A Letter From a Commie

Quang Ngai, South Vietnam, Claire Culhane, Why is Canada in Vietnam?: The Truth About our Foreign Aid. 1967-1968

For my history seminar, I was asked the SIMPLE (as if) task of "analyzing an archival file". After visiting Vietnam in 2013, I jumped at the chance to look for something on the 1960s conflict. I knew that America had been heavily involved, but believed that Canada had no part in it—until I discovered two pages of a letter signed by a Canadian nurse. McMaster University Archives, which hold the personal papers of Claire Culhane, digitized parts of the fonds. Claire Culhane fonds | McMaster University Library. Library assistant Karen Pavão kindly sent me the two missing pages in record time! In a nutshell, Claire's letter urges her compatriots to rise up against Canadian involvement in the war. What? What involvement? I thought this was one war that Canada had not participated in.

So did Claire Culhane!

Setting the tone

From the get-go, Claire displays her aversion towards the US government: “The first contradiction following our arrival in Saigon, was to be flown to our duty station in a CIA-operated AIR AMERICA plane.”  One senses her frustration to be thrust onto a military plane. By labelling the contradiction, “first”, we know that she will expose more deception.  And she sure does!

Selfish Americans

For Americans, it was never about the people

According to Claire, while the Americans spent precious dollars on their own accommodations, they did not do enough for their patients. “The Ministry of Health of the Thieu-Ky administration allotted 30 piastres (less than 20 ¢) per day per patient for food – a sum clearly inadequate and which often did not even arrive upcountry, while they lived in luxury in Saigon.” Her choice of the word “luxury” showcases how the people in charge were living in a completely different world than the ones suffering.

To make the Americans sound even worse, Claire recalls: “Most serious of all was the taking over of our Hospital by the South Vietnamese Army during the Tet Offensive, for use as a firing base. The American Medical Director refused permission to let us transfer our patients to the Provincial Hospital, half a kilometer away. We were therefore forced to send our patients home (often a great distance away) during this intensive fighting period.” A hospital that refuses to do what is good for patients? How could they? Help was only a short distance away and yet it was apparent that it was not a priority. The medical director had been sent to Vietnam for the same reason as Claire but could care less about doing his job. What a rotten thing to do!

Claire wanted people to realize who was at fault: America. In her letter, she never misses a chance to bombard the Americans: “American war effort,” “United States war effort,” “the USA occupation and war activities,” and “a part of the American front.” She never writes this way about the North Vietnam government or the National Liberation Front. America was the enemy. Claire poured her animosity towards America and made sure that her readers reconsidered who the heroes were.

Humanitarianism. What’s that?

Even within the humanitarian circle in Vietnam, something was amiss. Claire accuses aid groups of corruption.

“Members of foreign teams openly support the USA occupation and war activities, and openly fraternize with the American CIA groups. Individually, they have been known to profit from black market manipulations dealing in ‘missing supplies’; to refuse medical attention to war wounded during the height of the Tet Offensive, and even to split fees with interpreters extorted from peasants who do not realize that medical attention is supposed to be provided free.”

Describing the everyday Vietnamese people as “peasants”, Claire felt that the South Vietnam government and American forces considered themselves kinglike. While they lived in their luxurious castles, they ignored their "subjects." Her choice of words suggests she held a communist ideology. In fact, she had once been part of the Communist Party of Canada.

Foreign medical teams had become “a shield behind which governments are netting enormous profits from sale of war materials to the USA (e.g. Canada makes 500 million dollars annually in this way).” Canada was not looking good in this situation. They were letting themselves be used to help America. Claire wanted her country and others to face reality and what their actions allowed.

Her letter demands that Canadian aid should be removed from Vietnam in protest. She reflects: “The official reply was that our project was not “100% humanitarian”, but really “50% humanitarian and 50% political”. "This ratio is clearly an understatement, but the true meaning is implicit.” Her biographer specified that when she was interviewed by External Aid, Claire had made it clear that she was going over to help a 100% humanitarian project. But after her time in Quang Ngai, she knew it was far from the truth. She had been lied to and that did not sit well with her.

“I saw that 80% of the patients of each overcrowded ward were women, children and old men, injured by artillery, bombs, rockets, grenades, bullets and napalm. This was not the same as international medical relief for national disasters such as floods and earthquakes. These were victims of man-made catastrophes, which COULD BE STOPPED!” Claire did not hide her frustration. 80% of patients should not have been in the hospital, PERIOD.  She firmly believed their wounds could have been prevented. 

No longer human

“To even pretend one was serving any useful purpose by caring for the 1% of such a devastation, which is all that is humanly possible, and not to accept one’s own personal responsibility as a member of the side which was in fact creating these victims — was to no longer claim the right to be a member of the human race, in my opinion.” Claire stripped Americans of their humanity in her letter. After causing such death and destruction, how were they showing any kind of compassion? They were helping no one. She is unequivocal, America "was in fact creating these victims".

Abandoning patients

Strength in number

The only right thing Claire felt she could do was to return home and protest to bring an end to the war. She concludes her letter by highlighting that other volunteers could no longer support the mission: 

“Other medical workers had come to the same conclusion and had left Vietnam, notably the Iranian Medical Team."

One last time before concluding, she takes the opportunity to expose American propaganda:

Don Luce, head of the American International Volunteer Service committee and 47 of his co-workers who signed an open letter to President Johnson in  September 1967 in which they testified that virtually all the members had come to South Vietnam deeply convinced of the righteous nature of the American commitments but had become sickened by the realities, such as the alleged count of “enemy” dead which they knew were not all combat soldiers but many were old men, women and children who ran when a helicopter hovered above them.”  

A Call to Action

Conclusion

From her continuous attacks on the Americans, her peculiar choice of words and siding with North Vietnam, Claire's letter pulls much from her communist ideology. After analyzing her letter, I found there was so much to explore but not enough time to do it. I learned that war is a very messy conflict and has many factors to take into consideration. No matter who you think is the "good guy," any side can commit horrendous crimes.

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge Karen Pavão of McMaster University library for quickly sending me the last two pages of the letter.

References