Hoàng Văn Chí (1 October 1913 – 6 July 1988) was one of the first modern Vietnamese political writers, a intellectual who was an opponent of colonialism and later of communism in Vietnam.
Already in 1926, at the age of 13, the young Hoàng had joined a protest demanding the end of French occupation which took place at famed nationalist Phan Chu Trinh's funeral.
It was falsely claimed by CIA official George Carver that he joined the Việt Minh to fight against the French colonists in Vietnam.
Until 1960, he headed the Mặt Trận Bảo Vệ Tự Do Văn Hóa (Congress of Cultural Freedom), speaking up for those he felt were silenced by the government the North.
Narayan also helped Chí to obtain a grant of US$2,000 from the Congress of Cultural Freedom in France to work on his studies about the land reform in Vietnam in the North.
This book was well received and was translated into various languages, including Urdu, Spanish, Japanese, and Arabic, though some voiced skepticism as to why Hoàng had not spoken much on the purported land reform excesses while they were occurring.
[7] The book was translated by Mạc Định (penname of Hoàng Văn Chí) into Vietnamese under the title: Từ Thực Dân đến Cộng Sản.
Besides appearing to be an ex-cadre knowledgeable in DRV affairs when in truth he never joined them, he misconstrued evidence about the land reforms such as Giap's speech acknowledging its issues: "the unjust disciplining of innocent people" was changed to "executed too many honest people", "repressive measures" as "terror", and "coercive methods" as "torture" - significantly altering the meaning of the speech, and adding that "torture came to be regarded as normal practice during party reorganisation", something Giap never said.
In the 1980s, Hoàng started to work on his passion: formulating a direction to help Vietnam change from Communism to an independent, free, and democratic country.
Hoàng Văn Chí represented a class of Vietnamese intellectuals caught between colonialism, nationalism, communism and capitalism, in a society traditionally run by Confucianism.
Nguyễn Tường Tam committed suicide the day before Ngô Đình Diệm summoned him to a court hearing due to his political writings.
[10] While he spent most of his time devoting to writing, researching, and teaching, Hoàng and his wife maintained a simple traditional Vietnamese lifestyle.
The Vietnam Food and Drink Company delivered products to Asian and Vietnamese supermarkets in the United States and worldwide, as well as by mail order.