Le Dung Trang recently returned to Vietnam. His mission: To help repair the long-severed ties between the United States and his home country.

Reconciliation through Science

The images are imprinted into history books around the world: Snapshots of desperate people stranded on the rooftop of the US embassy awaiting the landing of helicopters to lift them from the violence and chaos below. Saigon was 'falling' and those who had supported the defeated US forces were frantic to leave.
Much, of course, has changed over the past 30 years. The city that 'fell' into the hands of Vietnamese national liberation forces is now Ho Chi Minh City, named after the revered Vietnamese leader who led his country to victory. Meanwhile, communist economic principles, put into place even before the smoke cleared, have morphed into a capitalist economic framework bolstered, in large measure, by small, privately owned firms and family farms.
Indeed the violence and chaos that marked the final days of America's presence in Vietnam have long since faded into history, replaced by the mundane rhythms of life characteristic of a hard-working people determined to improve their well-being.
What lingers, however, is the mutual suspicion that Vietnam and the United States have for each other. That suspicion should come as no surprise. Twenty-five years of war have left searing scars on both the victor and vanquished.
A group of high-ranking US officials--all members of the US Senate and veterans of the Vietnam War--are trying to move beyond the mutual suspicions and hostilities that the two countries still have for each other. To help them in this quest, they have called on Vietnamese-born Le Dung Trang, head of ICTP's Mathematics Group.
In September 2000, during the waning days of the Clinton administration, the US Congress passed the Vietnam Education Foundation Act. The purpose of the act is to carry out a series of bilateral programmes between the United States and Vietnam that enable Vietnamese university students to pursue advanced studies in basic science and technology. At the same time, the act encourages US professors to teach at universities in Vietnam.
The ultimate goal is "to promote reconciliation between the two countries." US senators John Kerry, John McCain and Chuck Hagel, and former senators Bob Kerrey, Charles Robb and Max Cleland, all of whom fought in Vietnam, are the chief sponsors of the legislation, which calls for US$5 million in public funding each year over a 15-year period. The Vietnam Education Foundation was created to oversee financial and administrative matters.
A change in US administrations on 1 January 2001 and the rush of worldwide events following the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 in the United States caused the Vietnam Education Foundation to get off to a slow start. To help reinvigorate the stalled agenda, this year, officials at the Vietnam Education Foundation invited Le Dung Trang to join a US delegation on a two-week-long visit to Vietnam's scientific institutions. Le Dung Trang's ultimate responsibility was to provide advice on how to best invest the US$5 million funds that are at the foundation's disposal.

VEF delegation in Vietnam

"I was anxious to participate in this initiative," says Le Dung Trang, "both for personal and professional reasons."
"The effort," he explains, "to reconstruct ties between the two nations is well-worth pursuing. The war, after all, ended more than 25 years ago. That means an entire generation of Vietnamese and Americans have grown up since the final contingent of US troops and civilians left Saigon. It's time to move on. Even more importantly, both countries would benefit in the future--culturally and economically--from closer ties."
Le Dung Trang was born in Ho Chi Minh City in 1947. He left Vietnam for France in the 1950s, first to study at Lycee Louis-le-Grand, and then to pursue advanced academic training at Universite Paris (Sorbonne), where he received his Ph.D. degree in mathematics in 1969.
Before arriving at ICTP last November, he had taught for more than two decades at Universite Paris 7 and had served five years as director of research at France's Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS).
While working in France, he frequently visited the United States to conduct research at Harvard University and later to teach at Northeastern University, both in Boston, MA. His acquaintance with Philip Griffiths, a former mathematics professor at Harvard University and presently director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, led to his involvement in the Vietnam Education Foundation.
"Over the past three decades, I have often travelled to Vietnam," explains Le Dung Trang, "but in recent years I only visited the University of Dalat and the Mathematics Institute of Hanoi. I didn't know much about the quality of teaching and research at other places and I was anxious to find out what went on at institutions that I was not familiar with."
What Le Dung Trang discovered surprised him.
"Vietnam," he notes, "has developed vigorous scientific research and training programmes, not just at the National Center of Science and Technology in Hanoi, but in several other institutions, including the National University, which has campuses in both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City."
"The quality of education in Vietnam," says Le Dung Trang, "is often quite good and the research is continually improving. However, the number of well-trained teachers still falls far short of the demand."
"As a result, I believe a strong partnership between the two countries would prove beneficial to both--helping to increase Vietnam's teaching pool while exposing US professors to excellent and eager students."
To date, the Vietnamese Foundation has spent US$500,000 of the US$5 million that has been allocated for the first year of operation. The money has funded scholarships for 19 Vietnamese master's and doctorial students who are now attending universities in the United States.
To ensure that the best students are given preference, each application has been vetted by researchers who have been assigned the task by the US National Academy of Sciences. The fellows are studying in a broad range of locations--including Brown University in Rhode Island and the University of Hawaii.

Le Dung Trang, far right

"Not only does the Vietnam Education Foundation hope to double the number of Vietnamese students receiving fellowships," says Le Dung Trang, "but it would also like to develop a vigorous broad based programme of bilateral institutional collaboration that focusses, for example, on the training of faculty, joint lectureships, academic curriculum assessment, and development of scientific libraries and internet access. One of the primary goals of my trip was to examine the quality of research at Vietnam's universities and research centres to determine how they compare to others in the developing world and assess the kind of programmes they would most benefit from."
"The future of the initiative," observes Le Dung Trang, "remains at risk. The downturn in the US economy has made funding both from the US government and the private sector more difficult to obtain. And the bitter memories of the Vietnam war are still never far from the surface."
In fact, just after Le Dung Trang had returned from his trip to Vietnam, the US Congress passed a bill asserting that any assistance to Vietnam must be contingent on improvements in Vietnam's human rights' record.
"The memories of the Vietnam war are sometimes stronger than the reality of circumstances in Vietnam today," he notes. "Yet the only way we can put the past behind us is by moving forward, and scientific exchange is one avenue that is definitely worth pursuing."

For additional information about the Vietnam Education Foundation, see www.vef.gov.

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