A Campus and a War: Michigan State University and Vietnam Exhibit: Wesley Fishel

Dr. Wesley Fishel (1919–1977), a member of the Political Science faculty at Michigan State, was a driving force behind the university’s involvement in South Vietnam during the 1950s. Fishel served in Naval Intelligence in Asia during World War II and studied Asian politics during his doctoral training at the University of Chicago. In 1951, while conducting research in Japan, Fishel became friends with Ngo Dinh Diem (1901–1963), a prominent Vietnamese anti-communist political figure. Diem visited Fishel in East Lansing during his important 1953 visit to the United States, which garnered him critical support among the foreign policy establishment. When Diem became head of state in South Vietnam in 1955, he requested that some of the American aid programs now flowing into the new country be directed by Fishel’s home institution. Fishel spent much of the second half of the 1950s in Saigon as head of the Michigan State University Group (MSUG) and an influential advisor to the president. He became an outspoken supporter of Diem as he became increasingly autocratic in the late 1950s, defending his regime in public conferences and in the press. Despite their friendship, Diem cancelled the MSUG in 1962 after several faculty members involved with the program published critiques of the South Vietnamese government. Despite the fate of the MSUG, Fishel remained a public supporter of Diem and, after his death, of the South Vietnamese government, and he publicly defended American military escalation in the country. His connections to the South Vietnamese government and his prominent defense of American policy eventually made him a polarizing figure on campus and a target of anti-war protesters. At the height of anti-war activism, Fishel took a visiting position at Southern Illinois University to escape public scrutiny. His involvement with Vietnam was the most visible element in a 26-year career at the university in which he played a prominent role in the development of International Studies and Programs as well as James Madison College.