Across the Pacific: Hanoi’s “Diplomatic Struggle” and the US Suppression of Native American Solidarity, 1971–72

During the early 1970s, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) utilized "diplomatic
struggle", a cultural strategy of inviting American antiwar activists to Hanoi, to influence U.S.
public opinion and undermine the political will sustaining the Vietnam War. While scholarship
has documented the visits of high-profile figures like Jane Fonda, the participation of Native
American activists in this transnational network has remained largely unexamined. This study
reconstructs the 1971 invitation extended by the DRV to Assiniboine-Sioux activist Hank
Adams and the Survival of American Indian Association (SAIA). Although the trip was
ultimately thwarted by the U.S. government through the timely arrest and incarceration of
Adams, the planned exchange reveals a sophisticated effort at indigenous transnational
solidarity.
The SAIA’s engagement with North Vietnam was rooted in a shared "commonality of historic
and collective experience" against foreign powers with alien interests. By drawing explicit
parallels between the 1850s Yakima Wars and the contemporary conflict in Southeast Asia,
Adams framed the Vietnam War as an extension of American imperial expansion onto both
foreign and indigenous lands. The state’s decisive move to prevent the visit, timed
specifically to disrupt the SAIA’s departure, underscores the perceived national security
threat posed by Native activists exposing the colonial logics common to both domestic and
international U.S. policy. Ultimately, this failed exchange challenges conventional narratives
of the antiwar movement and Red Power activism, demonstrating how indigenous actors
intervened in global conflicts to assert sovereignty and resist political hegemony.