indivisible part of France. Algeria had been integrated into metropolitan administrative structures in 1847, towards the end of a structurally if not intentionally genocidal pacification campaign; Algeria’s population dropped by half between 1830, when France invaded, and the early 1870s. Eighty years and many political turns later (see e.g. Messali Hadj’s 1927 speech in this collection), in 1954, the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) launched a war for independence. Kennedy did not quite see eye to eye with the FLN.

As Kennedy's speech shows, he did not want France entirely out of North Africa. However, he had criticized French action already in early 1950s Indochina. And in 1957 he met with Abdelkader Chanderli (1915-1993), an unaccredited representative of the FLN at the United Nations in New York and in Washington, DC, and a linchpin of the FLN’s successful international offensive described in Matthew Connelly’s A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria’s Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era (2002). Thus, Kennedy supported the FLN’s demand for independence, which explains its very positive reaction to his speech.

And thus, unlike the 1952-1960 Republican administration of Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969) that officially backed the views of NATO ally France and kept delivering arms, the Democratic senator diagnosed a “war” by “Western imperialism” that, together with if different from “Soviet imperialism,” is “the great enemy of … the most powerful single force in the world today: ... man's eternal desire to be free and independent.” (In fact, Kennedy’s speech on the Algerian example of Western imperialism was the first of two, the second concerning the Polish example of Sovietimperialism. On another, domestic note, to support African Algeria’s independence was an attempt to woe civil-rights-movement-era African Americans without enraging white voters.) To be sure, Kennedy saw France as an ally, too. But France’s war was tainting Washington too much, which helped Moscow. In Kennedy’s eyes, to support the US Cold War against the Soviet Union meant granting Algeria independence. The official French line was the exact opposite: only continued French presence in Algeria could keep Moscow and its Egyptian puppet, President Gamal Abdel Nasser, from controlling the Mediterranean and encroaching on Africa.

May 10, 1982

Excerpts of Talks between Leading Comrades and Foreign Guests (No. 5)

A summary of Premier Zhao Ziyang's talk about Chinese foreign policy with Guinea-Bissau Chairman João Bernardo Vieira.

Pagination