Nguyen Van Troi
| Nguyen Van Troi | |
|---|---|
Nguyễn Văn Trỗi moments before being shot
|
|
| Born |
1 February 1940 Quảng Nam, Annam, French Indochina |
| Died | 15 October 1964 (aged 24) Saigon, South Vietnam |
| Criminal penalty | Death by firing squad |
| Conviction(s) | Attempted murder |
Nguyễn Văn Trỗi (1 February 1940 – 15 October 1964) was a Việt Minh (National Liberation Front) bomber. He gained notoriety after being captured by the South Vietnamese while trying to assassinate United States Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and future ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. who were visiting South Vietnam in May 1963.
Sentenced to death, Trỗi got a brief reprieve after the FALN, a Venezuelan communist guerrilla group, kidnapped United States Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Michael Smolen in revenge for Troi's sentence. The group threatened to kill the American if Trỗi was executed. Smolen was eventually released unharmed, and Trỗi was shot by firing squad shortly thereafter in Chí Hòa Prison.
Trỗi became the first publicly executed member of the Viet Minh. His execution was filmed, and he remained defiant to the end. His last words before his execution in Saigon to correspondents were "You are journalists and so you must be well informed about what is happening. It is the Americans who have committed aggression on our country, it is they who have been killing our people with planes and bombs ... I have never acted against the will of my people. It is against the Americans that I have taken action." When a priest offered him absolution, he refused, saying: "I have committed no sin. It is the Americans who have sinned." As the first shots were fired, he called out, "Long live Vietnam!"
In the West, Trỗi's arrest went largely unreported in the mainstream; indeed, major news media did not report on Trỗi at all until the FALN kidnapping episode. His anonymity persisted after his execution, despite the honors heaped upon him in Communist countries. Apart from advocacy by revolutionaries like the Weather Underground, and a brief mention in Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book, Trỗi is still rarely acknowledged in Western accounts of the Vietnam War.
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