Tran Van Dinh was born and raised in Huế, the former imperial capital of Vietnam. He came from a family of Confucian scholars, Buddhist philosophers, and Taoist poets. In his youth, he participated in the anti-colonial struggle against the French. Later, he became a diplomat and has served in Thailand, Burma (Minister plenipotentiary), the United Nations (observer), Argentina, Mexico (nonresident ambassador) and the United States of America (Minister-Counselor, Chargé d'affaires).
After serving for 10 years in the Vietnamese diplomatic service in Southeast Asia, Tran Van Dinh joined the Embassy of Vietnam in Washington, D.C. in 1961. From their post in Washington, the Van Dinhs took in the events of the growing Civil Rights Movement, in particular, the 300,000 people March on Washington led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. These events would have a profound impact on their relationship with the United States and would foreshadow their own immersion into the ongoing struggle for liberation around the globe.
In 1963, Tran was in charge of the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington, D.C. as well as non-resident Ambassador to Argentina.
He resigned at the end of 1963 to pursue full-time his passion for peace and social justice work. This included teaching courses in Asian Humanism at the State University of New York/Old Westbury and the Dag Hammarskjöld College at Columbia, Maryland. From 1971 to 1985, he taught International Politics and Communications and chaired the Department of Pan-African Studies at Temple University.
His publications include hundreds of articles and essays, two major textbooks :Independence Liberation Revolution: An Approach to the Understanding of The Third World; Communication and Diplomacy in a Changing World. He also wrote two novels about the Vietnam War: No Passenger on the River (1965) and Blue Dragon White Tiger (1983).
He was a contributor (for Asia) and editorial advisor to The International Encyclopedia of Communications. In recent years, he frequently visited Southeast Asia and Vietnam and has written an article on his native city of Huế in the November 1989 issue of the National Geographic Magazine. He co-authored an Insight Guides book on Vietnam which was translated into several languages (including German and French). He is an overseas member of the Scientific Council of the non-governmentalTrungTam Nghien Cuu Quoc Hoc (Center for National Culture Studies) with offices in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
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