The Advisory Board of the National Congress of Vietnamese Americans (NCVA) is composed of community members who have demonstrated outstanding leadership, achievements, prominence or expertise in their fields. The Advisory Board meets from time to time to provide advice, counsel and assistance to the Board of Directors and Executive Committee Officers in carrying out NCVA business or to assist in resource development for NCVA programs, services or events.

Bui Diem

Bui Diem is a consultant on Vietnam, author of "In the Jaws of History” and "Vietnamese Economy and Its Transformation to an Open Market System", and Vietnamese Ambassador to the United States from 1967 to 1972, one of the key figures in the relationship between South Vietnamese and the U.S. in this tumultuous period.

The former ambassador was born in North Vietnam, and like many of his peers, joined the nationalistic revolutionary movement against the French. After WWII, he became very involved in the Dai Viet movement, which had become a hated rival to the Viet Minh, another nationalistic movement headed by Ho Chi Minh.

From 1954 to 1963, Mr. Bui Diem spearheaded a leading English language newspaper in Vietnam, the Saigon Post. After 1965, he became more deeply immersed in Vietnam’s politics by holding a cabinet minister position under Prime Minister Phan Huy Quat, serving as special advisor for Prime Minister Nguyen Cao Ky, and as Vietnamese Ambassador to the United States under President Nguyen Van Thieu. He played a key role in the last desperate attempt to secure $700 million in military aid to defend South Vietnam against the North in 1975.

Today he lives in the Washington DC area with his family.
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Le Van Ba

1975-2002 , Le Van Ba, 81 years old, has been a resident of Gaithersburg, MD for more than 27 year resident.

From 1946-1975 he worked in Vietnam as an Airline employee.  Resettling in the United States, he worked from 1978-1986 at the Montgomery County, Human Resources on Federally funded project.  He retired in June 1986.

Since 1982, Le Van Ba has been a Board Member of the Vietnamese Senior Citizen Association in the Washington Metropolitan Area.  Since 1986, he has been a member of the National Congress of Vietnamese in America (NCVA).  He has also served as a Board Member at various times.  From 1988-1998, he served as Chairman of the Washington Area League of Vietnamese Associations.  He has served as the Honorary President since 1998.  His associations have also included the Families of Vietnamese Political Prisoners Association, with Mrs. Khuc Minh Tho serving as the President.

Since 1994, The Washington Area League of Vietnamese Associations became an affiliate of FVPRA.  As Chairman of the League, Mr. Le participated in all the lobbying effort of FVPRA in Congress in favor of the resettlement of former Vietnamese political prisoners (a.ka. the H.O. program), the over 21 single children of former political prisoners, the McCain children, etc.
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Nguyen Manh Hung

Nguyen Manh Hung is associate professor of Public and International Affairs, director of the Indochina Program, and program coordinator of the Asia Pacific Studies Minor, George Mason University. He received his License en Droit (J.D.) from the Faculty of Law, University of Saigon (1960), and both his M.A. (1963) and Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Virginia (1965). Prior to 1975, Dr. Hung was professor of International Politics, National School of Public Administration and the University of Saigon, Vietnam, and a frequent lecturer at the National Defense College.

Outside the academia, Dr. Hung chaired several committees to reorganize the Vietnamese civil service, served as planning advisor to the President of the National Economic Development Fund, then Deputy Minister of National Planning of the Republic of Vietnam. A former Fulbright Scholar and Social Science Research Council Fellow, Dr. Hung is the author of several books, book chapters, and articles. His major publications include Introduction to International Relations (Saigon, 1971), Peace and Development in South Vietnam (with Nguyen Van Hao et al, Saigon, 1973), and The Challenge of Vietnam's Reconstruction (with A. Terry Rambo and Neil L. Jameison, Virginia, 1991). His contributed book chapters to New Directions in the International Relations of Southeast Asia (Singapore University Press, 1973), Refugees in the United States (Greenwood Press, 1985), The American War in Vietnam: Lessons, Legacies, and Implications for Future Conflict (Greenwood Press, 1987), Refugees in America in the 1990's (Greenwood Press, 1996), Southeast Asia On The Growth Path (Universiti Pertanian Malaysia Press, 1997) and published articles in World Affairs, Asian Survey, Pacific Affairs, Amerasia Journal, and Journal of Asian Thought and Society. Dr. Hung is a member of the International Studies Association and the Association for Asian Studies and has participated in major policy working groups on Vietnam and Indochina, including the Indochina Policy Forum of the Aspen Institute, the Indochina Study Group of the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Southeast Asia Working Group of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He has served as an advisor to the National Association for the Education and Advancement of Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese Americans (NAFEA), the National Congress of Vietnamese in America (NCVA), and the Vietnamese Association for Computing, Engineering Technology and Science (VACETS).

COURSES TAUGHT: American Foreign Policy, Introduction to International Politics, Government and Politics of Asia

CURRENT RESEARCH: Vietnamese government and politics, U.S.-Vietnamese Relations, U.S. foreign policy toward Asia, Transformation of Communism with special emphasis on China and Vietnam.
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