There are news stories that not only carry words, but also carry the fate of the nation, and there are photos that not only recreate moments, but also preserve the spirit of an era.
For veteran diplomat Nguyen Huu Dong, the Vietnamese revolutionary press is not simply a place to provide information, but also a spiritual support, a source of trust throughout his 40-year journey of foreign affairs.
Talking to VNA reporters in Mexico on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Vietnamese Revolutionary Press (June 21, 1925 - June 21, 2025), Mr. Nguyen Huu Dong affirmed that the revolutionary press is a soldier on the front line of the ideological front, where news carries the breath of the motherland, and is an invaluable resource that helps him and his comrades confidently declare and defend the righteousness of the national liberation struggle before international friends.
Born and raised in Hanoi , student Nguyen Huu Dong went to Europe to study while the Vietnam War was escalating fiercely.
From Geneva (Switzerland) to Paris (France), young man Nguyen Huu Dong did not stay out of the game.
After participating in the patriotic overseas Vietnamese student movement, bachelor Nguyen Huu Dong became an officer of the Information Department of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam in France from 1967, with the task of propagating the nation's just struggle to international friends.
Looking back at his memories, Mr. Nguyen Huu Dong said that in the late 1960s, the National Liberation Front Information Office in France had only a few members. Each newsletter, each leaflet, each line of news had to be hand-written, translated into many languages, and then sent to other countries.
He shared: "Although it was hard, everyone was very enthusiastic, because that news was true, it was the image of a heroic but proud Vietnam that we wanted the world to see clearly."
In particular, he emphasized the role of VNA in providing official documents to help diplomatic staff fight on the information front abroad, "without VNA, we would not have had a reliable source of information to refute the distorted arguments of the Western press at that time. VNA was the sharpest ideological weapon."
Mr. Nguyen Huu Dong was the first Vietnamese person introduced by the Vietnamese Government to work for the United Nations in the early 1980s, with decades of work as an international election monitoring expert in more than 40 countries until his retirement in Mexico.
According to him, VNA has many similarities with the Soviet Union's "Pravda" newspaper, but is stronger and closer, because it is "Vietnam's Pravda" written by Vietnamese people from underground trenches with burning patriotic hearts.
For diplomat Nguyen Huu Dong, the Vietnamese revolutionary press in general and VNA in particular have always stood by him as a trustworthy companion. Each news bulletin, each website... is a layer of armor protecting Vietnam's image and reputation before the international community. It is not just communication, but "intuitive diplomacy" - where words become weapons, images become soft power. To this day, that power of the Vietnamese revolutionary press continues to reach far in the era of globalization.
In addition to his luggage of official news, during more than 4 decades of working in dozens of countries around the world, Mr. Nguyen Huu Dong always carried a picture of President Ho Chi Minh in his luggage.
He said that wherever there is Uncle Ho's image, there is the warmth of the motherland, and every time he puts President Ho's picture in his suitcase before a long trip, he respectfully bows.
Not only an excellent diplomat, Mr. Nguyen Huu Dong is also a symbol of the generation of patriotic overseas Vietnamese, a typical intellectual with a temperament that is both learned and humble.
In 2018, he was awarded the Joe C. Baxter International Prize for his outstanding contributions to elections, democracy and global peacekeeping.
Up to now, in his speeches to international friends, he always mentioned "Vietnam - the country of resistance, of peace and of national pride"./.
Source: https://www.vietnamplus.vn/nha-ngoai-giao-nguyen-huu-dong-bao-chi-cach-mang-viet-nam-la-nguon-luc-vo-gia-post1045157.vnp
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