90 APRIL-MAY 2025 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL The Vietnam War Through Canadian Eyes Supervising a Peace That Never Was: Recollections of Canadian Diplomatic Personnel in Indochina, 1954-1973 Co-edited by Helen Lansdowne, Nick Etheridge, and Phil Calvert, The Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives, University of Victoria, 2023, available for free in e-book or pdf format (https://bit.ly/Supervisinga-Peace-book), 120 pages. Reviewed by Parker W. Borg Canadian diplomats in Indochina? Few Americans realize that Canadians were involved in this former French colony that had become Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos for nearly 20 years—longer than American troops were present in Vietnam. The Canadians were not U.S. combat allies as the Koreans, Australians, and New Zealanders were; nor were they assigned as diplomats, since Canada did not establish diplomatic relations in the region until 1973. Beginning in 1954, Canadian diplomats and military personnel were assigned to Indochina as “cease-fire” observers under the terms of the Geneva Accords that divided North and South Vietnam. As the agreement was being completed, the conference co-chair, British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, invited the Canadians as a NATO member to serve on the International Control Commission (ICC) along with Poles and Indians—as the “Western” member of the group to oversee Vietnam’s division and the other provisions of the accord. The ICC existed for the following 18 years. After the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, it morphed into a new organization, the International Commission of Control and Supervision (ICCS), adding Indonesia and Hungary to Canada and Poland as a four-member commission. While the ICC was somewhat operational at the beginning, it quickly became dysfunctional. The replacement, ICCS, proved inoperable after the first two months, convincing the Canadians to announce their exit in May 1973 (to be replaced by Iran—before the overthrow of the shah, a U.S. ally). While several books have been written about the Canadian role in Indochina, Supervising the Peace That Never Was offers an oral history perspective from young Canadian diplomats about their experiences as “legal advisers” to senior Canadian commission members. Often on first or second assignments, speaking French but not Vietnamese, and without any specific legal background, the young diplomats were assigned for one-year tours in Saigon, Hanoi, and elsewhere in Indochina. This short volume, available exclusively online and for free, begins with a summary history of Canadian involvement in Indochina. Essays by the young Canadians follow in a roughly chronological order, providing their observations about the course of Vietnamese war history, including the implementation of the 1954 Geneva Accords, the 1963 assassination of Ngô Đình Diệm, the 1968 Tết Offensive, the 1972 Christmas bombings of Hanoi, and the efforts to implement the 1973 Paris Accords. The book is in some ways reminiscent of a volume that might theoretically be compiled from the oral histories of Americans who served in Indochina. A big difference, however, might be that the Americans were working at embassies in the region, with USAID or Civil Operations and Rural Development Support (CORDS) in Vietnam’s provinces, and generally spoke about their observations of events in a specific place or their jobs implementing specific policies. The Canadians, by contrast, were working as part of an organization that, except for brief periods in the beginning and at the end, was not operational. Shortly after arriving, the Canadians did not delude themselves that there was any real work to do. They wrote about what they saw and what was happening. While in Hanoi, Vientiane, and Phnom Penh, they lived isolated lives, generally restricted by authorities from regional travel or interactions with locals; but this was not the case in Saigon, where the young diplomats seemed able to pursue a relaxed, sometimes sybaritic lifestyle. In Saigon, they all seem to have stayed at the Continental Hotel, the relatively luxurious hangout of journalists and wealthy visitors, and wrote not only about their war observations (poignantly sometimes) and the people they met but also about their social engagements, tennis games at the Circle Sportif, and frequent journeys around the country. As might be expected, while well edited and filled with nuggets of understanding, some of the essays contain more substance than others. All offer candid insights into aspects of the war and life in Indochina that are generally sympathetic to the concerns of their American friends. The introductory essay by Brendon Kelly provides an excellent overview of the Canadian role on the commissions. Among the best of the dozen other essays are those by James “Si” Taylor, who joined the Department of External
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