Truong Tien Dat, a former South Vietnamese senator considered a maverick for fighting government corruption and who endured a harrowing escape from communists as Saigon fell and later built a new life in the Bay Area as a real estate broker, has died. He was 87.
Dat died July 19 in a nursing home in Woodland, Yolo County. He had lived in Santa Cruz, San Jose, Gilroy, and Fair Oaks in Sacramento County since arriving in the United States as a refugee in 1975. As a realtor in San Jose, he helped many fellow refugees find employment in that field,
Dat had served as a judge and lawyer in South Vietnam after first spending several years as a journalist for the Associated Press in Cairo. He was elected a senator in the mid-1960s and later co-wrote a constitution for the Republic of South Vietnam that would have taken effect had it won the Vietnam War. He also served as the country’s Secretary-General, and had aspirations of one day being its president, his family said.
But Dat was best known as a fierce critic of corruption in his home country, telling the New York Times in 1972 that the graft amounted to “a national policy” and was “the shame of this nation,” reaching from “the top to the bottom.” He survived two assassination attempts, which his family attributed to his anti-corruption policies.
In 1974, fed up with corruption in President Nguyen Van Thieu’s regime, Dat publicly named six high ranking officials — including the president’s top personal aide and several generals — as war profiteers. “Never before in recent South Vietnamese history has anyone in public life dared to make such charges and name specific names,” the Los Angeles Times wrote of his action.
But less than a year later, on April 30th, 1975, the capital Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese. Dat had driven some family members to safety south of the city but returned because the government he served was still technically in power. As the situation turned hopeless, he went to the American Embassy and stood outside its gate watching the last helicopter depart, his daughter, Thu Thuy Truong, of Fremont, said in an interview.
Unlike others, he had refused to climb the embassy’s walls, believing he deserved to walk through the gate and leave his country. “There has to be some dignity,” he later told his family, Truong said.
As that helicopter faded from view, Dat had two choices. He could attempt to get away or be captured by the communists, which would have meant being “shot dead or in prison forever,” Truong said.
So he drove to the Saigon River, ditching his car during the journey. A small fishing boat crew was taking on refugees — for a price.
Dat, who had risen from poverty, had only two worldly possessions left: his wristwatch and a fountain pen. They paid for his freedom.
Soon, a ship was spotted further from shore. Dat begged the fishing boat captain to intercept it. As the boat pulled alongside the ship, Dat climbed a rope to the larger vessel’s deck. He eventually was transferred to a U.S. Navy ship and to safety.
Dat was placed in a refugee camp in Arkansas where he was reunited with his family with the help of the American Red Cross. They were soon relocated to Santa Cruz. Dat spoke five languages and had been a lawyer and judge before being elected a Senator and had traveled much of the world as a journalist. But he could not find work.
To support his family, he took a job chopping wood.
The fall of his country left him depressed. “And all the time I dream every day, every night, I dream of reconstructing Vietnam into a democracy, free of Communism. I’m afraid it is only a dream,” he told the Santa Cruz Sentinel in1976.
Soon, though, he set out to build a new life. Moving his family to San Jose, he took vocational classes and found work in the booming tech industry, but he wanted more. He earned a real estate brokerage license, eventually opening his own firm. He volunteered to teach other Vietnamese refugees how to study and pass tests to get a real estate license.
Dat was born in Thai Binh, in the Red River Delta of North Vietnam. He left his family at a young age to be educated by French Jesuits who encouraged him to become a priest, his daughter said. He left for South Vietnam after the country divided in 1954 and North Vietnam became a Communist state. In his years living in America, she said he became deeply devoted to his Catholic faith, writing several books.
Several years ago, he spoke to his family about visiting his homeland. “He wanted to see his country one last time,” his daughter said. Vietnam, though, denied him a visa.
She said her father “was a very humble man, but he was also fearless.”
When he was a judge, she said, a local sheriff was charged with corruption. With graft widespread in the country, there were fears of what might happen to Dat if he put the sheriff in prison, his daughter said.
But to prison, the sheriff went.
“He was very proud,” Truong said, “of putting that sheriff in jail for corruption.”