| Nguyễn Văn Lộc | |
| Order: | 6th |
| Office: | Prime Minister of South Vietnam |
| Term Start: | 31 October 1967 |
| Term End: | 18 May 1968 |
| President: | Nguyễn Văn Thiệu |
| Deputy: | Phạm Đăng Lâm |
| Predecessor: | Nguyễn Cao Kỳ |
| Successor: | Trần Văn Hương |
| Birth Date: | 24 August 1922 |
| Birth Place: | Vĩnh Long Province, Cochinchina, French Indochina |
| Death Place: | Yvelines, France |
| Party: | Independent |
| Otherparty: | Military (1963–1967) |
| Children: | 6 |
| Signature: | Signature of Nguyễn Văn Lộc.svg |
Nguyễn Văn Lộc (24 August 1922 – 31 May 1992) was a South Vietnamese educator, lawyer, and politician who served as Prime Minister of South Vietnam between 31 October 1967 and 18 May 1968.[1] [2] His second wife, Nguyễn Thị Mai, would be the subject of a biography, Black Silk Pajamas in 2000.
He was born on 24 August 1922, in Long Chau village, Chau Thanh district - Vinh Long (now Vinh Long City, Vinh Long Province) to a wealthy family. From 1950 to 1955, he studied abroad in France and the United Kingdom in which he obtained a bachelor's degree in law from the University of Montpellier, France in 1954, and a master's degree in criminal law from the University of Paris, France in 1964. In 1965, he went on to study more about international law in the Netherlands at The Hague Academy of International Law.[3]
In 1945, he participated in the Anti-French War of Resistance, commonly known as the First Indochina War, in which he served as the editor-in-chief of an underground newspaper called La Lutte.[4] After realizing the communist nature of the Việt Minh, he left and returned to Saigon, publishing and printing newspapers.[5]
Since 1955, he has been a lawyer of the Saigon High Court.[6] In 1964, Lộc was elected Chairman of the Civil-Military Council (Hội Đồng Dân Quân, the legislature during the transition from a military government to an elected government).[7] In 1967, Nguyễn Cao Kỳ invited Lộc to join him in the 1967 South Vietnamese presidential election as his running mate, being the vice presidential candidate.[8] After deciding to run jointly with Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, being his running mate as the vice presidential candidate, Kỳ asked Lộc to withdraw. To compensate Lộc, Kỳ asked Thiệu to appoint Lộc as the prime minister of the government.[9]
On 31 October 1967, he was appointed by President Thiệu to be the first Prime Minister of the Second Republic of Vietnam.[10] On 9 November 1967, Prime Minister Lộc presented his cabinet:
Education Ministers: Trần Lưu Cung (Education; in charge of Universities and Specializations), Professor Lê Trọng Vinh (Education; in charge of First, Secondary and High School), Law. Professor Hồ Thới Sang (Education; in charge of School Youth). Professor Bùi Xuân Bào (Culture), Nguyễn Chánh Lý (Commerce), Võ Văn Nhung (Technology). Professor Nguyễn Văn Tường and Đoàn Bá Cang hold the positions of Ministers of the Prime Minister's Office.
During his tenure as prime minister, he made state visits to Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, the US, Brazil, and Japan.[11]
After the 1968 Tet Offensive, he was criticized and forced to resign. Since then, he has retired from politics and turned to teaching: 1969, University, An Giang (Vietnam); teacher, Hoa Ha 1971, director, Cao Dai University, Tai Ninh (Vietnam).
On 30 April 1975, when South Vietnam collapsed to the advancing forces of North Vietnam and the Viet Cong, Lộc like other high-ranking government and military officials of the Saigon government that stayed behind were sent to re-education camp operated by the new Communist Vietnamese government.[12] In an interview with the New York Times, Lộc describes in the re-education camps he and other inmates were forced to perform hard labor such as clearing the jungles, swamps, and minefields to build dams and farming. He mentions the conditions of the camps were so brutal that two or three people within the camps would die every week from malnutrition or illnesses [13] In 1980, after spending five brutal years in the re-education camp, the Communist government decided to let Lộc return to Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City). Lộc explains,
I nearly died in the labor camp, where I was kept with about 1,500 others on a near-starvation diet; they let me return to Saigon in 1980 only after they felt that I was dying.[14]
Lộc attempted to leave Vietnam 14 times before successfully making it to Singapore on 10 May 1983 as a refugee with his wife and their eleven-month-old infant.[15] [16] He later settles in Houston, Texas with his wife, Nguyễn Thị Mai with whom he went on having three more children with.[17] He died in Yvelines, France in May 1992 at the age of 69.[18]