Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
We visited the former Independence Palace in Saigon. The modern building was designed by a Vietmanese Architect, trained in France. It was built on the site of the former French Colonial seat of Government. This is the presidential palace occupied by the US sipported Diem Regime and subsequently the Thieu Govenment, and later military leaders, until the government fell in April of 1975. It was renamed Reunification Palace after the communists took over. They kept it just as it was when the North Vietnamese Tank crashed through the gates on April 13, 1975. It seems sterile as there are are no papers or staff filling the hallways. I will attach some photos which will take you on a tour of the building starting outside, to the main floor, then up to the second and third floor, and finally down into the basement bunker area. It was strange to walk through the halls, viewing the plush trappings of Presidentail power, and viewing the map situation room filled with the best maps of Vietnam available at the time, and telephone comand centers to coordinate the war effort.
It is great that they have kept it as it was, like a snapshot in time. Just as it was over 35 years ago. It is still used occasionally for special functions, but it works daily as a sort of museum to the past.
