Origin of the idea of ​​renaming Saigon

On May 12, 1975, Time magazine devoted almost the entire issue that day to talking about the most important event in the world at that time: the Vietnam War had ended.

The cover of the magazine featured a portrait of President Ho Chi Minh, a red map of Vietnam, and the headline: “The Victor.”

The entire map was red, with only a yellow star in the place of Saigon, labeled: “Ho Chi Minh City”. The name itself, neatly placed on the map, was an affirmation of the war’s outcome.

Many people, upon seeing the cover, wondered: In July 1976, the Vietnamese National Assembly officially changed the name of Saigon to Ho Chi Minh City. Why did the most prestigious magazine in the United States call it by a new name, less than 2 weeks after the end of the war? On what basis did they base this?

Things are a little easier to understand when you know the name of Time's source at the time.

The only person left in Saigon to run Time’s bureau was Pham Xuan An. The journalist refused to evacuate with his colleagues. And the reason is now clear: he was one of Hanoi’s most important spies throughout the war.

It is not surprising that Pham Xuan An has information that no one knows for sure.

But the legendary intelligence general never explained why Time that day firmly called the name that would not be officially made until a year later.

So when was "Ho Chi Minh City" born?

Hanoi, Sunday, August 25, 1946, a beautiful autumn day. Everywhere in the streets red flags with yellow stars fluttered.

The Democratic Republic of Vietnam was about to turn one year old. At the Opera House and the Children's Garden (an exhibition hall located where the Children's Palace is now), tens of thousands of people came to see photo and art exhibitions about the revolution.

On the shore of the lake, volunteers were enthusiastically filling in shelters to plant flowers. Everywhere people were calling each other to meetings and rehearsing for a big rally to celebrate the country’s birthday. In the newspaper, musician Luu Huu Phuoc posted an announcement about opening the first singing class for children.

The sudden rains did not dampen the atmosphere.

That day, an important idea was initiated: to change the name of Saigon - Gia Dinh to "Ho Chi Minh City".

On August 25, 1946, the Central Southern Department met on Gia Dinh Street, now Tran Nhat Duat Street. At that meeting, Dr. Tran Huu Nghiep proposed the idea of ​​naming Saigon - Gia Dinh after Ho Chi Minh. The idea was quickly accepted. A day later, 57 Southerners participating in the revolution sent a resolution to the National Assembly and the Government.

"We request the National Assembly and the Government to immediately change the name of Saigon city to Ho Chi Minh city to symbolize the fighting, sacrifice and determination of the Southern people to return to the Fatherland" - the resolution reads.

57 people signed, including Director of Military Medicine Tran Huu Nghiep, a wealthy doctor who once owned a private hospital in My Tho, who abandoned his fame to follow the revolution; Tran Cong Tuong (lawyer) who later became Deputy Minister of Justice; Nguyen Tan Gi Trong (Deputy Director of Military Medicine), who held a seat in the Vietnamese National Assembly for the next 7 terms.

To understand the portrait of the people who came up with the idea of ​​renaming Saigon, Tran Huu Nghiep is a typical name.

After studying abroad in France, Tran Huu Nghiep is a wealthy private hospital owner. "A shiny black Peugeot car, with an intellectual-looking man at the wheel, wearing sunglasses, a neatly ironed silk shirt, a colored tie, and a private kitchen staff at home" - that is his self-portrait in his memoirs.

Tran Huu Nghiep’s suffering was only one word: “Nuoc”. The young man studying in Paris discovered that the only Vietnamese dictionary in circulation at that time, compiled by the Hanoi Association for Enlightenment and Virtue, did not have the word “Nuoc” with the meaning of nation, Fatherland. “They ignored it, or did they intentionally forget it?” - the young man asked himself.

Then Dr. Nghiep followed the Viet Minh and was devoted to the revolution for the rest of his life.

On August 27, 1946, on the front page of the newspaper Cuu Quoc, there was a big headline: "From now on, Saigon City will be renamed Ho Chi Minh City." An affirmation.

Ho Chi Minh - the man mentioned in the resolution to rename Saigon in August 1946 - was more than 9,000 km away from Hanoi, in a villa in the suburbs of Paris. Before the President of the young republic was a deadlocked negotiation - the Fontainebleau Conference.

The conference has been going on for more than a month, since the beginning of July, the Vietnamese and French Government delegations have been unable to continue talking. The head of the Vietnamese delegation, Pham Van Dong, does not accept the so-called “Autonomous Republic of Cochinchina” that France has just given the green light to establish in Indochina.

Three days earlier, on August 22, 1946, Ho Chi Minh had to meet directly with the French Minister of Overseas Affairs, Marins Moutet, to discuss the resumption of negotiations. Le Monde newspaper described Ambassador Sainteny as having to “shuttle around all day” between Minister Moutet’s office on Oudinot Street and the villa where Ho Chi Minh was staying in the suburbs of Paris.

On August 28, 1946, the conference reconvened. Le Monde, after days of exhausting analysis, devoted a small piece to this event. “We should not expect a revival of the Fonteinebleau talks,” it wrote, without elaborating.

Le Monde's comment is a direct explanation for the idea of ​​Dr. Tran Huu Nghiep and his colleagues.

President Ho Chi Minh came as a guest of the French Government, a government that had been hunting him for decades, to find a solution for Cochinchina. The most important goal of the Fonteinebleau conference was to agree on the time and method of holding a referendum for Cochinchina to join the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

Saigon was then the epicenter of unrest. On August 18, a fire broke out in warehouses in the Khanh Hoi area, burning down a residential area. Grenades were fired from time to time. Two French soldiers were assassinated. Flyers calling for a strike were distributed. The French believed that these events were instigated by “Viet Minh elements.”

The Viet Minh replied: it was the natural reaction of the occupied southerners, just as the French had done to the Germans a few years earlier.

In mid-September 1946, the Fonteinebleau conference ended. No results were achieved regarding Vietnam's independence and the Cochinchina issue. "A grain of sand can stop a machine" - Ho Chi Minh summarized the conference results when answering the French press.

The machine was called Peace. It was delayed in Indochina for the next 30 years. Two months after the conference, a gunfight at the Haiphong Opera House opened the First Indochina War.

Soldiers in battlefield B said that they could not remember when the name Ho Chi Minh City came into their minds. They only knew that the city had been called that long before liberation.

On Liberation Day, coincidentally, all Hanoi newspapers simultaneously called Saigon by a new name: Ho Chi Minh City.

Journalist Tran Mai Hanh - one of the first journalists to arrive at the Independence Palace on the morning of April 30, said that name popped into his head when he saw a stream of people carrying red flags with yellow stars in the city center. Mai Hanh's report published in Nhan Dan newspaper on May 2, 1975 was typical of the mixed-up way of calling those days: "... from the Northwest, following Highway 1, we entered the center of Saigon. Ho Chi Minh City appeared before our eyes...".

Previously, Nhan Dan used both the names “Saigon” and “Ho Chi Minh City” at the same time in its reports. The May 1 issue of Ha Noi Moi also used both names at the same time on its front page.

At that time, no decision had been made on the new name of Saigon. In the first administrative decisions of the force taking over the city, the place was still called “Saigon - Gia Dinh”.

At the same time, the song “Singing from the city named after someone” was broadcast and became famous. Poet Dang Trung, who wrote the lyrics for the song, said he got the idea from a poem written by To Huu in 1954 - 20 years before the reunification day.

In July 1976, the Vietnamese National Assembly met and decided to change the name so that Saigon has the official name as it is today.

It was July 3, 1976 - the day before America's 200th Independence Day. The front page of The New York Times had a short story from AP with the content "North and South Vietnam have officially reunified".

The New York Times's big story and cover photo that day was for a national holiday performance on New York Harbor.

A cover that evokes the idea of ​​peace.
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According to Le Monde; Cuu Quoc; Nhan Dan; Tran Huu Nghiep's Memoirs (1993); The New York Times

Photos: History.com; The New York Times; Flickr (Common Creative license); TIME; Marc Riboud

According to Vnexpress