Description: Crooked Bamboo is a political memoir centered on Nguyen Thai's inside account of South Vietnam's Ngo Dinh Diem regime. Thai was a close personal aide for Diem as well as Director General of Vietnam Press, giving him significant access to Diem and other Ngo family members. Although the Diem era is the focus of the memoir, Nguyen Thai's post-1963 career as a government official, businessman, and confidant of several key South Vietnamese figures sheds light on the aftermath of the Diem regime and the dilemmas of South Vietnam's anti-communist elite throughout the Vietnam War. Thai's attempts to help bring the war to a negotiated end and his experiences as one of the first former South Vietnamese officials to return to Communist Vietnam also offer important reflections on the meaning of the war and its aftermath.
Brief description: Nguyen Thai served Ngo Dinh Diem as a personal aide and as Director General of Vietnam Press. He also founded The Times of Vietnam. After being awarded an Associate Nieman Fellowship in Journalism at Harvard, Thai left Diem's service and went on to publish Is South Vietnam Viable? to speak out against the Diem regime.