Nguyễn Phan Long

Prime Minister of the State of Vietnam in 1950

Bảo Đại
Himself

Preceded byPosition establishedSucceeded byTrần Văn Hữu Personal detailsBorn1888
Saigon, Cochinchina, French IndochinaDied16 July 1960 (aged 72)
Saigon, South VietnamPolitical partyConstitutional PartySpouseTrần Thị NguyênAlma materLycée Albert SarrautProfession

Journalist
Politician

Nguyễn Phan Long (1888 – 16 July 1960)^[1] was a Vietnamese journalist and politician who served as Prime Minister of the State of Vietnam from January to May in 1950. He was dismissed by the Head of State Bảo Đại under pressure from the French colonial authorities, who resented his pro-American and nationalist attitude.^[2]

Early life and career

He was born in 1889^[1]^[3] (or 1888) in North Vietnam (Hanoi^[1] or Nam Dinh^[3]) to a South Vietnamese family. He was sent to Hanoi to be educated at the Lycée Albert Sarraut, afterward, he returned to Saigon to work as a high school teacher and a journalist. In 1917 he worked for the La Tribune Indigène and in 1920, he founded the liberal newspaper L'Écho Annamite, in which he worked with the (Eurasian) Vietnamese nationalist Eugène Dejean de la Bâtie,^[4] friend of André Malraux. During his time as a journalist, Long would write about spiritualism and the Vietnamese religion Caodaism.^[5]^[6]

Political career

In the 1920s–1930s, he was the deputy leader of the Parti Constitutionnaliste Indochinois, a nationalist party founded in 1923 and led by Bui Quang Chiêu.^[7] He was elected as colonial councillor.

He was elected in 1936 as president of the Congrès Universel des Sectes Caodaïques, an attempted unified caodai movement, which eventually failed.^[8]

After 1945, he was Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Interior as well as editor of L'Écho du Vietnam.

Personal life and death

He was an ardent follower of Caodaism and spoke fluent French.^[9] He was married to Trần Thị Nguyên.^[10] He passed away in Saigon on 16 July 1960 at the age of 71.^[11]

Sources

^ ^a ^b ^c Từ điển Văn học (Bộ mới) (in Vietnamese). Thế giới. 2004. p. 1176.
^ Ellen J. Hammer, Struggle for Indochina, 1940-1955, Stanford University Press, 1955 ISBN 978-0-8047-0458-8, pp. 273-274
^ ^a ^b Phương Lan Bùi Thế M (1970). Nhà cách-mạng Nguyễn An Ninh: thân thế và sự nghiệp (PDF) (in Vietnamese). Saigon. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2022-09-19.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^ (in French) Vĩnh Đào, Quelques notes sur Eugène Dejean de la Batie
^ (in French) Gustave Meillon, Le Caodaïsme - 3
^ Corfield, Justin (2014). Historical Dictionary of Ho Chi Minh City. Anthem Press. ISBN 9781783083336.
^ (in French) Đình Thảo Trịnh, Dinh Khai Trinh, Décolonisation du Viêt Nam: un avocat témoigne, Editions L'Harmattan, 1994, ISBN 978-2-7384-2368-9, p. 45
^ (in French) Gustave Meillon, Le Caodaïsme - 1
^ Mansfield, Mike (1954). "Report on Indochina: Report of Mike Mansfield on a Study Mission to Vietnam, Cambodia [and] Laos". United States Congress.
^ Peycam, Philippe (May 2012). The Birth of Vietnamese Political Journalism: Saigon, 1916-1930. Columbia University Press. ISBN 9780231528047.
^ "Nguyen Phan Long Dies at 72; First Vietnam Premier in 1950". The New York Times. July 19, 1960. Retrieved November 24, 2023.

see also:

R. B. Smith, "Bui Quang Chiêu and the Constitutionalist Party in French Cochinchina, 1917–30", Modern Asian Studies (1969), 3:131-150 Cambridge University Press
Micheline R. Lessard, "Organisons-nous! Racial Antagonism and Vietnamese Economic Nationalism in the Early Twentieth Century", French Colonial History – Volume 8, 2007, pp. 171–201
Christopher E. Goscha, "Widening the Colonial Encounter: Asian Connections Inside French Indochina During the Interwar Period", Modern Asian Studies (Published online by Cambridge University Press) 16 Oct 2008 (abstract)