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26: trial and tribulation (1970) three days later I learned, in Chi Hoa prison,1 that my retrial (intended to validate the decision of the tribunal) would take place the next day. My fellow inmates treated me kindly, bringing me food and tea. I wore the black cotton garb issued to convicts and was ready when the deputy warden came for me the following morning. We drove to the court in a convoy of four or five military vehicles. Each vehicle had its sirens blaring and its lights flashing, and was filled with armed military policemen. When we arrived, armed guards immediately hustled me to a waiting room, and the door was closed to reporters so I could meet in private with my lawyers. My defense staff, unpaid volunteers all, included the following: law professor and Senator Vu Van Mau, who had served as minister of foreign affairs under President Diem before resigning in protest over the administration’s oppression of Buddhists in 1963; Senator and Vice President of the Senate Nguyen Phuoc Dai, a well-known lawyer in France before returning to practice law in Saigon; Tran Van Tuyen, a veteran lawyer well-known for his pro-Thieu and anti-Communist sentiments and who had held several ministerial positions; and Vu Van Huyen, another widely respected attorney known as an ardent defender in many antigovernment cases. The defense team represented a cross-section of well-respected attorneys who represented widely varying political factions. To prevent confusion, the legal team and I agreed that only three of the seven or eight attorneys assembled to support me would actually address the court in my behalf: Mr. Tuyen, Mr. Huyen, and Ms. Dai. The others would follow the course of the trial and be available for backup and consultation. The III Corps Mobile Military Field Court was a misnomer. It was located in the navy yard near the Saigon River, not in the III Corps Tactical Zone. Nor was it mobile , or even solely a military court. First established during the Diem regime, it was a venue for military cases (e.g., desertion and insubordination) but frequently trials took place that were also of a political nature, and always in the name of “national security.” As I entered the room under guard, it looked like nothing more than a one-way street to prison. The only question was how severe my sentence would be. Still, my lawyers and I were determined to put up the best defense possible. As I sat at the defendant’s table I glanced around, spotting many familiar faces: friends from the National Assembly and the press corps, young people from the Students Association, and several lawyers from the Bar Association (probably there to expand their knowl- 345 trial and tribulation edge of such proceedings as much as to support me). Security was heavy. I also saw agents from the secret police and various intelligence organizations. Frank Snepp provides a rather blunt description about the conspiracy that brought me to this charade of a trial: When Tran Ngoc Chau . . . became a political threat to Thieu in 1970, Shackley and Colby cooperated with the South Vietnamese police to paint him as a subversive and a Communist agent. Since Chau’s brother [Hien] was in fact a Communist, and since Chau himself had once contacted him on behalf of the Station, it was relatively easy to build a case against him simply by dressing up certain parts of his police dossier and by de-emphasizing others. Shackley did not actually design the frame-up—it was the brainchild of the CIA confidant General Quang—but he did nothing to avert it, even though he knew the truth. And when the South Vietnamese government surfaced its allegations against Chau in the local press, both Shackley and Ambassador Bunker supported them.2 Thoughts about the frame-up, the treachery of the Thieu administration and its American supporters, and my decision not to follow Vann’s plan and flee the country flashed through my mind as I sat and awaited my fate, which I knew already would be dismal at best. I thought about those who had been tried in this courtroom before me: dissident students, the Buddhist leader Thich Thien Minh, spies from the North, and others who had indeed really committed crimes. The court ran through the rituals—identification and swearing in of principals— in short order. Judge Huyen signaled for my lead attorney, Vu Van Huyen, to begin. My attorney...

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