Phan Quang Dan

Phan Quang Dan () was an early to mid-20th century Vietnamese nationalist and friend of Bao Dai. In the 1940s, he had been in the Dai Viet nationalist party. He had a medical degree from Harvard, and was reported to have worked for the U.S. Office of Strategic Services during the Second World War.

He was allied with Nguyen Tuong Tan, an early VNQDD nationalist and leader of the Greater Vietnam People's Rule party. After the 1959 legislative elections, where he won the greatest plurality of any candidate, he was one of only two opposition ministers in the government of Ngo Dinh Diem. Diem did not want him seated, as he considered Dan a demagogue and he was suspicious of demagoguery. U.S. Ambassador Elbridge Durbrow had told Diem that the idea of a loyal opposition would be helpful internationally for Vietnam, but the idea was unattractive to Diem. Durbrow later said, "We should be prepared to acknowledge to ourselves that even over the longer term, democracy in the Western sense of the term may never come to exist in Vietnam. We should look with tolerance at [the government's] attempts to establish a political system that it considers in conformance with local traditions and needs. We should not try to make over Vietnam in our own image."

Diem later arrested Dan, and the International Commission of Jurists, in 1961, expressed concern over his disappearance after the coup of November 11, 1960. The ICJ described him as leader of the Democratic Party of South Vietnam.

Dan was named to the government of Prime Minister Tran Van Huong in 1968. Huong had been the vice-president for the ailing General Nguyen Van Thieu. Dan became the minister dealing with defectors. Four weeks later, he was stripped of the post for an allegedly treasonous statement. He had told a U.S. audience, that the Saigon government should be more liberal in agreeing to talks with the Vietcong. "Either you kill them all or you talk to them, and killing all of them is impossible."

Later, he was Minister of Foreign Affairs and deputy Prime Minster for social welfare and refugees in post-Diem governments. He was head of the Ministry of Social Welfare and responsible for Operation Babylift in 1975. He came to the U.S. after the fall of South Vietnam.