PRESS RELEASE    July 6, 2006

The renowned Vietnamese poet Nguyeãn Chí Thieän will be speaking on Little Saigon Radio on Friday, July 7, 2006.  Now an American citizen, he is well-known world-wide.  He has just returned from a successful speaking tour of Australia, where the Vietnamese community republished his prose Hoûa Loø Taäp Truyeän, which were first published in 2001.  His complete poems composed in his mind while imprisoned by the Communists in North Vietnam for twenty-seven years, Hoa Ñòa Nguïc, have been edited by Nguyeãn Chí Thieïn and published by East Coast USA Vietnamese Publishers Consortium [Nguyeãn Ngoïc Bích] in April, 2006.

Last month a Vietnamese language newspaper in Virginia, Söùøc Maáy, lifted a photo from the Yale University website on the Internet, where it was posted to announce the presence of Nguyeãn Chí Thieän speaking at Yale in 2005 and 2006.  This photo was taken by Professor Quang Phu Vaên at the home of Nguyeãn Chí Thieän in Garden Grove, California.  It has been published on the Council for Southeast Asia Studies website since early 2005.  The Söùøc Maáy  newspaper published anonymous material that stated Mr. Nguyeãn Chí Thieän in the USA was not the same man pictured in the Yale University photo and was “the fake one.”  Further, the paper stated that the Yale University photo was taken in Vietnam rather than in the California home of Nguyeãn Chí Thieän, as well as other photos they published which were so misrepresented.  Thuan Ño, the editor of Anh Ñöông online, has negotiated an apology and retraction from the editors of Söùøc Maáy which will be published in the August issue.

Another photo which taken from the Internet, was one of Nguyeãn Chí Thieän at the Ba Sao prison in July, 1991, at the office of the Chief of Security.  The newspaper acknowledged that photograph was indeed Nguyeãn Chí Thieän, as well as the Yale University photo.  What they challenged without factual evidence or authorship is that the person who is speaking on Little Saigon Radio on Friday, July 7, and spoke to the International Vietnamese Youth Conference at UCLA last Saturday, July 1, is the same person, Nguyeãn Chí Thieän.  

In order to combat these rumors and falsifications, now in print (with anonymous authors), friends of Nguyeãn Chí Thieän in northern California who distribute his books arranged an independent forensic analysis of three photographs.  The forensic analyst was Gregg Stutchman, the owner of Stutchman Forensic Laboratory, Audio & Video Forensics, Forensic Photography, in Napa, California.  The nhoùm phaùt huy tinh thaàn of Nguyeãn Chí Thieän in BacCali who sponsored this examination to assist the author are Jean Libby, historian and editor of Viet-Am Review, Dieàm Tröông, student and community organizer, Anh Traàn, student commissioner of the City of San Jose, and Professor Christopher Hoang Phaïm of San Jose State University.    

The base photo for comparison was published on the cover of Hoa Ñòa Nguïc, poems which he wrote in prison between 1979 and 1988, by Nguyeãn Chí Thieän soon after he immigrated to the USA on November 1, 1995.  The two digital photos in the forensic analysis were taken in the USA in 2004 and 2005, by two different people.  

#1  The photograph of Nguyeãn Chí Thieän taken by Professor Quang Phu Vaên of Yale University and published on the front page of Söùøc Maáy monthly magazine.  Jean Libby was given a digital copy of this photograph when she assisted Nguyeãn Chí Thieän in preparation of his English language manuscript of the Hoûa Hoø: Hanoi Hilton Stories  which will be published by Yale University Southeast Asia Council in 2007.  Jean Libby took a photograph of Nguyeãn Chí Thieän at Stanford University which was the recent cover of Hoa Ñòa Nguïc, the complete poems edited by the author Nguyeãn Chí Thieän that was published by East Coast USA Vietnamese Publishers Consortium in Arlington, Virginia, in April, 2006.  This was the third photograph used in the forensic analysis.

From the Stutchman Forensic Laboratory report of June 29, 2006:  “The images were opened on a lab computer using digital imaging software and examined…. . . This lab regularly conducts forensic examination of suspect images taken from security video systems of crimes, for analysis and identification of class characteristics and individual characteristics in order to identify or eliminate a suspect.  The same procedures which we use in those cases were used in the analysis and comparison of facial and other features of the male subject contained in the above described pictures. .. . The male in the book cover [Hoa Ñòa Nguïc 1996 edition]  shares 8 distinctive facial and ear characteristics which are present in the man in photos #1 and #2.  Based upon my examination, comparison and analysis, it is my opinion that the man in the photographs compared is the same person.”  Signed Gregg Stutchman, Chief Forensic Analyst. 

This press release is written by Jean Libby, editor, Viet-Am Review

Acknowledgement with gratitude to “Golden Pen,” Thuan Ño, for translation and negotiation with Söùøc Maáy editors and publishers.

You will find the full press release and photographs of Nguyen Chi Thien and his family in Virginia online at http://anhduong.net/nhanvat/NguyenChiThien/JeanLibby-pressRelease.htm