Trần Văn Hữu


Trần Văn Hữu served as president of the government of Cochinchina from 1948 to 1949, then as Prime Minister of the State of Vietnam from 1950 to 1952.
He lived in France after Ngô Đình Diệm came to power in 1954 in South Vietnam and worked to undermined the Diệm regime. Hữu served as leader of the Committee for Peace and Renewal of South Vietnam, an organization that lobbied for peace and the neutralization of Vietnam in the Cold War. As part of this mission, in 1966 he visited Pope Paul VI and the United Nations Secretary General U Thant.
Because of his lobbying efforts and past political standing, Hữu was an ally of the National Liberation Front in Paris. In 1969, the leadership of the NLF proposed Hữu as a possible minister of a new NLF government.