A Campus and a War: Michigan State University and Vietnam Exhibit: East Meets Midwest

As MSU faculty traveled to Saigon, officials and students from Vietnam came to East Lansing. Ngo Dinh Diem, the president of South Vietnam, visited MSU to give the convocation address in May 1957. The governor of Michigan, G. Mennen Williams, declared May 15 “Ngo Dinh Diem Day” in the state. Diem very much enjoyed meeting John Hannah, his tour of campus, and particularly his warm welcome at the airport, telling his chief of state, “Why, it’s like coming home!” It was a visible moment in an American tour that solidifed the US government’s support for the Diem regime as the insurgency in South Vietnam began to emerge. Along with Diem’s high-profile visit, nearly two hundred Vietnamese students and civil servants came to study at MSU during the second half of the 1950s. They were part of a broader effort to use study abroad (Vietnamese also studied in the Philippines, Japan and Malaya, all American allies) to train South Vietnamese officials in American-style practices of civil administration and law enforcement in hopes of developing a stable non-communist government in the country. The Vietnamese students at MSU split their time between East Lansing and internships at government agencies in Washington, as well as field visits to sites like the Tennessee Valley Authority. Vietnamese students had mixed experiences in the United States. Many threw themselves into their studies, valued their relationships with faculty and new friends and appreciated the chance to travel around the country. But others struggled with the language barrier, different educational norms and expectations, and homesickness. Although most did return to positions within the South Vietnamese government, the programs did not have the transformative effects that MSUG planners had hoped.