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“The war in Vietnam soon became the subject of violent political dissension, as well as a burden on the conscience of all Americans who do not believe that in the struggle against Communism the end justifies the means.” Only a free American press got the truth out. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 488) “As this truth became known to more and more people, opposition to Mr. Johnson’s conduct of the war, and, even more, opposition to the war itself, began to grow - slowly in 1965-66, but alarmingly for the Administration in the year 1967. No longer was it possible for the Administration to brush aside criticism of its policy because the serious exponents of the opposition did not reach the masses. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 488) Nor could public protest in universities and street demonstrations any longer be denounce as the work only of left-wingers, draft-dodgers, beatniks, and other un-American elements. Veteran Administration critics, such as Hans Morgenthau and columnist Walter Lippmann in the press, and J. William Fulbright, Wayne Morse, and Ernest Gruening in the Senate, were now joined by a growing number of other experts in foreign and military policy, such as former Ambassadors George Kennan, John Kenneth Galbraith, and General James M. Gavin.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 488-489) Former Johnson advisors Arthur Schlesinger and Richard Goodwin came out against the war. Former Kennedy speech writer Theodore Sorenson claimed that President Kennedy would not have committed a large amount of the use military to Vietnam. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 489) The active protesters against the war were “professors, writers, artists, clergymen, doctors, lawyers, and occasional business executives,.” However, congressional opposition was a serious concern for Johnson. More and more Senators spoke out against the war and, against the “reactionary military dictatorship in Saigon.” Both Democrats and Republicans came out against the war. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 489) “Senator John Sherman Cooper of Kentucky . . . demanded an end to the bombing of the North, while [Senator Thurston Morton of Kentucky] in a personal attack on the President, said that he had been brainwashed by the military-industrial complex into believing in the possibility of a military solution.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 489-490) Senator Mark Hatfield of Oregon claimed the Administration engaged in double-talk and deceit. In the United National most countries opposed the US and called for an end to the bombing. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 490) President Johnson’s call “for a 10 [er Celt tax increase made the question whether Vietnam was worth the cost in money and American lives suddenly more acute.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 490) Critic noted that it cost Americans “more than 300,000 to kill one Vietcong demonstrated rather plainly some of the more absurd aspects of the war.” Senator Vance Hartke of Indiana broke down the cost of one amphibious operation and found that it cost $800,000 to kill one of these Vietcong.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 490) After the riots of the summer of 1965 General Gavin testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in February, 1967, “I recommend that we bring hostilities in Vietnam to an end as quickly and reasonably as we can, that we devote those cast expenditures of our national resources to dealing with our domestic problems; that we make a massive attack on the problems of education, housing economic opportunity, lawlessness, and environmental pollution.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 490-491) Republican Senator Charles Percy of Illinois echoed those concerns. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 491) “At least half a dozen other retired generals have also spoken up against the war, some even more forcefully than Gavin, who, in resigning from the Massachusetts Democratic Advisory Council because he could not support the reelection of President Johnson again made it clear that the sacrifices demanded for the Vietnamese war increased opposition to it.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 491) However, “most disturbing for many Americans was the great number of civilian casualties caused by the manner in which this war was being conducted. Government propaganda tried to prove that civilian casualties were the result as much of Vietcong terror as of American military bombing, the widespread use if napalm and artillery against villages suspected of harboring Vietcong units, and the policy of shooting at anything that moved within a combat zone. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 491) “The deaths caused by Vietcong terror constituted a small fraction of the total civilian casualties.” Tons of bombs dropped from the air do not compare to mortars or knives. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 491) “The New York Times wrote at the end of August, 1967, that the bomb tonnage dropped on Vietnam each week is larger than that dropped on Germany at the peak of World War II. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 491-492) The Times further noted than the bombings destroy the social fabric of Vietnamese society. It is the Communists who pick up the pieces and put them back together. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 492) The war threatened to divide Americans like nothing had since the Civil War. Despite the intense bombing over the previous three years and adding more American forces to the war victory remained elusive. US Ambassador to South Vietnam, Ellsworth Bunker, and General William Westmoreland were brought back to the United States to say that we were winning the war. But Senator Mike Mansfield “dismissed this campaign with a warning against deluding ourselves.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 495) It was not an authoritarian movement. There were many destructive disagreements. (Nancy Zaroulis and and Gerald Sullivan. Who Spoke Up?: American protest against the war in Vietnam, 1963-1975. 1984. xii)

The famed Israeli General visited Vietnam in 1966. The Americans promoted bombing as their strategy to win the war but Dayan said, that is fine as far as it goes but you are 36,000 feet in the air; the war is down here. But the Americans insisted. Dayan witnessed the US Army torturing Viet Cong prisoners. They did not crack. Dayan went with infantry which came under fire. He simply took notes with no concern for his safety. Dayan was amazed with how much artillery the US used. In one battle he noted, the Americans fired more artillery than Israel had in the 1948 and 1956 wars combined. He concluded that the US would just give up and leave.

Dave Dellinger a long time peace activist and a conscientious objector during World War II protested the Vietnam War vigorously. In his book, Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger, published in 1970, he refers to his exposure of US war crimes in Vietnam which he published in 1966 in Liberation. Dellinger received this information piece meal and it was easily missed because it was overwhelmed with all of the other information about the war. “Americans have been genuinely troubled by reports and pictures of brutality in Vietnam.” (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 29) Dellinger understands the American dilemma of not wanting to give in or lose to the communists. He projects quite accurately that the war will have a lasting “cultural and political implications.” (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 30) He expresses the anti-war comparisons of the US military atrocities to the German atrocities of World War II. American citizenry’s quietness fits Hannah Arendt’s description of the banality of evil. (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 30-31) Media descriptions of the war featured US soldiers as just the boy next door while the “depersonalization of the victims, not only as Reds, Vietcong, aggressors, and, terrorists, but bodies to be counted, like tallies in a ball game.” (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 32) Critics of the war, Dellinger points out, still accept that America is the best country in the world and therefore are reluctant to criticize assumptions about the war. In addition, many of those critics criticized policies that advocated for a basic change in how America functioned. The Students for a Democratic Society, the New Left and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee need not apply. Therefore, “even peace lovers tend to be reassured by reports of American military success and impending victory.” (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 33) Dellinger notes the optimistic reports claiming the war would be over at the end of 1962, 1963 and that at the end of 1965 we were told that we had stopped losing the war which we had been winning.?! (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 33) He cites New York Times columnist James Reston’s November 14, 1965 article, “The day-to-day communiques give the impression that we win almost every encounter, but we somehow merely advance deeper into the bog. . . . Officials go on talking as if one more summer or one more winter of American action will bring the desired result, but in private they concede that this kind of war could easily go on for years.” (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 34) Dellinger argues that this reliance and celebration of liberalism is misplaced as it is that that took us to “moral disaster.” The only real victory would be the defeat of the American military in Vietnam. (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 34) “We are reminded that the United States is providing generous economic, educational, and medical aid, even in the midst of war, and has offered billions for development, once the war is over. Our main targets are said to be bridges, munitions depots, power plants, and supply routes. (The people just get in the way.) The administration is eager to enter into “unconditional discussions” as soon as the stubborn and aggressive Communists give a signal of a genuine desire for peace (such as abandoning their “condition” of American military withdrawal). President Johnson weeps over the deaths of American soldiers and Vietnamese civilians (as some of the Roman emperors wept over the deaths of the Christians in the Coliseum). (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 34-35) In October 1966 Dellinger traveled to North Vietnam. On his way he met in Phnom Penh with representatives of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and opponents of the Ky regime in Saigon. “These opponents included not only Buddhist monks, students and intellectuals, but also early members of the Diem government who resigned when they became convinced that the United States insists on a policy which is the exact opposite of its public rhetoric of peace, political freedom and social justice.” (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 39) In Saigon a young girl greeted Dellinger with “Ka Ka Do Americans . . . Cut the Americans’ throats.” Later Dellinger learns about prostitution and the black market. (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 40-41) Although U.S. forces stationed in Saigon may believe “that they have come to help the Vietnamese,” they will find that many South Vietnamese enjoy the business opportunities more than the fight against communism. (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 41) Speaking with “The Venerable Thich Thien Hoa, President of the United Buddhist Church, explained the universal hostility tour Americans in the following manner: “We realize that many Americans want to help us. We thank them for this. But the policy of the United States government is not to help the Vietnamese people but to help a small group which oppresses the people. The American government has been here more than ten years and it has always supported dictator government, so the Vietnamese people are against the American government.” (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 42) Students opposed to the government told Dellinger, “All the present collaborators were collaborators and hirelings of France. During the Japanese occupation they collaborated with the Japanese. This tiny oppressing minority collaborates with whatever foreign power is seeking to rule over us. They profit from colonialism so they don’t want independence. They profit from the war, so they don’t want peace. But the people are against the Americans.” (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 42) Dellinger spoke to South Vietnamese students leaving to study in foreign lands while Americans “die in the paddies and jungles of Vietnam.” They blamed the United States for the war and did not care who won the war. (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 44) In North Vietnam Dellinger recounts the stories from survivors of American bombings who were dismembered. Shell shocked mothers who lost three children and their own parents and siblings. A most common statement from North Vietnamese is, “We Vietnamese do not go to the United States to fight your people. Why do they come over here to kill my children?” (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 44) “Ask you President Johnson if our straw huts were made of steel and concrete” (a reference to the President’s claim that our targets in North Vietnam are military structures of steel and concrete.) “Ask him if our Catholic church that they destroyed was a military target, with its 36 pictures of the Virgin, whom we revere. Tell him that we will continue our life and struggle no matter what further bombings there will be, because we know that without independence nothing is worthwhile.” (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 45) Dellinger visited the “Hate Memorial” in North Vietnam. The hate was directed toward the “American aggressors.” (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 45) While American parents mourn the deaths of their sons the North Vietnamese remind the Americans that they have always repressed the Vietnamese revolution and national liberation. It happened at the end of World War II when Chiang Kai-shek’s forces crushed the Viet Minh at the behest of the United States which had promised the Vietnamese independence for helping downed US pilots and providing intelligence information to the allies during the war. (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 45) The North Vietnamese continue to remind the US that with the surrender of Japan in 1945 “the Allies hastily rearmed 90,000 Japanese soldiers” to contain the Viet Minh and that during the French war “the United States supplied eighty percent of the cost . . . to preserve Western colonialism in Indochina. President Eisenhower’s refusal, in 1956, to allow democratic elections and reunification of Vietnam, as promised in the Geneva Accords, was not our first flagrant betrayal of Vietnamese independence. Most Americans are ignorant of these facts, or dimly aware of them as unfortunate mistakes committed in a confused and distant past, but there is hardly a Vietnamese family that does not measure America’s broken promises in terms of the death of one or more loved ones.” (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 45-46) American warplanes bomb North Vietnamese villages day and night. (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 48) “Miss Tuyen, a twenty-year old peasant girl . . . told me that two of her brothers . . . had been killed while herding water buffalo” by bombing and machine gunning from the planes. “Miss Tuyen had been introduced to me as a village hero who had carried twice her weight in ammunition on her shoulders during an attack, transporting crates of shells through the narrow trenches to the anti-aircraft stations.” Another of her brothers was killed at Dien Bien Phu. (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 48) She expressed great anger at the “bombing and strafing” of her country. The Vietnamese shoot back but know it is difficult as most of them have only rifles. “What would young Americans think if they were living peacefully and suddenly another country came and started killing them? . . . Bombing is continuous but we never feel tired . . . the young people in my village are ready to sacrifice their lives if necessary to defend our independence.” Vietnamese hate the Americans for all the destruction they have wrought in Vietnam. She asks Dellinger to tell America the truth. She hopes to visit him in a free Saigon. (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 48-49) While villages were not military targets they were bombed nevertheless. Therefore, each hut had a bomb shelter. “Networks of trenches . . . led to larger shelters and to anti-aircraft stations.” While the people “thresh rice by hand” they have modern technology in the form of machine guns for defense. (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 50) The Vietnamese claimed that the US did everything it could to kill “anything that moved.” (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 50) However, Keven long time peace activist David Dellinger found himself in denial over claims that the US bombed “residential areas, schools and hospitals.” Central Hanoi did not get hit. Vietnamese considered that a temporary luxury.(Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 51) The people of North Vietnam believe that they are bombed after the US suffers “a severe military set-back in the south.” They dismiss with anger President Johnson’s talk of peace. “He is cynical as he is barbarous . . . killing our children . . . then the next day they may drop toys and candy, and leaflets urging us to surrender?” (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 51-52) Dellinger notes that the American peace movement is easily “discouraged by its inability to reverse twenty years of American foreign policy with a few demonstrations.” However, they may have forced the Americans to stop short of leveling all cities in North Vietnam. (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 52) Dellinger tried to maintain his faith that American pilots did not drop their bombs out of cruelty. However, on a tour of recently bombed villages Dellinger abandoned that belief. It was a clear that the use of fragmentation bombs targeted civilians not military installations. They were everywhere in North Vietnam. (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 53) Next, Dellinger gives what the peace movement description, analysis of American culture and how and why we got into Vietnam. He wonders why we put “mother” in front of the name of a bomb? “The term itself tells us something about our culture. Do we know nothing more about motherhood than this? Or is it that we have accepted the fact that mothers produce offspring who are destined to become killers? The mother bomb explodes in the air over the target area, releasing 300 smaller bombs, typically the size of either a grapefruit or a pineapple. Each of the smaller bombs then ejects a spray of 150 tiny pellets of steel, which are so small that they bounce uselessly off concrete or steel, though they are very effective when they hit a human eye or heart.” These pellets were difficult to remove by doctors because they were so small and there are very few x-ray machines in Vietnam. (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 53) “According to the Vietnamese, the general pattern of most attacks is to drop heavy explosive bombs and then to follow a few minutes later with fragmentation bombs and strafing, so as to interfere with relief operations and to kill those who are trying to flee the bombed-out areas. From personal observation, I learned that the fragmentation bombs are equipped with timing devices so that they do not all eject their murderous barrage right away. When relief workers are trying to rescue the wounded, or later when the planes have departed and the all-clear has been sounded, hundreds of fragmentation bombs may explode, wounding or killing the innocent.” (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 53-54) Dellinger wasn’t impressed with justifications for “the uses of fragmentation bombs” from the US government. He described the consequences as “the equivalent . . . of the practice in the South of shelling, napalming or setting fire to a village which is suspected of harboring a few guerrillas.” Americans refuse to believe what is happening in North Vietnam by the US air forces. They have accepted the government version of “sanitary and surgical” bombing operations. (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 54-55) The US sends over a thousand bombers a day in Vietnam. (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 55) Just south of Hanoi is the city of Phu Ly which reminded Dellinger of Guernica. “Not a building was still standing.” So much for “precision bombing. . . . Survivors told me that after the heaviest bombings planes returned at intervals of twenty to thirty minutes to strafe anything that moved.” (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 55) There are more example of destruction of Vietnamese villages by the US. “The entire city of Than Hoa was wiped out in the French Resistance War of 1945 to 1954 and painfully rebuilt after the Geneva accords, only to suffer this new destruction. . . . In Than Hoa, block after block of rubble included the ruins of a Franciscan seminary, a Buddhist pagoda and the general hospital. Here again I saw damage to the dikes that protected the city. Outside the city limits, I saw the ruins of the 600-bed Than Hoa tuberculosis sanatorium, which had been attacked on five different occasions. . . . There was no conceivable military target for miles around.” (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 60) The Americans argue otherwise. (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 61) Dellinger cites noted British historian Arnold Toynbee’s 1965 criticism of American policy in Vietnam. Mainly ignored in America, “For the past twenty years the government and people of the United States have been acting on the belief that communism is on the march for the conquest of the world and that it is the manifest destiny of the United States to save the world from suffering this fate. . . . Americans have believed that America has practically the whole human race on her side in her ant-Communist stand. . . . This picture is not founded on the facts. “. . . The revolt of the native majority of mankind against the domination of the Western minority - this, and not the defense of freedom against communism by the leading Western country, the United States, is the real major issue in the world today. . . . The President manifestly believes that he is speaking with Churchill’s voice - the Churchill of 1940 - but to the ears of people who have suffered Western domination in the past, his voice sounds like the kaiser’s and like Hitler’s. “. . . The spectacle of overwhelming American military power will not impress and Englishman who has lived through two world wars. . . . If I were a South Vietnamese guerrilla fighter today, I should remember 1940 and should continue audaciously to resist the mighty United States. The American picture of aggressive ecumenical communism is a mirage, but the reality which America is up against today is something much more formidable. She is up against the determination of the non-Western majority of mankind to complete its self-liberation from Western domination.” Op. cit. Vancouver Times, May 11; reprinted from the London Observer. The US argues that the attacks on North Vietnam is to force the North Vietnamese to negotiate. However, Dellinger claims, it has the opposite affect. The US is viewed as a “ruthless invader.” The US creates “quislings” in the areas it occupies. “Even the pro-American Japanese government recently compared the Vietcong to the anti-Nazi resistance forces during the German occupation of Europe.” (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 64) Dellinger criticizes democratic socialists Michael Harrington, Norman Thomas and Bayard Rustin who, while wanting an end to the war, also believe that the US has a “right to negotiate the terms and extent of its military withdrawal.” (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 65) This is nothing more than American “self-righteousness, an attempt to transplant in Asia the American system of parliamentary democracy and Presidential elections under which the United States has launched a pitiless economic and military aggression against Asians.” (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 65) The US has no right to be part of the decision making about the governance of Vietnam. (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 66) Dellinger continues to cite Toynbee to support his point. “Today, President Johnson is willing to negotiate without making it a condition that America’s opponents in Vietnam shall first stop fighting. He has, however, made it a condition that South Vietnam shall remain separate from North Vietnam, whatever the wishes of the Vietnamese people may be. . . . Now the imposition of the fiats of Western governments by force is the humiliation that has been inflicted on the non-Western peoples during the last 200 years. When they got rid of the European and Japanese imperialists . . . the Americans . . . jumped in and are dictating, in their turn, to the Asians what the Asians may or may not do. In other words, the Americans, in their turn, are treating the Asians as natives, and this is infuriating to them.” Americans appear unaware of Johnson’s cynicism.(Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 66-67) Ending the war is based on ignorance or “American ethnocentrism. . . . Failure to understand the deep-seated Asian revulsion against everything white, Western, and pseudo-democratic is compounded by the conditioning most of us have had to feel that our culture is superior.”(Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 67) Those who promote peace as American international policy fail to see that American politics “is isolated from and running counter to the mainstream of world politics.” It is believed that our American proposals are “hypocritical or touching on matters that are none of our business. We build a peace movement that is easily maneuvered by the government into thinking that the United States has been reasonable and the National Liberation From . . . intransigent and reckless.” Non-violent peace activists are accused of supporting violence because they support the National Liberation Front, the Vietcong. (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 68-69) By 1969 Dellinger concluded that the US gave up on winning the war. And “substituted a policy of unprecedented punishment from the air and sea, which is intended to force the Vietnamese to grant concessions in Paris that will cushion the international and domestic effects of America’s military defeat. . . . search and destroy has been replaced by probe, withdrew and bomb. The TV networks have admitted that helicopter gunships on patrol duty in the countryside are shooting down anyone who runs - on. The assumption that the fleeing peasant or a draft dodger or a V.C.” The intense bombing is meant to “strengthen America’s bargaining power” rather than win the war. (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 93) “In World War II, the United States refused to respond to Japanese peace feelers until it could first drop its terrifying new bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, thus strengthening its power at the peace table and in the post-world war world.” However, in Vietnam “it is not considered politically profitable to bring in nuclear weapons, because of the negative effect this could have on world public opinion. But the U.S. has intensified non-nuclear bombing and shelling to previously inconceivable levels. It would be a mistake to refer to such bombing as conventional any longer, because of the extreme sophistication and cruelty of the bombs and shells - pellet bombs, shrike missiles, new improved napalm and phosphorus. In World War II, when the U.S. dropped a thousand tons of bombs in a single night on the city of Hamburg, a wave of public indignation swept the world, causing protests among those who had no reservations about Allied war aims. Beginning in January, the U.S. has repeatedly dropped between four and five thousand tons of bombs in single raids on small areas of Vietnam. Some of the new bombs are as large as 5,000 kilograms (nearly six tons), whereas normal bombing of the North was with 500 and 750 pound bombs and the largest bomb used was 2,500 kilograms. Naval shelling in the South is ow four times higher than before the bombing halt in the North, and the use of pellet bombs has increased by about five hundred percent.” (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 93-94) After the Test Offensive General William Westmoreland “demanded 206,000 additional soldiers, in order to win the war.” However, most people realized that additional forces would not change the outcome of the war. According to the New York Times “tolerance of the war had worn thin.” Dellinger wrote, “who says that the antiwar teach-ins, protests and resistance activities have had no impact?” (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 94) There were calls for negotiations but no calls to stop the “genocidal bombing and shelling.” (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 95) The goal of the US is to thwart developing countries independence movements. (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 95) “The new policy is part of a public relations effort by the Nixon administration in behalf of the American system of unrepresentative government under capitalism.” There will not be discussion of foreign policy and its implications. Essentially the Johnson and Nixon administrations disregard “popular opposition” to the war and U.S. foreign policy. (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 95) Liberals do want admit to defeat in Vietnam because they fear the reaction of the pro-war faction in the United States. “The only issues for the United States to negotiate in Paris are the time it takes to get its troops out of Vietnam and the size of the indemnity it pays that ravaged country.” Furthermore, he criticizes the liberals and wants “resistance to the war” to understand the “relationship between the war and the class society we live in.” (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 95-96) 1969 sees “unprecedented military escalation” including the “implementation of the Phoenix Plan for assassinating 80,000 village cadres of the M.L.F.” In reality, the US does not want to leave Vietnam without victory and, serving “the interests of American capitalism and anti-Communism.” (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 97) The US lost the war in Vietnam and the political war in its own country. To this end Richard Nixon uses delaying tactics. “Now he offers phony concessions, such as the withdrawal of 25,000 U.S. troops.” (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 98) “American troops spend most of their time holed up in tiny enclaves, vulnerable to repeated mortar and rocket attacks. They venture out only in periodic savage actions which proved psychological reassurance for the generals and lifers (feeding their machismo and careerist ambitions) but are carried out at great cost in G.I. lives, thus adding to the discontent both in the armed forces and at home. Increasingly the major U.S. aggression is being carried out by genocidal bombing and strafing of the liberated zones, the activity which so far has the least political repercussions at home because of the resulting low American but high Communist death tolls. The U.S. has given up on conquering territory or pacifying the Vietnamese but hopes to terrorize the liberation forces into yielding major concessions at Paris. So this highly publicized proof of peaceful intent and military improvement is a bummer.” (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 98) In addition, the soldiers withdrawn had no impact on the US military effort. (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 98-99) “During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on March 27, Senator Albert Gore (D-Tenn.) reported that according to an assistant to Secretary of State Rogers, a system of gradual withdrawal could prolong the war by tow or three years. The official had asserted that the American people will be bought off with phased withdrawals.” That is exactly what happened. (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 99) However, Dellinger claims that the protests and pressure by the anti-war movement are working. But the American public in general must also demand a full and quick withdrawal from Vietnam. “The establishment is on the run.” (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 99) Unfortunately, the Johnson and Nixon administrations have offered “a series of palliatives and promises which are not intended to interfere with prosecution of the war. . . . First the opening to talks in Paris, then the end to bombing in the North, now the token troop withdrawal - all have aroused serious expectations of peace.” (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 100) “For the first several years of the war, the antiwar movement had the crucial but unrewarding task of preventing the building of a national consensus in support of the government. Those who complain that teach-ins, massive demonstrations and nonviolent resistance had no effect because they did not lead to a negotiated peace or the withdrawal troops fail to realize the tremendous significance of what was accomplished, particularly against a background of political naïveté and non involvement, a tradition of righteous patriotism, and Cold War legacy of anti-Communist brainwashing.” (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 100) South Vietnam cannot produce a government that “is both pro-American and politically respectable. . . . Thieu is hated by all and trusted by no one, and the little clique of generals and landlords who have sold themselves in turn to the Japanese, the French and the Americans are checking their escape routes and filling their foreign bank accounts with American aid money.” (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 101) Dellinger writes that from 1965 to 1967 disparate American political groups worked together to put “the Johnson administration on the defensive.” Most Americans oppose the war and are “distrustful of Nixon.” However, “politically the U.S. is an underdeveloped country.” Example, the trust in elections and the institutions of our government. (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 101-102) Not understood, is the “power structure of American capitalism. . . . which makes the drive for profits and power, at home and abroad, the dominating force in American policy.” The power elite who truly control things. The peace movement must make this connection as well. (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 102) Regarding communists in the antiwar movement Dellinger writes that it is those who want to control the movement feel threatened by communists in the movement. Communist must be listened to for their good ideas and shunned for their not so good ideas; this is true of anything and any one in society. (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 198-199) Interestingly, while some in the antiwar movement demand the exclusion of communists they do not have the same feelings toward “pro-Americans.” Analysis by the liberals frustrates Dellinger as they never get to the heart of the power structure. (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 200) Dellinger laments “the willingness of the public to tolerate known lies and manipulations of the news” about Vietnam. (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 256) The Gulf of Tonkin used to justify the war in Vietnam seems to have an affect only on Americans. Southeast Asians do not want to be dominated by Americans, however. (Revolutionary Nonviolence: essays by Dave Dellinger. 257) Dellinger predicts the war will get out of hand for the power structure and the peace movement should be ready to take the lead in confronting the issues confronting the country.

A Whistleblower’s Lament by Stuart Hamm recounts the corruption of the justice system in Suffolk County New York. The police and the prosecutors lied through their teeth to obtain convictions. They spent so much time beating confessions out of people; time that could have been spent investigating crimes.

Julius W. Pratt wrote in America’s Colonial Experiment, in 1950, about the back and forth Manifest Destiny desires of the United States. He describes the American desire to obtain Cuba by Presidents Polk, Pierce, and Buchanan. Buchanan asked Congress for authority to establish a protectorate over Central America. Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry . . . and Dr. Peter Parker, missionary and United States commissioner to China, both urged that the United States acquire footholds in the Far East-the Bonins, the Rykuyus, Formosa-to match England’s newly won base at Hong Kong.” Secretary of State Lewis Cass dismissed these ideas as inappropriate for the United States. Nevertheless, President Pierce attempted to annex Hawaii but failed. (Julius W. Pratt. America’s Colonial Experiment. 1950. 5-6) In addition to buying Alaska in 1867 the United States occupied Midway Island as well as “some dozens of tiny islands, most of them in the Pacific, claimed as appurtenances of the United States” all for their guano deposits. (Julius W. Pratt. America’s Colonial Experiment. 1950. 11) Moving toward South America the United States “secured for its citizens and government equality of treatment with the citizens and government of New Grenada in any means of transit across the Isthmus of Panama.” (Julius W. Pratt. America’s Colonial Experiment. 1950. 11-12) Under President Cleveland Manifest Destiny was not priority. However, the Republicans “revived that very phrase in 1892 and 1898 was to write a specific expansionist program into its platform. The same party, after fighting a war with Spain and acquiring a colonial empire, was to win easily at the polls in 1900. The opinion of the majority appeared to support the expansionists. (Julius W. Pratt. America’s Colonial Experiment. 1950. 22) The idea that white people are meant to dominate North American is extended to Asia in the nineteenth century by “Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri . . . in 1846, eloquently expressed his belief that the arrival of the van of the Caucasian race upon the border of the sea which washes the shore of Eastern Asia promised a greater and more beneficent change upon the earth than any human event past or present . . . The Caucasian race must wake up and reanimate the torpid body of Asia. . . . The moral and intellectual superiority of the White race will do the rest.” (Ralph H. Gabriel. The Course of American Democratic Thought. 1956. 343-344.)

The conservative mantra toward the poor and oppressed in our country is obscene. The following is a coherent and realistic bucket of cold water thrown on that point of view and things. Italian historian Gugliemo Ferrero wrote in, 1941, The Reconstruction of Europe: Talleyrand and the Congress of Vienna, 1814-1815, that while “independence . . . is the essence of human nature . . . it is also responsible for the agony and the hardship in man’s existence. . . . If the central nucleus of the human mind enjoys unlimited freedom and is capable of ignoring fixed laws, social life becomes permissible only if each one of us can more or less foresee the conduct of the majority of our fellow creatures under every known circumstance. “Society, then, is founded upon a contradiction between human liberty and the social necessity for reactions that can be foreseen. How did men get around this contradiction? By discovering and imposing laws which maintain a certain order, namely by guaranteeing some possibility of foreseeing what will happen in the course of human relationships.”

Peter Grose died. He was a New York Times of war correspondent in Saigon during the Vietnam War and he questioned the American use of massive bombing to force the North Vietnamese to the negotiating table and he said diplomatic observers also questioned the use of bombing saying that the Vietcong had steadily increased their power in southern Vietnam, and that the south Vietnamese government just could not rule effectively.

Moshe Dayan has traditionally been given credit for Israel’s stupendous victory of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan in the Six-Day War. Tom Segev writes in his book 1967 that Israelis clamored for Dayan to take control of the armed forces before the war began as he was the hero of the 1956 Sinai War. However, Mordechai Bar-On writes in his biography of Dayan, that Dayan insinuated himself into the war planning thus, taking all the credit from Chief of Staff Yitzah Rabin. However, Bar-on worked as an aide to Dayan and may have some biases. Segev writes in 1967 that Rabin had a nervous breakdown before the war: fearing Egyptian air attacks that were not happening. While wholly criticized for Israels’ lack of defenses against the Arab attack it has now come out that this was the plan. The Arabs would attack knowing they could not defeat Israel. This allowed the Arabs to save face. Dayan suffered horribly for this, nevertheless.

Randall Balmer. Bad Faith: race and the rise of the religious right. This is a very short and to the point book noticing that abortion had not been on the religious rights radar as a political issue. The political right fought to maintain segregation, then attacked homosexuality, then was taken over by anti-abortion people, but their first and primary interest is racial oppression and white supremacy.

George Herring, author of America’s Longest War: the United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975, passed away in November 2022. His book is a great summary with significant points of view and things. However, he describes the war as a “complex local conflict; but it was not. At some point I will demonstrate U.S. complicity in the section titled, Viet Nam War. In addition, there is not “balanced account” of the war as the war was very unbalanced and so was the information fed to the American people. Herring quotes Robert Shaplen, “there are no sure answers” in Vietnam. But there were. The U.S. created the South Vietnamese government and all of the horrors that followed. If not for that Vietnamese would have had a peaceful and prosperous life. Herring: “I do not believe that the war could have been won in any meaningful sense at a moral or material cost most Americans deemed acceptable.”

The lion share of the books I use for this post were written no later than 1975. I want to show what people knew during the wars in Viet Nam. INTRODUCTION Following World War II peoples who had been ruled by the European powers for up to 500 years demanded their independence. When it was denied they revolted. The major opponent of independence was the United States. It had the economic, political and military power to support the colonial empires. It did so even if this meant supporting repressive and fascist governments. (John David Orme, Political Instability and American Foreign Policy: the middle options. 1-2) Asian and African colonies of European countries argued that they fought for European independence so they should receive independence. Also, since the Japanese defeated the Europeans in World War II, and the Japanese subsequently were defeated by the Americans, Asian countries should become independent. The Vietnam Wars were politically complex and there are unresolved consequences. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 277) Not since the Crusades, said General Jean de Latter Tassigny in July, 1951, “has France undertaken such disinterested action. This war is the war of Vietnam for Vietnam.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 278) The two most important issues to know about the Viet Nam War are: nationalism and land reform. Much was made by the anti-war movement of the long history of Vietnamese nationalism. This was quickly dismissed by pro-war advocates. However, we see nationalism in our endless war in Afghanistan. We see it in Iraq, a country artificially created after World War I but people consider themselves Iraqi. People do not like the US or anyone else for that matter to tell them how to govern or live. Vietnam, it has been argued, had to tell China this for 4,000 years. Later, they would have to convince the Japanese, the French and the Americans. “The conflict is far more complicated than a simple clash between the competing ideologies of communism and Western liberal democracy. The forces at play in Vietnam are global in scope, involving virtually every kind of trouble that can plague developing lands. They encompass all the problems of countries recently emerged from colonial rule combined with those of peoples undergoing transition from traditional to modern societies under the impact of Western technological civilization. Both North and South Vietnam are hindered by traditional attitudes and customs and shortages of skills and capital needed for modernization. [That’s not the problem. The problem is colonialism. Has nothing to do with traditional or modern.] Both are troubled by factionalism among their elites, the members of which avoid responsibility, a trait inherited from the traditional society and magnified by colonial rule.” (Bain, 1) was a slow advance that lasted more than eight hundred years, carried out primarily by the sort of peasant soldiering for which the Vietnamese seemed to have developed a special attitude. The Vietnamese peasant turned soldier whenever an enemy approached and reverted to settler once a war ended.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 9-10) “During its first thousand years, Vietnam was a Chinese province known in Chinese annals as Chiao Chi. The entry of the Chinese into the burning capital of Nam Viet in the year 111 B.C. marks the beginning of the recorded, verifiable of Vietnam. “In that period, the Chinese not only wrote and dominated Vietnamese history, they also contributed to the making of the Vietnamese people. Vietnamese history must therefore be looked at against the background of Chinese history and civilization.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 25) “The first annexation of Vietnam by the Chinese was a bloodless affair of little immediate affect. In 207 BC, the founder of Nam Viet had divided Vietnam into two provinces headed by viceroys but under the control of the local lords. After the fall of Nam Viet, in 111 BC, the two viceroys submitted to the victorious Chinese general and pledged allegiance to the Chinese empire.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 27-28) years thereafter, while continuing to absorb Chinese culture, the Vietnamese maintained their independence both by paying tribute to their great neighbor and by repelling a series of Chinese invasions.” (Bain, 2) Sometimes a renegade Chinese general would take over Vietnam and make himself the king. Chao-To, Trieu Da in Vietnamese, conquered the Vietnamese in 207 BC who at that time occupied “a small part of what is now North Viet-Nam.” (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 36) China retaliated with embargoes on farming products. As will become the tenor of Vietnamese resistance two thousand years later this only stiffened Vietnamese resistance. China and Vietnam finally reached an agreement whereby Vietnam was recognized as independent but a vassal of China. (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 36-37) Nevertheless, a quarrel developed within Vietnam as to whether or not being a Chinese vassal would benefit Vietnam in the long run. The Chinese finally did overrun Vietnam in 111 BC. “The occupation of Viet-Nam was to last, with a few brief interruptions due to rebellions, for 1050 years, until 939 AD.” (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 37) “The Vietnamese are justly proud that they of all the Viet tribes regained and kept their independence. They are also proud that while serving as a buffer against Chinese expansion into Southeast Asia, they became an imperial power in their own right. During their nine centuries of independence, the Viet expanded southward from the Red River delta, conquering and absorbing the Indianized kingdom of Champa, colonizing the lower Mekong delta, which they too from Cambodia, and finally, at their maximum power, and annexing much of Laos and becoming suzerain, jointly with Thailand, over the rest of Laos and Cambodia.” (Bain 2) The Mongols The Mongols invaded Viet Nam in 1257 in the Red River Valley with 200,000 soldiers. “The Vietnamese, as they would so often do later, abandoned their cities and headed for the hills, leaving their capital to be burned by the invaders. But the Mongols, still unused to the tropics and tropical diseases, were defeated by the environment; after a fruitless pursuit of the Vietnamese, they withdrew. A few years later, Kublai Khan made a second attempt at crushing Viet-Nam, not because he needed the backwater kingdom on the Gulf of Tonkin, but because it blocked the overland route to Champa . . . [the invasion] which took place about 1268 after a landing by sea and left the Vietnamese in the center of a Mongol pincer.” (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 40) The Mongols invaded again in 1284, this time much better prepared. The Vietnamese worried, however, “a great military leader stepped forward: Marshal Tran Hung Dao. He withdrew to the mountains, wrote his Essential Summary of Military Arts, and began to train his troops in what we now call guerrilla warfare. His principles could just as well have been written by Mao Tse-tung or Dao’s present-day successor in Hanoi, General Vo Nguyen Giap, the victor of Dien Bien Phu” The enemy must fight his battles far from his home base for a long time . . . We must further weaken by drawing him into protracted campaigns. Once his initial dash is broken, it will be easier to destroy him.” (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 41) “And that is exactly what happened. In 1287, after the Vietnamese whittled down the Mongols through protected guerrilla warfare, the latter decided to withdraw. Tran Hung Dao planted thousands of iron-spiked stakes in the Bach-Dang River north of Haiphong through which the Mongol fleet had to pass. The ships arrived at high tide, when the stakes were submerged. A small Vietnamese naval force cleverly decoy the enemy into a fight which looked like an easy victory until the Mongol ships found themselves stranded or gored on the stakes . . . That was the moment Marshal Dao’s infantry chose to attack and defeat the invaders.” Nevertheless, the Vietnamese agreed to pay tribute to the Chinese. (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 41) “A last invasion under the Ming emperors, in 1407, was eventually defeated by the same mixture of guerrillas and attrition warfare, and a new dynasty of Vietnamese kings, beginning with Le Loi in 1418, reigned until the end of the eighteenth century.” (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 41) Kublai Khan wanted “the east coast of Indochina.” He attacked Champa and Cambodia. Then, in 1284, he invaded Vietnam with 500,000 soldiers. With 200,000 soldiers the Vietnamese defeated the Mongols in both 1284 and again in 1287. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 44) In 1406 the Ming devastated Vietnam and the Vietnamese developed a “burning hatred” of the Chinese. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 45) By 1427 the Vietnamese “aristocratic landowner” Le Loi drove the Chinese out again. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 45) He then redistributed land to the peasants which had lost land under the Chinese. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 45) Although later Vietnamese dynasties unraveled Vietnam, “national unity survived, because of the forces rooted in the Vietnamese village, in the peasant’s way of life, north and south. The Vietnamese soil, bound together what the lords, the mandarins, and the country’s rulers were tearing apart. “The Vietnamese peasants have to their credit the two most outstanding achievements in the history of Vietnam: territorial expansion and the preservation of national unity.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 53) NATIONALISM - FRANCE France conquered Vietnam through colonial wars from 1858 to 1883. Vietnamese nationalists “never accepted the names imposed on their divided country by the French.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 5) “The land which in the wake of French political and military intervention became known as Annam (Tongking and Cochinchina were regarded as somehow connected with Annam) was in fact a highly centralized state officially renamed Vietnam back in 1802.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 5) DOUMER The Cochinchina Colonial Council was a minority of Cochinchina residents and they exerted an enormous amount of power and took quite a bit of funds from the treasury. This the Governor General Doumer hated. He therefore replaced it with a council he controlled. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 109-110) Doumer was “ruthless” in his demands that the Vietnamese support French policies. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 112) Doumer served as governor general from 1897 to 1902. Doumer built railroads which he believed would help the Cochinchina economy grow. However, there turned out to be little to transport. As a result this turned out to be a boondoggle. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 114-115) “The final verdict on the Indochinese railroads must state that they benefited neither France nor the Vietnamese people. They were of profit solely for the men who built them, the contractors and engineers, and for the banks that granted the loans for their construction.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 115) “Institutionalization” of the “white functionary”. Meaning no Vietnamese could become an administrator. Buttinger describes this as an evil. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 115-116) “Doumer’s unshakable self-confidence and lack of self-criticism nurtured his mistaken belief that the modern infrastructure he created would make Indochina rich even in the absence of a modern economy. He remained stubbornly ignorant of the social and political consequences his fiscal and economic policies were bound to produce.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 116) “From the time the French troops had first occupied Saigon in 1859 until the arrival of Doumer in 1897, the French presence in Vietnam had meant thirty-eight long and bloody years of pacification.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 30) Doumer set out to crush any Vietnamese resistance to French rule. He created a “network of communications, with fiscal reforms, and with political centralization.” Now the Vietnamese nationalists had to deal with the overwhelming power of modern technology. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 30) He was so successful that he could claim that none of his troops had been killed. In addition, Doumer made Indochina economically independent of France. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 31) Nevertheless, the Vietnamese nationalists looked at his accomplishments as “utterly artificial and irrelevant.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 31.) Much of this had no relevance to the life of the peasants. He did nothing to promote education. He did acknowledge that the French “upset the institutions of a country of ancient civilization.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 31.) Doumer did impose “unbearable forced labor, heavy taxes, excessive centralization, notorious cruelty by the colonials - - all that harassed the masses and exacerbated mandarins and scholars. Increasing nationalist agitation was the result.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 31.) Paul Beau Jean Baptiste Paul Beau replaced Doumer in 1902 and served until 1908. “Nationalist agitation grew more overt after Vietnam had suffered three successive disastrous harvest and subsequent devaluation of the piaster.” And this under French rule. Beau “launched his so-called floral conquest.” He instituted reforms in education and medicine. He called for association in Indochina over domination. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 32.) “Beau’s apparent efforts to improve native education impressed a great number of nationalists.” The French had destroyed the traditional Vietnamese educational system. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 41.) However, the staunch French colonists in Indochina balked. Japan’s victory over Russian in their war in 1905 “awakened dormant national feelings and healed the native’s injured pride at being subdued for years by the West.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 32.) Vietnamese intellectuals now strived for modernization in order to “evict the French.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 32-33.) Then there were the “pro-French mandarins who honestly expected benefits for their country from cooperation with France.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 118) Phan Boi Chau Phan Boi Chau wrote, “People’s rights derive from their enlightenment. France as a republic, America as a republic, stem from the enlightenment of their subjects; the constitutional regimes of Japan, Britain, Germany are also the result of their peoples’ enlightenment.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 58.) The winner of the “competition for scholars and mandarins held every three years at Vinh” was Phan Boi Chau. He refused to become a part of the French government in Vietnam. He wanted to fight “foreign rule.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 117-118) Chau was the first in a new set of resistance leaders and”he was the author of a pamphlet written “with tears of blood,” dealing with the suffering and humiliation of his people.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 118) “The man who for the next twenty-five years personified the political character of Vietnamese national resistance was Phan Boi Chau. Born in 1867, in the province of Nghe An, a cradle of rebels, Chau began the political career for which he had carefully prepared himself in 1900. . . . Chau was the first prominent Vietnamese nationalist who realized that Asia would continue to be a victim of Western exploitation unless the East added modern Western knowledge and political ideas to its ancient store of knowledge. Between 1900 and 1905, the national movement fell under his spell. . . . he wrote a defiant pamphlet, Letters Written in Blood which was secretly printed and distributes in 1903, tried to form small, armed groups to fight the French, and traveled throughout the country rallying young and old to his cause. “In 1905, Chau went to Japan, where he met and was deeply impressed by exiled Chinese intellectuals who were to play a significant part in the movement led by Sun Yat-sen. Even greater was the impression made on him by Japan’s modern leaders. He was convinced that Japan was destined to play a decisive role in outing the white man from Asia.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 155) With the wave of nationalism in the early 1900s due to an economic downturn in Indochina Phan Boi Chau “exploited” the moment. He was a “master in psychological maneuvering. . . . In 1900 with a few other patriots Phan Boi Chau had already founded his New party, which was the embryo of Vietnam’s first modern political party, the Association for the Modernization of Vietnam, which Chau also founded, in 1905.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 33.) The Japanese victory over Russia in the 1905 war convinced Vietnamese and other Asian peoples that “the only way for the East to assert itself against the Beast was by acquiring the scientific, technological, and general knowledge of the West.” Phan Boi Chau agreed with this from his exile in Japan. Vietnamese students also traveled to Japan for study. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 121) Japan mesmerized Phan Boi Chau with its Westernization and “remarkable progress.” He encouraged Vietnamese scholars and students to witness Japan’s achievement. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 33.) They “vowed to imitate Japan “ in modernizing Vietnam. They called themselves the “Tokyo group. They emphasized national development and education the latter which the French let decline. They appealed for “mass education” in Vietnam. Kinh Nghia Thuc was there first school and developed into the Dong Minh Free School Movement.” This was short lived as the French crushed it. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 34.) The school immediately began teaching quoc ngu which had been “invented by European missionaries in the seventeenth century.” This was revolutionary as it had been the standard to teach Chinese characters or French. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 42.) Nevertheless, Vietnamese nationalists looked at quoc ngu “as a tool for religious propaganda, a sort of memorial of shame, and perhaps a dangerous trap set up by the Western conquerors for the annexation of Vietnam.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 43.) However, “a few progressive scholars . . . realizing bitterly the weakness of both Chinese and its sister chu nom, had begun to adopt quoc ngu late in the nineteenth century.” It troubled them that this was a western invention, however, other scholars decided to use it as a new language for Viet Nam. In fact, Phan Chau Trinh said “without the overthrow of the Chinese characters we cannot save Vietnam.” A powerful act since Chinese characters had been a part of the Vietnamese language for two thousand years. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 43.) This became an act of modernization. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 44.) The new Vietnamese scholars “called themselves enlightened.” They “had to break with the past. . . . They regarded themselves as awakening from the deep of an unproductive system of education and rejected the old four the new. . . . they did not hesitate to tear up their old academic degrees; Phan Boi Chau disavowed his enviable degree as number one graduate in a regional contest.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 45.) Thus, French colonization caused Vietnamese modernization and interestingly the overthrow of the French. The Dong Kinh school referred to Japan as the “eldest yellow brother.” It was believed that Japan would be the “brother-keeper” of the rest of Asia. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 54.) In addition, the Vietnamese read ancient Greek scholars, Enlightenment figures, and famous political leaders of recent European history. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 54.) The overseas Vietnamese were “shocked at the contrast between stifling tyranny at home and the freedom abroad. . . . Phan Boi Chau sent a number of his students to study in Hongkong, Thailand, and Germany, also.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 55.) In addition, Vietnamese scholars admired “science and technology for [sic] Europe and America.” They explained this by writing that there is a Congress in charge of politics and a press expressing the “will of the people.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 55-56.) The Vietnamese scholars reprinted old texts in quoc ngu and those the French might consider revolutionary were surreptitiously printed and distributed. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 48.) They also blamed the French for Vietnamese peasant ignorance. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 58.) However, Phan Boi Chau remained a monarchist until the overthrow of the Manchus in 1911. He proposed “more competent and patriotic” leaders for Vietnam. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 58-59.) Phan Chau Trinh Phan Chau Trinh believed that the French educational system caused a moral decline of the Vietnamese. He demanded democracy for Vietnam, “in the image of the French Republic.” He was furious at the working relationship the mandarins developed with the French colonizers.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 58.) The most popular book, The Manual of Modern Civilization, became “a sort of manifesto,” contrasts “old Vietnam and contemporary Vietnam, with emphasis on the ignominious decadence of the latter.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 48.) The anonymous author describes the decadence as, “ignorance of the world situation, a tragic rejection of foreign technology, superstitious worship of the Ancients, and a feudal respect for the mandarins at the expense of the common people. . . . the author makes six recommendations for the education of the masses: (1) use of quoc ngu, (2) revision of books to bring them up to date, (3) alteration and improvement of the examination system, (4) promotion of the national elite, (5) development of industry and trade, and (6) promotion of the press.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 48-49.) Westernization was emphasized by the “Dong Kinh group.” This was revolutionary as the recent emperor Tu Duc referred “to Westerners as white demons.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 49.) To the Vietnamese they were nothing more than servants to the French. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 50.) Nevertheless, the Vietnamese scholars encouraged people to learn French. Even Phan Chau Trinh admired, “French democracy and French technology in the construction of roads and railroads, the repair of dikes and bridges, and the use of steam power and telecommunications. He advocated a frank and egalitarian collaboration between the French and the natives. Toward this goal, the nationalists were to abandon violence and the French were to carry out necessary reforms.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 50.) However, the nationalists were stymied by the French refusal to allow “them to import liberal Western thinking.” Even educated Vietnamese did not know “that authors like Montesquieu and Rousseau were French.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 51.) Therefore, the Dong Kinh group smuggled materials from China and Japan to out maneuver the French police. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 51-52.) Studying French and other European texts Vietnamese learned for the first time the words, economy, progress, and revolution. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 52.) Phan Boi Chau and Phan Choi Trinh supported “study groups” in order to discuss the new ideas. “A modern concept of patriotism was developed, based not on a line allegiance to the kings and mandarins, but on national solidarity and unreserved devotion to the nation’s heroes. New mottoes and key ideas replace the old, for example, “the people being the foundation, monarchs and mandarins may go, the nation will remain forever.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 59.) There were public lectures throughout the country. There were many lecturers in addition to Phan Chau Trinh and Phan Boi Chau. “Phan Chau Trinh was the most successful. A true image maker and breaker, he toured the upcountry from north to south, beating the drum to sir up nationalist enemies; and incessantly harassing the backward and corrupt mandarins with his sarcastic verses.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 60.) Lecture halls overflowed and the French arrested lecturers. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 61.) Progressive scholars also promoted women’s rights. Emboldened women gave their opinions at these lectures. All cited great European women in history. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 64.) Cutting a man’s hair became an important issue in creating a new Vietnam. Tradition in Vietnam dictated that only monks could have short hair. However, “lay people were supposed to wear their hair long.” So, after 1900, progressive scholars cut their hair. This begat the “hairbun-murdering-movement.” “Teams of haircutters roamed the roads leading to major market places. Progressive scholars-turned-barbers and their students would stop any man have a pigeon-nest-like hairbun and politely and politely request, I beg you, let me dispose of this bun of backwardness for you. And to prevent the victim from possible protest, the barber set out at once to do his delicate job while singing a moralizing song.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 64.) Similar to the haircut movement earlier in Japan. In the tradition of, or at a similar time as, China, where they cut a man’s hair whether he wanted it cut or not. Nevertheless, the French cracked down on the progressive scholar movement. They closed schools and banned the lectures. The schools were “searched for seditious material. None was found.” The material had been well secreted by the scholars. The French attempted to bribe the scholars by promoting them within the French government system. The promotions were refused. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 69-70.) Prior to the French conquest Vietnam had “free and universal higher education.” The French replaced with with their own “rigid” system hoping to turn the Vietnamese into Frenchmen. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 120) This process was known as assimilation. There was a plan to open schools everywhere but there were no teachers. “Consequently, after ten years of foreign rule, a formerly literate region with more than 1.5 million inhabitants had fewer than 5,000 primary-school pupils. Higher education had ceased altogether. Assimilation meant preaching “the gospel of French culture to the Vietnamese.” Opponents of educating the Vietnamese believed it would create more rebels. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 120) There was an attempt to integrate the Chinese based system with France’s western style education. Intelligent students were sent to France for higher education. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 121) “A period of intense educational activity accompanied this awakening of the national spirit under the banner of “modernization.” Study groups formed, patriotic merchants supported the publication of small newspapers that proclaimed eventual freedom for a Westernized Vietnam, traveling lecturers assured their listeners that education was a means of liberation and that Vietnam would rise again if it followed the path chosen by Japan. Poor and rich alike contributed to the cost of this movement which culminated in the creation of the Free School of Tongking in Hanoi in March, 1907, largely under the stimulus of Phan Chau Trinh’s campaign for a modernization of Vietnamese thought. Here the new movement could its organizational center and spiritual home. The subjects taught included the natural sciences, political economy, and national culture. Instruction was in Vietnamese, Chinese, and French.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 121-122) The French were furious and found these actions “subversive.” This included reading classic political philosophers such as Montesquieu and Rousseau. Nevertheless, the project continued. The French referred to Vietnamese traveling to Japan to study as the “exodus to the East” and considered it “subversive.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 122) Students and teachers were arrested. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 122) In 1908, “When the peasants of Annam . . . demonstrated openly against high taxes and the thinly disguised forced labor, the blame was placed on the actives of the Vietnamese educators. Hundreds of nationalists were arrested and death sentences pronounced against the leading members of the movement to create a new national elite.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 122) Some executions were carried out other scholars “were sent to Poulo Condore, an island 50 miles off the southern coast of Vietnam, which the French transformed into a concentration camp.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 122-123) These actions set the tone for French rule in Indochina. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 123) The demonstration against the French had heavy peasant involvement. They were upset at high taxes on, among other things, “salt, alcohol, and opium monopolies.” The French [in Vietnam] paid almost no taxes. “The flagrant injustice of the colonial taxation system, which favored the rich at the expense of the poor, the Europeans at the expense of the native population, was one of the chief reasons for Vietnamese discontent.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 123) The French established monopolies that only French citizens could benefit from. The monopoly on salt affected the entire Vietnamese population and their diet. Salt had to be purchased at extremely high prices. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 124-125) The French in Vietnam complained of “laxity of the prosecution of Vietnamese nationalists.” There were no standard criminal court procedures just the whim of the French residents. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 127) The French concentrated on police and military power to crush rebellion. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 127) The local French press constantly complained of guerrillas and “educated natives” as a “menace to French rule.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 127) Continued conflict between the Vietnamese and the French. This caused problems for the home government in Paris. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 128) The French complained of “hardships and frustrations of life in Indochina.” They became particularly upset when their corruption was exposed. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 129) The French colonials who did not do very well in Vietnam were the ones who particularly complained that their economic projects were not supported by Paris. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 130) Criticism of French rule in Vietnam made its way to Paris. Especially concerning was “the brutal treatment and ruthless exploitation of the natives.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 130) “Social conditions in the colony and the failure of French policy to win Vietnamese cooperation were as forcefully condemned in these official reports as in the books by the many writers who had visited Indochina and had returned filled with indignation against the colonial regime.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 130) One writer “found no agricultural prosperity in the colony, at least none created by the French, and he showed that commerce, after forty years of the French “presence,” was still insignificant and industry nonexistent. . . . [another visitor to Indochina] a passionate observer more familiar with native misery . . . the Vietnamese people were forced to pay for Doumer’s economically questionable achievements. . . . nothing was being done to improve improve conditions, while the harsh measures designed to secure the monopolies financial success added to the misery of the people.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 131) “White man’s assumption of racial superiority could corrupt normally decent men.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 131) One writer “described the public works as “ill-disguised deportation,” called the salt tax “a permanent crime of lese-humanite,” [roughly, inhuman] and commented that the enforced sale of alcohol was ruled not by the law of supply and demand but by “the arbitrariness of an administrator who bets his future on the rise of consumption in his regional territory.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 131) There were warnings of “much greater troubles” in Vietnam if the French did not change their behavior. Also, critics of French policy in Vietnam warned of “profound repercussions” over the Japanese defeat of the Russians in 1905. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 131) There were reports “about the denial of justice suffered by the native populations at the hands of the colonial society drew the attention of the entire country.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 131-132) The French declared a belief in “assimilation.” In reality it was “cultural imperialism.” The French called it, “mission civilatrice.” This is other wise called, the “white-man’s burden.” The idea was that the non-whites, the little brownies, would become the equals of the colonialists. The idea was spread that the whites and non-whites had a fraternal relationship. This was balderdash. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 132) Practically, French culture and policies replaced Vietnamese. No Vietnamese held important positions in the government. In reality, assimilation was a joke. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 132-133) Assimilation was replaced by association. “Cooperation was to be achieved through concessions to the native populations that would make them ready to work with the foreign masters of their country. Assimilation was rejected not only as unrealistic, but also because respect for native cultures and institutions was seen as an important condition of cooperation between colonial governments and their subjects.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 135) Association became a military topic after the Japanese defeat of Russia in 1905. It was even then believed that Japan had imperial interests. A French general in Indochina called for the creation of a native army. General, “Theophile Daniel Pennequin, the Commander and Chief of the Army in Indochina, shocked colonial society by calling for the creation of a native army. Fully aware that this required a drastic change in the treatment of the Vietnamese, he called for a policy of genuine association, a colony without conquerors and conquered, in which Vietnamese and Frenchmen were part of the same empire.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 136) “The fact was that the economic needs and political aspirations of the Indochinese people were not reconcilable with the preservation of colonial rule.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 138) “The medical establishments were merely small, understaffed, and poorly equipped clinics and dispensaries, manned chiefly by so-called hygiene officers trained to perform simple tasks like inoculations and first aid. Nor could 175 medical establishments in a country of 25 million be called an impressive achievement.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 140) During World War I 140,000 Vietnamese were sent to Europe to work and fight in the war. This amounted to forced labor.(Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 141) It was legal for Frenchmen to strike a Vietnamese. This shows the absolute disdain and impunity the French looked at the Vietnamese. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 141) There was abuse of Vietnamese in the mines. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 141) In 1916, while France fought a war in Europe and had much less forces in Indochina, Emperor Duy-Tan led a rebellion which failed and he was also exiled, but to the Indian Ocean island of Reunion. (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 68) Duy Tan spent 25 years on Reunion Island and “became an electrical engineer there, ran its radio station with the outside world and, in World War II, was one of the leaders of the anti-Vichy Free French underground there.” He became an officer in the Free French Army. After World War II Charles DeGaulle asked him to return to Vietnam to counter the Viet Minh. However, he was killed in a plane crash in Central Africa. (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 68) There was a policy of “granting land concessions to French colons and collaborating Vietnamese notables.” Change did not even come close to happening until 1927. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 142) “Ineffective . . . provincial chambers . . . in Tongking and Annam. They never had any but consultative functions. . . . they also had no moral authority as representatives of the people. Vietnamese nationalists regarded them as reactionary delegations of natives under the influence of the French.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 142) The Vietnamese were “disillusioned” with Sarraut. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 142) Vietnamese had fewer rights than the colonial subjects in other countries. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 144) In 1913, “Agents of the Association for the Restoration of Vietnam, founded abroad by Phan Boi Chau and Prince Cuong De, became active in many parts of the country. they operated from their new base in China, which they succeeded in building up after the start of the Chinese revolution [1911], an event that strengthened the spirit of national resistance in Vietnam as much as had the rise of Japan after 1905. On March 24, 1913, bombs were discovered in the vicinity of several public buildings in Saigon. On the twenty-eighth of the same month, unarmed peasants marched on Cholon, at the gates of Saigon, apparently intent upon voicing their grievances. . . . the French brutally dispersed the marchers, arrested hundreds of nationalists suspected of being the leaders of the emergent movement . . . On April 12, the nationalist “underground” murdered a high Vietnamese official in Thai Binh; on the twenty-sixth, a bomb was thrown in Hanoi, killing tow French officers and causing such panic among the French and such violent demands for action against the nationalists . . . Criminal Commission . . . sentenced dozens of Vietnamese to death, including the absent Phan Boi Chau and Prince Cuong De.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 143) Uprising of native soldiers at the military post of Yen Bay in 1930. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 146) “The Commission sentenced 83 nationalists to death, and 546 to imprisonment and forced labor. . . . That same year, 699 persons were summarily executed, 50 in Yen Bay alone. By the end of 1932, the number of nationalists arrested and held in prison was estimated at more than 10,000.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 146-147) “1930 was a year of near-hysteria among the French community in Vietnam concerning the dangers of communism. For the wealthy . . . the threat of communism was a matter for concern.” Their criticism of French oppression died down as the rebellions grew. Without knowing it, perhaps, the Constitutionalists their limited ideas of independence fueled revolution. “They were an elitist group. Whatever, political aims some, such as the Constitutionalist, pursued, they were a group committed to maintaining the French in power. And they failed to recognize why communism could have an appeal to the peasantry of Vietnam.” (Milton Osborne. “The Faithful Few: The Politics of Collaboration in Cochinchina in the 1920s.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 181-182) The French refused to industrialize Vietnam because they were afraid that a middle class would develop as had in India. A middle class would demand political rights, “national aspirations,” economic participation. This could lead to Vietnam breaking away from France altogether. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 168) In fact, the middle class was so small that it had little impact. A larger middle class might have been able to counter the attraction of communism. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 172) Vietnamese had no experience in business because the French would not let them. Therefore, an “intelligentsia” formed of doctors, lawyers, civil servants and “other professionals.” This bred resentment among the Vietnamese. They would have more than their share of influence on the revolution. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 172) The landowners were a “wealthy class created by the French.” They became more economically powerful and in course demanded more political power. However, they were willing to share power with the French in what Buttinger called modus vivendi. The French resisted this and that created a new rebellious group they had to contend with. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 173) The result is the Constitutionalist Party. It was short-lived because it never accomplished anything. Originally, “it demanded liberal press laws, greater opportunities for Vietnamese nationals in government positions, equal treatment of French and Vietnamese officials, liberalization of the requirements for the practice of law, and other such moderate reforms. . . . wanted to make the Colonial Council . . . into a real legislative body. They put up their own candidates, and in spite of the severely restricted electorate-high officials, French-appointed collaborators, and rich landlords were almost the only ones given the right to vote-all their candidates were elected.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 173-174) Constitutionalist Party Frequently referred to as collaborators although this is a misinterpretation of the French, collaborateur, which was admirable in Vietnamese society for working with the French. (Milton Osborne. “The Faithful Few: The Politics of Collaboration in Cochinchina in the 1920s.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 187) They formed the Constitutionalist Party whose aims were to reform French rule over Cochinchina. (Milton Osborne. “The Faithful Few: The Politics of Collaboration in Cochinchina in the 1920s.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 160) They did not understand that to achieve independence they had to sever Vietnam from France. (Milton Osborne. “The Faithful Few: The Politics of Collaboration in Cochinchina in the 1920s.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 162) The Constitutionalists mainly lived in Cochinchina. (Milton Osborne. “The Faithful Few: The Politics of Collaboration in Cochinchina in the 1920s.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 163) Many of the Constitutionalists depended on those Vietnamese who made their fortunes allying themselves with the French colonialists. Their fundamental belief was to work within the system though this would not give Vietnam independence. (Milton Osborne. “The Faithful Few: The Politics of Collaboration in Cochinchina in the 1920s.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 163) During World War I the French produced patriotic literature in Vietnamese to rally them to the French cause. However, the Vietnamese did not see the war that way. “Members of a Vietnamese secret society” attacked the Saigon Central prison which “brought [a] swift and terrible French reaction. . . . Fifty-one Vietnamese who had participated in the attack on the prison were executed by firing squad, with the leaders of the attacking group being forced to watch, six at a time, before they, too, were executed.” (Milton Osborne. “The Faithful Few: The Politics of Collaboration in Cochinchina in the 1920s.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 165) The French continued to fear uprisings, which they referred to as “treachery”, for the rest of the colonial period. (Milton Osborne. “The Faithful Few: The Politics of Collaboration in Cochinchina in the 1920s.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 165-166) This justified their “extraordinary slaughter.” Another attack occurred at the Poulo Condore prison in 1918. The French retaliated by killing seventy-five Vietnamese. (Milton Osborne. “The Faithful Few: The Politics of Collaboration in Cochinchina in the 1920s.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 166) This fear of French retaliation whether by firing squad or the guillotine polarized Vietnamese resistance. The French in Cochinchina reveled in the executions, as well. This led either working within the system as the Constitutionalists proposed or becoming a militarized revolutionary. The latter entailed long and painstaking work and eventually became dominated by Communists. (Milton Osborne. “The Faithful Few: The Politics of Collaboration in Cochinchina in the 1920s.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 167) The Constitutionalists failed to see that their programs left them at the mercy of the French; the Vietnamese would always be subservient. (Milton Osborne. “The Faithful Few: The Politics of Collaboration in Cochinchina in the 1920s.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 174) In addition, they did not believe in overall democracy as did the scholar nationalists. Essentially, they were elitists. (Milton Osborne. “The Faithful Few: The Politics of Collaboration in Cochinchina in the 1920s.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 177) It did not aid the Constitutionalists to believe that collaborating with the French was a good thing, justifying French colonization of Vietnam because it overthrew the mandarins.” (Milton Osborne. “The Faithful Few: The Politics of Collaboration in Cochinchina in the 1920s.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 180) The Constitutionalist Party opposed “social revolution and demands for independence.” It supported the French during “uprisings.” This did not win followers. And the party became a “political corpse.” In 1926 the French disallowed the Vietnamese People’s Progressive Party. Thus, reform was out of the question as it had failed. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 174) The tumultuous year of 1930 proved destructive to Constitutionalist cooperation with the French. The Communists led a revolt against the French in Annam, especially, Nghe An. But Cochinchina saw “unprecedented agitation” also. The Constitutionalists feared the communist uprising as well. Although originally upset at the measures taken by the French to suppress the rebellion of 1930 the Constitutionalists toned their complaints down as time went on. (Milton Osborne. “The Faithful Few: The Politics of Collaboration in Cochinchina in the 1920s.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 181) Vietnamese Nationalist Party, Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (VNQDD) Another organization was the Vietnamese Nationalist Party, Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang, known as the VNQDD. Membership was made up of intellectuals. Organized Vietnamese soldiers and collected weapons. “Grew rapidly . . . but its leaders, young and inexperienced, were no match for the French Surete. Its chief was a twenty-three year old teacher named Nguyen Thai Hoc, whose passion and illusions interfered with the need for caution. . . . they ordered a general uprising which all major garrisons with Vietnamese troops were to take part . . . 1930. . . . failure. The garrison of Yen Bay in tonguing succeeded in killing its French officers and in holding out for one day.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 175-176) The French “retaliated.”The rebelling soldiers were executed. Others deported with “life sentences of hard labor. Nguyen Thai Hoc and twelve of his collaborators were beheaded on June 17, 1930.” Only the communists, under Ho Chi Minh, were left to take up the struggle. They unified in 1930. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 176) The revolution started on May 1, 1930 and the French slaughtered them. “Six months later, the peasants of the provinces of Nghe An, Ha Tinh, and Quang Ngai destroyed the local machinery of government and set up their own revolutionary regimes.” Local “soviets” were established. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 179) Historians have called 1930 “the Year of the Red Terror.” The French crushed the revolutionary governments in what became known as the “year of White Terror.” They killed up to 10,000 Vietnamese in cold blood and deported another 50,000. 10,000 political prisoners were held at France’s “infamous concentration camp on Poulo Condore.” The French declared communism destroyed.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 180) These events in France “evoked indignation, shock, and shame.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 180) Moderate French in Vietnam supported Emperor Bao Dai who hope to obtain French support. “On May 3, 1933, he upset the traditional mandarin system of rule, took the reins of government into his own hands.” He was only 18 years old. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 180-181) He made Ngo Dinh Diem Minister of Interior. Diem was also put in charge of a reform commission “which accomplished nothing.” Diem resigned and Bao Dai returned to his playboy activities. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 181) “The French conquest was a great humiliation for a people who had repelled some fifteen invasions from China. (Bain, 2-3) Deeply resenting foreign control, the Vietnamese produced a long series of nationalist leaders and movements that struggled for doc lap - independence. The first nationalist groups tried to fight with traditional methods, but with the failure of these, subsequent leaders turned to Western techniques. Among the nationalists, a clash developed between those who followed the individualistic path of Western liberalism and this who followed communism. In the end, the Communists led by Ho Chi Minh gained ascendancy over the nationalist movement t bu means of a superior organization, the use of deception, and the murder of opposition nationalist leaders.” The latter policies alienated many Vietnamese so that “a second government” was formed. Beginning as anti-Communists “supported by the French” they developed their own nationalist identity. (Bain 3) A school called Lycée Quoc-Hoc was founded by a mandarin named Ngo Dinh Kha. The school became, “the hotbed of Vietnamese resistance to all outside influences.” Ho Chi Minh’s father sent his son to study there. Also to study there was Ngo Dinh Diem, the founder’s son. “It was to blend all that was best in French education with a solid anchoring in Vietnamese culture.” (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 63-64) Also to study there were Vo Nguyen Giap, and Pham Van Dong. (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 64) In the early 1900s, “many Vietnamese (particularly among conservative nationalists) who made the contrary decision of continuing to look toward China for guidance, or even toward the rising Japanese state. Such nationalist leaders as Phan Boi Chau, witnessing the rise of Sun Yat-sen’s Kuomintang, in fact emigrated to China and created the Dong Du [Eastern Voyage] movement which many young Vietnamese followed for over twenty years. A royal prince, Cuong-De, led another small group of nationalists to Japan, some of whom returned to their home country when the Japanese invaded it.” (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 65) The school remained a center for revolutionary and nationalist activity. In 1966, “espousing the cause of Buddhism this time, [they] nearly toppled the South Vietnamese regime of General Ky and, with it, almost shook the whole American effort in Viet-Nam to its very foundations.” (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 64) “Prominent nationalists rallied around him. . . . During the next three years, some two hundred university students went to study in Japan . . . he wrote his second book [1905 in Japan] , the History of the Downfall of Vietnam. He also met Sun Yat-sen” but Sun wanted the Vietnamese to fight for China while Chau wanted to fight the French in Vietnam. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 156) These new “progressive scholars” embraced Western business practices. They gave up traditional scholarly functions to become farmers “growing cinnamon, tea, and and other economic plants for export. . . . Phan Chau Trinh founded a commercial company and owned a cinnamon tree plantation.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 56.) Scholars manufactured “hats, clothes, feather fans, wooden shoes, or bamboo trays.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 56-57.) Most, however, failed. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 57.) Phan Chau Trinh Nationalists demanded changes in Vietnamese behavior as well, similar to the Chinese nationalists overthrowing the Manchus. These included “cutting of long hair and fingernails, the cleaning to teeth, the use of soap, and the wearing of uncomplicated clothing.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 59-60.) Ironically, France’s reputation was tarnished through all this. Japan’s on the other hand rose to “unambiguous admiration.” Japan had learned from the West and had defeated Russian in a war in 1905. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 52.) Consequently, a popular school song of the day said, “Japan, a nation of common culture (with us), Has been the first to hoist the flag of independence; In the inauguration of the modern era, Who can compete with the Emperor of Japan.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 53.) The conquest by France led the “progressive scholars” to decry the “backwardness of the country.” However, conservative scholars were not happy. They continued to look to the past, to venerate past scholars. They “still considered the political doctrine of China’s philosophers as immutable wisdom, in contrast to the shortsighted and mercantile art of Westerners.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 46.) Phan Boi Chau had been frustrated by the lack of training by the French in mechanics, agriculture and commerce. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 41.) He went back to Vietnam in 1905. However, he concluded that a “political revolution” was not needed “and that a reformed monarchy could work the same miracles for Vietnam that the Meiji emperors had worked for Japan. [However, the Meiji emperors, and it was one emperor, was not the power in Japan.] Another even more fateful misconception Chau brought back in his intellectual luggage was the idea that Japan would support Vietnamese national aspirations.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 156) Prince Cuong De was the likely new emperor. In 1906 both Cuong De arrived in Tokyo and Chau began his first political organization. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 156-157) In 1907 Chau and his student followers were expelled from Japan. Some went to Siam and others, including Prince Cuong De, went to Hong Kong. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 157) “In 1908, Chau, together with Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Indian and Philippine revolutionaries, founded an East-Asian League . . . against Western imperialism. . . . Trinh started a reformist movement whose much more radical aim was a democratic republic. . . . dominant republican trend in the national resistance movement.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 157) In 1908 “thousands [of Vietnamese] protested . . . against excessive taxation and against the unpopular corvee.” Later, Vietnamese nationalists attempted to poison French soldiers in Hanoi. After that, Hoang Hoa They attempted to invade from Yen The where the French allowed him to rule and thus keep him out of Tongking. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 70.) The French arrested the scholars and “tried and convicted [them] of advocating the rights of the common people and plotting with the traitor (meaning Phan Boi Chau) for popular rebellion. Phan Boi Chau, then in Japan, was condemned to death in absentia. Phan Chau Trinh, the popular lecturer, was condemned to immediate decapitation but narrowly escaped it through the intervention of a French friend.” Others were guillotined. Others were sent to perform hard labor on the infamous island prison of Poulo Condore. Still others were deported. The Dong Kinh school ceased to exist. (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 71.) After the Chinese Revolution of 1911 which overthrew the monarchy Chau decided to embrace a “democratic republic.” He organized the Association for the Restoration of Vietnam. “Chau even formed a government-in-exile, with Cuong De as president and himself as vice-president and minister of foreign affairs.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 157-158) For twenty years Chau had impact on the Vietnamese revolutionary and independence movement, including organizing the peasants and military actions. Toward the end of World War I there were brief uprisings. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 158) However, Chau was behind the times. There was a need for plans and for action. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 158) “After the war and the Russian Revolution, Chau began to study Marxism. In the early 1920s, the Soviet Union began to organize its anticolonial campaign in the East. A Vietnamese by the name of Ly Thuy (alias Nguyen Ai Quoc, alias Ho Chi Minh), a secretary to a Russian delegation of political and military advisers to the Chinese Revolution stationed in Canton, proposed to Chau and the Vietnamese patriots that they participate in founding a World Federation of of Small and Weak Nations to guide the struggle of these nations against colonialism and imperialism.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 158-159) There were conflicts among the scholar nationalists. Some supported non-violence and a minority supported armed struggle against the French. The pacifists were led by Phan Chau Trinh who wanted to concentrate on education. The revolutionaries, led by Phan Boi Chau, “contended that educational and social modernization were empty unless they first rid the country of the French.” (Vu Duc Bang. “The Dong Minh Free Schools Movement, 1907-1908,” in Aspects of Vietnamese Nationalism. Walter Vella, ed. 73.) Ly Thuy (Ho Chi Minh), “suggested that Phan Boi Chau . . . be sacrificed to the national cause . . . it could stir up the Vietnamese people and arouse world opinion. Chau would undoubtedly be condemned to death, but the French, in order to win sympathy in Vietnam, would probably pardon and release him. . . . One morning in June, 1925, Chau received an invitation to attend the founding meeting of the Vietnamese branch of the World Federation of Small and Weak Nations. As he was about to board a ship for Canton in Shanghai, a group of men jumped him and whisked him off to the French concession in Shanghai. He was shipped to Haiphong and thence to Hanoi. Ho Chi Minh’s intermediary allegedly received 150,000 piasters from the French. Some sources question this version of Chau’s arrest.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 159) “With his capture, conviction, and pardon, Phan Boi Chau’s political career came to an end.” His ideas were now pasee. No longer could the “political elite” lead Vietnam to freedom. Again, it was the peasants who had been ignored. “He [Chau] failed to analyze Vietnamese society, to discuss the conflicting interests of the educated and the illiterate masses, and to formulate concrete proposals.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 159-160) Phan Chau Trinh Phan Chau Trinh did not look to Japan for liberation. “Trinh foresaw that Japanese imperialism aimed at the domination of Asia, and he did not believe in a policy of getting rid of the tiger by letting the panther into the house. Upon his return to Vietnam, Trinh started his own nonviolent movement for a modern and independent Vietnam with a bold open letter to Governor General Beau, dated August, 1906, in which he deplored the abuses and extortions openly practiced by the mandarins under the French regime.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 157) Phan Chau Trinh protested the “brutal treatment of the native population.” The French abused the Vietnamese and held “political prisoners.” Imagine being held by a foreign country as a political prisoner in your own land. Phan Chau Trinh, “asked for more education for his countrymen, for a larger role in the country’s government, for a drastic reduction in taxes, and above all for an economic policy as beneficial to Vietnam as to France. Unless these concessions were granted, he warned, hostility to French rule would continue to grow.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 119) The Vietnamese Emperor Thanh Thai embraced the ideas of Phan Chau Trinh and the French declared him “insane” and “exiled him to Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean. This served to alienate the Vietnamese further. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 119) Japan From 1940 to 1945 the real rulers of Vietnam were the Japanese. The French in Vietnam simply served. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 185) Japanese rule in Vietnam briefly encouraged Vietnamese nationalists. They were under the belief that Japan meant to liberate Asia from the Europeans. However, the Japanese freed captured French forces and allowed them a free hand in destroying “the last guerrilla group, led by an old communist” who was later executed in 1940. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 191) Traditionally referred to as the Japanese interregnum, “the designation implies that colonial administrations . . . suffered no more than a pause in the control they exercised over colonies, a control they quickly recaptured after the war. . . . [However] the French never reestablished sovereign authority over the former possessions in Indochina.” (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 237) Lam concludes that the Japanese accelerated “the end of the old Western dominance over Southeast Asia. (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 237-238) The French cooperated with the Japanese because the official French government at the time, known as Vichy France, was under the control of the occupying Germans in France during World War II. Although French civilians and soldiers administered Japanese occupied Indochina during the war it was the Japanese who controlled policies. (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 239) The Vichy government demanded that the Japanese negotiate with them before making policy decisions about Indochina. The Japanese complied. (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 240) An agreement between France and Japan was signed in Tokyo on August 30, 1940, recognizing “French sovereignty in Indochina and to respect French territorial integrity in that part of the world, in return for which principles France agreed to acknowledge Japan’s preeminence in the Far East.” Nevertheless, the Japanese retained the upper hand in any conflict. (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 241) Although a defeat for the French, the French colonials in Indochina “found themselves in the best of times.” The home country could not tell that what to do. And, as we will see after the war, the colonialists were brutal. As a result the governor general crushed “all Vietnamese attempts at rebellion” and made sure the Indochinese remained under French control. The Japanese did not challenge this. (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 243) “In the early days of their occupation of Indochina, the Japanese were not prepared to support the Vietnamese drive for independence from France. The aftermath of the Langson incident and events in southern Vietnam in 1940 proved the point beyond doubt. Tran Trung Lap, the leader of the Vietnam Restoration League (Viet Nam Phuc Quoc Dong Minh Hoi), and anti-French organization, when he saw Japan’s easy victory in Langson on September 22, 1940, decided to take advantage of the situation and launch his own units against the same battered French garrisons. When the Mikado ordered his troops to cease fire on September 25, the Vietnamese rebellion continued to spread to the entire province of Langson. It was not put down until the end of December, after the French had captured and executed Tran Trung Lap.” (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 243-244) The Japanese did nothing. (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 243-244) There was another uprising in November 1940 in southern Vietnam. “Upon hearing of the Japanese entrance into northern Vietnam and of the threatened Siamese invasion of eastern Cambodia and southern Laos, the Communists staged general insurrection throughout the South, but with particular force in the province of My-tho. The post had been known to the French security service, and when the rebellion actually flared up on November 22, it was easily crushed. The repression was harsh. . . . The Japanese did not intervene on behalf of the Vietnamese.” (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 245) The French made minor changes in colonial administration which allowed more prestige to the Vietnamese. (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 246-247) During the Second World War university students were “heavily indoctrinated.” They could “speak of independence, but only of an independence that allowed for association with France.” (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 248) “With the elite neutralized by a generous policy with the young addicted to athletics and a safe form of nationalism, the colonial administration could concentrate its efforts on crushing those who tried to oppose their administration in any effective way.” (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 249) Interestingly, the Japanese allowed the Filipinos, Burmese and Indonesians some independence. However, in Indochina, the Japanese kept the French in control. (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 250) Ironically, Vietnamese independence activists living in Japan during the war had good relations with the Japanese government. So, “it seems most surprising that Japan appears neither to have expected, nor prepared for, a local pro-Japanese government.” (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 251) It was not surprising that Japan did not aid a Communist led rebellion. There were ideological differences to say the least. And, the Indochinese Communist Party opposed the Japanese invasion of China. The hostility between the two was so strong that Ho Chi Minh in 1939 “advocated that the Indochinese Communist party in effect forgo its ideological exclusivity and form a democratic front with the national bourgeoisie, and even the progressive French, to resist Japanese fascism.” (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 251) Although there were groups in Vietnam who may have cooperated well in the Japanese point of view the Japanese decided to “encourage the least likely elements in Vietnamese politics.” (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 251-252) They supported the Dai Viet Party, Cao Dai, and the Hoa Hao. (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 252-253) The French colonials in Indochina, with their “colonial eggs”, enjoyed a life where the “white man’s superiority was practically sacrosanct.” So, when the Japanese occupied the region in 1940, the colonial eggs exhibited “great courage . . . to collaborate with Asians. Yet, when the mother country collapsed . . . and when Indochina lay helpless before the Mikado’s land and sea forces, the French admirals, generals, civil servants and colonists voluntarily accepted the Japanese occupation: they hoped that by this desperate wager they might save the essential - the presence of the French flag.” And, despite Japan destroying white rule throughout Asia, the “colonial eggs” saw that French sovereignty and “administration continued to function; French citizens were free.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 8) Although the war in Europe went well for the colonials; the Fascists were close to defeat, that did not translate into defeat for the Japanese. The hopes of France soon restored to its full glory in Indochina were dashed when, on March 8, 1945, the Japanese overthrew any semblance of French rule. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 8) “The Japanese, with foreknowledge of their coming defeat, intended, as a final stroke of revenge, to destroy Indochina entirely. And in order to make sure that it should never rise again they loosed the fury of nationalism among the mass of the Annamese population, who in turn set themselves to hunting down the defenseless whites.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 9) “The atomic bomb was the miracle that saved their lives. Indeed, the whites had their moment of exaltation, in which they believed that the Annamese would grow meek and harmless once more. They had not understood that they were going to come up against new and unrelenting forces; for at this time they still had no notion of what nationalism and Communism meant.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 9) However, a much more ferocious Vietnamese and Indochinese nationalism broke out without Japanese assistance! (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 9-10) And then, all of a sudden, the Viet Minh seized Hanoi and established the People’s Republic of Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh “became the Father of the Nation.” The entire nation celebrated. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 10) And the French were not safe. They had to sneak out at night to buy food at outrageous prices and many were arrested at all times of the day or night and hacked to pieces or buried alive by the Vietminh. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 10) Then the British arrived with “their Gurkhas, and they were followed by the French parachute troops.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 11) The British did well. The French “paras” thought the self-centered “colonial eggs” as traitors for their collaboration with the Japanese. They were reluctant to help them as they were attacked by the Vietminh. The Vietminh, according to the point of view of the “paras” were more deserving of aid as they fought the Japanese enemy. That friendship if you will ended quickly and “a few weeks later there they were plunged onto the bloodiest of wars.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 11) General Leclerc “arrived with his armored division, the famous 2nd DB (division blindee), and as his orders required he sent columns out from Saigon for the peaceful reoccupation of the country. But they were attacked. Presently captured French soldiers were found hacked to pieces, and presently Annamese villages went up in flames. For violence answered violence. . . . In a series of destructive thrusts the French retook Cochinchina, Cambodia, Laos, central and southern Annam. But the Red tieudoi (a platoon in the Vietminh army) and all the guerrilla formations continually reappeared, as though they sprang from their own ashes. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 11-12) “Nothing made sense. After a few months Leclerc’s own diagnosis was that it was impossible to reconquer Indochina by force. The uprising of the Asian masses, who were carrying on a people’s war according to the principles of Mao Tse-tung, was something that could no longer be overcome. And to try to do so would mean utter exhaustion in endless warfare.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 12) The Nationalist Chinese entered northern Vietnam to take the surrender of Japanese soldiers and they were not going to allow the colonial French to return to power or, leave the country considering the long time enmity between the Chinese and the Vietnamese. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt did not want French colonialism restored, “and the idea had been that as soon as it was convenient the Communist Ho Chi Minh should be knocked on the head and Tonkin taken over, either directly by the Chinese or indirectly by their friends. Faced with two evils Ho Chi Minh chose the lesser and called in the French to expel the Chinese, who had already squeezed him dry and who were preparing their take-over.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 12) The negotiations with the French failed. “Ho Chi Minh wanted nothing less than a sovereign state, a Red Vietnam based on the dictatorship of the people, whereas the French did not wish to concede independence at all, but at the most the setting up of a humanist, somewhat socialistic state very closely connected with France - an integral part of the French Union.” The French furiously defeated the Vietminh in a battle. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 12) “On December 19, 1946, in Hanoi, the Vietminh failed in an attempted massacre: now in their turn the French tried to bring off a single great decisive blow. They tried a military operation to crush Ho Chi Minh and his guerrillas within a matter of days. It was an operation on the greatest possible scale. And it too was a failure.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 13) “It was supposed to be a triumphantly successful hunt. Ho Chi Minh was to be taken in his hideout on the Chinese frontier, where he had no more than a few thousand fever-stricken and ill armed supporters.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 13) “It very nearly succeeded. In order to put an end to the Vietminh once and for all the French high command had made a prodigious effort: they had gathered all the available shock troops and all the war materiel that could possibly be assembled . . . It was a combined operation, planned according to all the rules of their respective staffs. Parachute troops were to be dropped over Backan, wretched little town that served as Ho Chi Minh’s headquarters and there stood almost in the middle of his jungle vastness, a hilly quadrilateral about one hundred and fifty miles square. And at the same moment two columns were to race forward and make contact with the paras, one column being armor, which was to thrust along the R.C. 4 (route colonial No. 4), and the other a column of boats, which was to go up the Clear River.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 13) This would finish off the Vietminh. However, the boats and the paras were not able to perform what was planned. Bodard, wrote that missing Ho Chi Minh by one hour meant that the war continued.(Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 13) Ho’s disappearance was so complete that French intelligence thought he died. Even his generals did not know where he was at times. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 13-14) This was the beginning of what would become a terrible end for the French. They ignored what Bodard calls the “first great rule of the war in Indochina, the rule which states that every undertaking which is not a total success is fated to become a total disaster.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 14) The French stuck to “their own cars and trucks” and did not engage the Vietminh in hand to hand combat as the original French conquerors did decades before. This would mean failure. The French tried to keep a major road open for their supplies and to keep Chinese weapons out of the hands of the Viet Minh. Nevertheless, “Chinese technicians and Chinese arms and ammunition passed freely across it, to supply Ho Chi Minh’s growing forces, which eventually amounted to ten solid regiments, based on a complex of military schools, workshops, supply dumps, printing presses, and arms factories - all made of bamboo, all easily moveable. From the air, this jungle seemed deserted; in fact, it seethed with activity.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 14) In 1948 the French decided on a policy of “the new idea was pacification.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 14) “They were unable to to bring the Vietminh to a pitched battle and destroy them. Henceforward the great idea was to leave Ho Chi Minh in his patch of jungle and to win all the rest away from him.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 14) In this war, according to Bodard, “weapons were only of secondary importance. To work upon the people and to win them over the French brought everything they possessed into play; and the Vietminh did the same. The two juxtaposed, intertwined civilizations were at grips with one another in total warfare. At their disposal the French had everything that showed on the surface, the whole of the established society founded upon law. The Vietminh, on the other hand, were just underneath everywhere, present in everything that was hidden. Two sides appealed to two opposing instincts in mankind, the French holding out a normal life, with prosperity and the benefits of the West, and the Vietminh offering pride and revolt. The one side favored the wealthy and those who owned property; the other side the poor. . . . both . . . made use of terrorism. Between the two huge machines the private individual was crushed.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 15) The French fought the Communists in Indochina and “the Red concept of the world.” Ho Chi Minh had total devotion from his supporters. “For them Uncle Ho was above all the Patriot, the Hero who was expelling the French. As for themselves they were not quite sure whether they were Communists or not. They avoided asking themselves, preferring to say that they were “Socialists,” just as Ho Chi Minh must be. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 15) “Nguyen Binh, whom Ho Chi Minh had sent south in 1945 to build the Resistance in Cochinchina, was not a Communist.” Although trained in Moscow and operating in China he would set up, “in the Plain of Reeds, near Saigon, he eventually created a formidable headquarters, complete with camps, depots, workshops, schools, presses, and even a radio station; and his trade routes reached through the jungle as far as Siam. Cruel, indefatigable, pitiless, authoritarian, he was nevertheless generous romantic idealist, and, to the people of the south, he became a hero, almost a saint.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 15-16) They were not a fully operating army but groups of guerrilla fighters. They had “intelligence networks that branched out in never-ending complexity. In order to kill the French they lived parasitically upon them, right next to them. . . . The French, thanks to their money, were able to recruit informers, partisans, and Vietnamese soldiers.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 16) “In order to deal with so many enemies, therefore, the Vietminh made a systematic use of trickery and cruelty. In this war, as in all wars in which a Resistance is concerned, there was a kind of fascination with death. . . . Assassination was the answer that remained.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 16) Although there were bloodthirsty Viet Minh there were communists who killed out of perceived necessity although “the Party preferred to set about the reeducation of the guilty men.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 16) “They exploded bombs in the midst of Asian crowds, in the markets and in the cinemas. They paid boys to throw grenades that they made themselves in their workshops: these home-produced bombs, as they were called, did little damage. But sometimes, when they wanted a particularly striking effect, they use really dangerous grenades bought in Bangkok or Singapore, and then a whole dense mass of the cold would be mowed down. One of these bombs slaughtered sixty children in a single school.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 16) “The night belonged to the Vietminh. But at dawn the French patrols came out. What quantities of corpses they found. How often a detachment on reaching a village that had put itself under the unit’s protection, would find ranks of heads neatly lined up in the central square. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 16-17) Some bodies bore warning notices, but there were others, quite unknown, who floated along the irrigation ditches, swollen like bladders, the skin a tightly stretched parchment. . . . Among the bodies, women, old people, children: usually tortured and burned.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 17) The French did not find Vietminh dead from their battles. The Vietminh returned to their bases with their wounded and dead. The French had to guess as to Vietminh casualties. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 17) The war was profitable for both the French and the Vietminh. “Like mushrooms, little straw huts would spring up around it, belonging to concubines, snack sellers, bistro keepers, informers, interpreters, boys and bees (cooks). Even the neighboring Vietminh would take time from ambushes and murders to go marketing next to the enclosure.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 17) Bodard describes “martyrs to pride.” A Colonel would not allow his forces to be deterred by the overwhelming forces of the Vietminh. Recent graduates of St. Cyr, the French military academy, died for pride and this did nothing to advance the French militarily in Indochina. These young officers proclaimed that they and their soldiers had “contempt of death.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 18) The French officers romanticized the war instead of fighting it. Bodard noticed that in later years those officers who survived became political and economic leaders of France promoted the idealized view of the French army. As such, they would continue to war and “go on to new tragedies, even greater humiliations, and they would end up being lost soldiers.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 18-19) Both sides practiced cruelty. “The Expeditionary Force’s Asian partisans, continually threatened with a hideous death, killed the Viethminh with the most sophisticated torments - unless of course they came to an understanding with them. Often it happened that even the French were caught up in this intoxication of torturer and death.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 19) “The Viets knowingly urged the French to commit excess, for they were well aware that as far as torture was concerned they were far beyond the French, both in efficiency and skill. For them torture as a form of warfare finally became a technique that allowed them to gain an ascendancy over the people and to win.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 20) Most of Indochina is “uninhabited jungle. . . . each side fought in the twilight, without seeing the other; handfuls of men, lost in the enormous landscape, tried to creep up on one another through the darkness and the leaves, to kill at point-blank range. But it was not only the French and the Vietminh who hunted one another down. They had also drawn the little western kingdoms of Indochina, with their scores of different races, into butchery. The jungle turned into a chaos of hatred in which men varying in civilization from the Stone Age to the utmost refinement of Buddhism wiped one another out. All the primitive enmities between clans and tribes were exploited, and between the imperialists and the Communists they exploded spontaneously.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 20) “. . . Wars dating from every century were all going on at the same time: the weapons ranged from blowpipes, spears and spells to machine guns and mortars.” There were fights for salt and opium which both the Vietminh and French wanted. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 20) Cambodia and Laos sided with the French but another Cambodian leader sided with the Vietminh. In Laos the royal family split its allegiances. “Even the savages were drawn into the battle” taking one side or the other. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 21) “But even among the most backward little tribes the conflict was primarily ideological. . . . Throughout all this vast stretch of country the French were in contact with the petty rulers: everywhere they explained to the natives that the Vietnamese were the enemy, the Vietnamese and the Vietminh.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 21) “For in fact the jungle was not impenetrable at all. It was crisscrossed by secret tracks. Ho Chi Minh’s column and his agents traveled along them through the limitless mountains and forests, marching as though time did not exist.” Political commissars established bases from which the communists developed popular support. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 23) All French military positions could be seen by the Vietminh. However, the latter could not be seen by the French. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 23) The French promised to free the “savages” from the Vietnamese but the Vietnamese promised to free them from the French. While the French meant with the different people’s rulers the Vietminh built a resistance among the population. “Ho Chi Minh’s agents worked at the level of the common people, saying to the wretched jungle dwellers whom they found undermined with fever, superstition, and undernourishment, “You do not even know it, but you are the People. All rights belong to you. . . . And then, when the forest tribes were sufficiently infected and won over, the Viets began the war of the jungle trails against the French. It had its own rules, laws far more rigid and merciless than those of the war in the rice fields.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 23) The Vietminh positioned themselves to attack their enemies flanks and, only at the last second. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 24) “It was a ghastly kind of hide-and-seek played by blind men in a dark room-the forest. . . . victory lay in . . . finding the one path that the human quarry would take through the maze of jungle tracks.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 24) One French soldier stated , “In the first place you have to understand that the jungle is neutral. It doesn’t help anyone. It is always the strongest who wins. Any man who is wounded is done for. You can’t pick him up and carry him. Almost every time you have to leave him behind. . . . You can starve to death out there., with flowers all around you. You can die of thirst in spite of the enormous monsoon rains, because the water just goes straight down the cracks in the limestone. Everything rots, and your flesh rots first of all. You get fevers, and horrible great boils, and the least little scratch sets up an inflammation that can’t be cured. . . . You can’t stop because the enemy is following you and you are following him. you have to go faster than him and get on to his track so that he won’t get on to yours.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 25) “As an enemy the Viet is really tough: he can run all night. . . . His fire discipline is terrific.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 25) “In the forest, then, there was an infinitely complex struggle. The Vietminh had their successes and their failures, but they were making ground, even if it was only at a walking pace and at the speed of dialectic reasoning - two kinds of slowness. It was antlike labor, and its aim was the setting up of the Red political system. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 28) Catholics The French arrival in Indochina in the late seventeenth century caused conflict with the elites. Ostensibly, merchants, they were actually missionaries. The Vietnamese leaders considered the French a part of “worldly conquest” using Catholicism as its tool. Therefore, those Vietnamese who converted to Catholicism were despised. “The early converts came from among the poor and downtrodden.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 65) The Vietnamese emperors jailed Vietnamese Catholics and deported the French missionaries. Some were killed. However, the Catholics “were never in danger of extinction.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 65-66) In the eighteenth century it became clear that the French conquest of Vietnam was not initiated by the French government or people but by private individuals serving their own interests. “The story of French intervention in Indochina is largely the story of the efforts of individuals to engage the power, wealth and prestige of their country to promote their private schemes. The missionaries sided with the vocal advocates of intervention.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 65-66) “The Catholic militias that had fought the Vietminh had disbanded and joined the exodus to the South.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 416) Civilian Catholics fled communism. “These refugees included not only collaborators and profiteers but also officials, professors, and students, journalists and artists who had voiced anti-Communist sentiments, businessmen who had the wisdom to foresee their eventual expropriation, and the many dependents of National Army personnel. Yet many members of the native middle class-shopkeepers, small merchants, lawyers, doctors, and other professionals-stayed rather than give up their established lives.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 416) Also, after the Geneva Conference, “900,000 persons came to the South must be regarded as genuine political refugees.” Most were Catholics. “The Communists have claimed that going to the South was not a personal decision for many of the Catholics, that they left under pressure of the community and as a group. The priests were accused of having spread the word that God had gone South, that those who remained in the North would risk losing their souls and probably their lives, since the North would be destroyed by American bombs. . . . The regime was thus rid of a great many implacable enemies.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 420) In 1784, French bishop Pigneau de Behaine took to France “four-year-old Prince Canh, who became the darling of Versailles.” The French promised to support the young prince in his family’s cvil war against the Tay Son but later found that would be difficult. Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 43) Monsignor Pigneau returned to Viet Nam and directed a victorious battle against the Tay Son. He and Prince Canh die shortly thereafter and Nguyen Anh defeated the Tay Son. He later became Gia Long. (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 43) Gia Long continued to use French military engineering expertise with new designs of citadels. He died in 1820. (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 44) “Gia-Long’s successors, however, did not match their ancestor in realism and intelligence. Rather than face up to the realities of growing European intervention as Siam and Japan were reluctantly doing, they attempted to retreat into isolationism and began to expel Western merchants and to persecute Christian missionaries and converts.” Approximately 130,000 Catholics were murdered from 1827 to 1856. (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 44) French soldiers landed at Danang in 1856 and then “secured the surrounding Mekong Delta in the following decade.” (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 45) “Since the late fifteenth center, Viet-Nam had elected its local governments and this had proved an effective shield against the imperial government’s highhandedness. The Emperor’s writ stops at the bamboo hedge [of the village] is an old Vietnamese saying. The driving French colonials began to tamper with those hallowed institutions, thus breaking one of the most important links in Vietnamese society.” (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 45) The French “established a university in Hanoi as early as 1904; vast irrigations systems eliminated the disastrous floods or droughts which had beset Viet-Nam’s agriculture and transformed the country into one of the world’s food baskets; and epidemics were completely wiped out by a network of Pasteur Institutes. (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 45-46) “But the French failed to provide the Vietnamese with a real say in the political development of their country, allowed too few of them to obtain an advanced education and too few of them to rise high in the administrative hierarchy of their own country. French-type cities gave the country a veneer of Westernization beneath which a small but vigorous intellectual class grew increasingly impatient with the colonial framework.” (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 46) Secret societies grew however only the Communist became an effective clandestine political party. The Indochina Communist Party was created by Ho Chi Minh. Those who could not handle the conflict between the colonials and nationalism went into “exile or an escape into meditation and religion. Super naturalism grew especially in the 1920s with the development of Cao Dai. (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 46) The Japanese conquest of Indochina during World War II created the opportunity for the Vietnamese “to shake off the French yoke.” Following the defeat of Japan the Viet Minh were the only organization capable of creating a government. The Viet Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh, contained communists and non-communists. He declared an independent government, the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam, on September 2, 1945. However, the French wanted to reclaim their colony. In addition, “divisions among the Vietnamese Nationalists made a conflict almost unavoidable.” (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 46) Negotiations failed as “moderates were swept aside by the extremists in both camps.” The Viet Minh controlled the countryside and “French and the Vietnamese under their control, held all the cities and towns. . . . The French lashed out in ineffectual search-and-destroy operations, but the Viet-Minh, following Marshal Tran Hung Dao’s doctrine, refused to be drawn into a major battle.” (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 47) “All Europeans were regarded as thieves who would stop at nothing, including murder, to gain their objectives. To cheat them was not considered dishonorable.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 68) Emperor Gia Long “did not trust any European power.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 73) “An imperial edict of 1825 charged the “perverse religion of the European” with “corrupting the hearts of men.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 73) “The French missionaries who came to Asia after 1820 were generally politically aggressive and confident that their countrymen at home admired and supported their efforts. And indeed, Minh Mang’s persecution of the missionaries aroused French Catholic opinion more than any other event outside of France. After 1840, Catholic propaganda openly demanded French intervention on behalf of the missionaries. . . . [French] naval officers “to afford protection to French missionaries threatened with personal violence, if that could be done without involving the French flag . . .” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 78) The French attacked Tourane killing “hundred times more lives than all the Vietnamese governments in two centuries of missionary persecution.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 79, 80) “Vietnamese Catholics had been implicated in the South’s uprising against Minh Mang . . .” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 80) Nevertheless, a Vietnamese priest traveled to France and met with their emperor, Napoleon. He told the French that “the Vietnamese people would greet the French as “liberators and benefactors,” and it would not take long “to make them all Catholics and devoted to France..” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 83) In 1857 the French invaded Vietnam landing at Tourane. The French were not welcomed by the French. “The Vietnamese people simply vanished, and the French found themselves without the indigenous labor force with whose help they had hoped . . .” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 84) The navy admiral in charge was furious with the French Catholics for misleading him and the French government. The French land forces headed for Saigon to take the rice stores. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 84) Tu Duc slaughtered thousands of Vietnamese Catholics. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 89) “Tu Duc ruled over his unfortunate country from 1847 to 1883. The first year of his rule also was the year of the first French attack on Tourane. When Tu Duc dies, the northern and central parts of his country were about to become the two French protectorates of Tongking and Annam. The South, which the French had already wrested from Vietnam, had become the French colony of Cochinchina. “Vietnam’s nine hundred years of independence had come to an end.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 74) The influence of the mandarins over the peasants had come to an end. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 148) Emperor Ham Nghi - Put on the throne at age twelve. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 148) In 1885, manipulators behind the throne put Ham Nghi “at the head of an insurrection that for months reduced French control of Annam to a few strongpoints and left in its wake a trail of blood and fire. . . . failure . . . Ham Nghi . . . captured.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 148) The uprising occurring in his name “reached the proportions of a truly national war of liberation. . . . No longer was the rebellion led only by court mandarins, but also by private scholars who had never held office, and it was largely due to the scholars’ moral authority that the peasants responded . . . And it was they who continued the struggle after more and more hurt mandarins made dishonest peace agreements with the colonial regime.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 149) “The young ruler fell into French hands through treachery. . . . [he] was deported to Algeria. Everyone of his captured followers was executed.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 149) Survivors went underground to continue the resistance to the French. (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 63) By 1885 the rebellion ended. The movement was destroyed. Vietnamese Catholics cooperated with the French after they had been slaughtered by the rebels. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 150) “But the end of 1888, when Ham Nghi was caught and the exhausted survivors of the uprising who fought in his name were slowly wiped out, was not the end of resistance to French rule in Annam. The murder of the man who had betrayed Ham Nghi was the signal for another attempt to regain independence. This time the movement was led chiefly by scholars who had refused to serve or broken with the mandarin regime.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 150) Another rebellion in 1893 led by Dr. Phan Dinh Phung who had “his headquarters on the mountain Vu Quang, a strategic spot that dominated the French-held fortress of Ha Tinh and the narrow foot paths and poor roads connecting North Annam with Laos and Siam.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 150) “For many months the French, whose outposts were constantly attacked by Phung’s small army of 3,000 were clearly on the defensive, unable effectively to control most provinces of North Annam or to protect collaborating mandarins and Catholics. It took the French almost two years of pursuit and terror to break the resistance. . . . His followers surrendered on a promise of pardon, but all except his wife and son were beheaded.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 150-151) “De Tham . . . was a former pirate who became an outstanding nationalist leader after 1883. With his strong army he fortified the province of Yen Tre and invaded the provinces of Bac Giang, Thai Nguyen, and Hung Hao. Despite his treaty with the French he did not become a collaborator. . . . His army was smashed and . . . the French did not get his head . . . until 1913.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 152) Rebels in the delta areas “enjoyed widespread support.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 152) Nevertheless, the rebellion, was defeated in 1892. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 153) “The number of lives lost between 1858 and 1896, in the first phase of national resistance against French rule, makes this one of the saddest periods in Vietnamese history. . . . The sacrifices had been in vain. Not only was nothing won but nothing was learned, either by the victors or the vanquished.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 153) The French did not understand why the Vietnamese fought them. And they did not understand Vietnamese aspirations. Some “warned of new and still more violent conflicts, but these warnings were ignored by the policy-makers and ridiculed in colonial society.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 153) 1900 saw new leaders in Vietnamese resistance to the French. The mandarins “fled to China” where they contemplated what went wrong with their leadership. Confucianism did not hold the answers for defeating the French. “Japanese imperialism was making it first onslaught.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 154) These new Vietnamese revolutionaries did not however think beyond having a new emperor and coming to terms with the French. This did not help the peasants. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 154) The interests of the new Vietnamese leaders had little to do with those of the peasants and this would lead to defeat. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 154-155) Rubber Plantations Rubber production took off in Vietnam in 1907. They were mostly owned by French colonists. The French government subsidized the rubber industry in Vietnam. By 1925 the industry became self sufficient. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 165-166) A destructive consequence of the rubber plantations was the use of “coolie” labor. Most peasants did not want to work on the plantations because life expectancy was short. So, forced labor, “corvee” was used. “Working for the French was a fate to be avoided at all costs. Plantation workers were recruited bu brutalized Vietnamese special agents-cai-who use the vilest methods in rounding up needed workers. . . . disease was rampant, and the death rate was four times the normal rate.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 166) “The guiding principle of French economic policy in Indochina had always been to put immediate profits before long-term economic considerations.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 167) The rubber plantation owners enjoyed great wealth in the 1930s. The communists also grew in the 1930s and won support because they argued what the people knew from experience to be true. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 166-167) Cochinchina Colonial rulers aggressively conquered what became known as Cochinchina. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 92) “In Cochinchina, circumstances had forced the French to set up their own rule. Vietnamese noncooperation, the direct result of the methods the French applied in establishing themselves, led to a war that lasted almost two years, which was followed by years of brutal repression, a response to the guerrilla resistance that began after the defeat of the Vietnamese armies.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 103) “The first governor of Cochinchina, Admiral Bonard . . .was eager not only to come to terms with the emperor of Vietnam, but also to gain the cooperation of the mandarins who . . . had been in charge. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 103-104) The emperor agreed but the mandarins resisted. “They simply disappeared, taking with them or destroying indispensable records, and proclaiming . . . that collaboration with the French was a betrayal of the national cause.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 104) Frenchmen replaced the mandarins. Cochinchina was administered as a military colony. Finally, even the mandarin resistance ended. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 104-105) The French created new classes. One, landowners and other landless peasants. The landowners were a result of French colonial policy. They had no real power other than over the peasants. In royal times the peasants had ownership of the land that was recognized by the emperors. The French converted this to private land ownership leaving the peasants out. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 162-163) The French “ignored custom in favor of the theory that they, as heirs of imperial power in Cochinchina, had the right to dispose of all untenanted and uncultivated land.” The lands were given to “colons, and collaborating, rich Vietnamese. A new relationship developed for the Vietnamese peasant and the land. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 163) “Between 1880 and 1930, the rice-land surface in Cochinchina quadrupled, but the average holding of a peasant was smaller in 1930 than before the coming of the French. And although considerably more rice was grown than ever before, the peasants’ share continued to decline.” The French exporters rice to China and Japan and made an enormous amount of money. The Vietnamese had never exported rice and stored surpluses.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 163) The peasants thusly starved. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 164) Cochinchina had a “special economic and political status.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 107) Merchants, soldiers and well to do Vietnamese dominated the politics and economics of Cochinchina. There were rice exporters and land speculators. There were also political appointees who had no other place to go. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 108) Chochinchina “The Mekong irrigated Vietnam’s richest lands and millions of acres still waiting to be opened up for production that could make Vietnam of the biggest rice exporters.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 109) In order to placate the French and disarm the argument that the Vietminh were just a bunch of communists, the Committee for the South in Cochinchina “gave important functions to official Catholics, Buddhists, independents, and dissident sect leaders who claimed to represent substantial Hoa Hao and Cao Dai groups.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 296) Tongking In 1883 the French began a twelve year “pacification” military campaign that entailed the slaughter of Vietnamese. The Vietnamese surrendered and “signed the Treaty of Protectorate which put an end to the independence of Vietnam.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 98) “At the time this treaty was signed, no one could have foreseen how long French rule would last nor where it would lead. But one thing was certain: neither the people nor the mandarins welcomed their new master or accepted his presence. In announcing the death of Tu Duc, the imperial court expressed Vietnam’s will to regain independence. Tu Duc, the proclamation said, “was killed by sorrow over seeing foreigners invade and devastate his empire, and he died cursing the invader. Keep him in your hearts and avenge his memory.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 98) Getting out of Vietnam would prove to be essential to France as holding onto the country sowed political division and was militarily costly. “France, ever since Vietnam was finally conquered in 1883, to pay so heavy a price for it in blood, money, and political dissension? (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 101) Vietnam becomes France’s richest colony under Paul Doumer who became Governor General in 1896. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 102) Previously Vietnam had been in constant flux under the French. The Vietnamese did not accept French rule and the French exploited the country. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 103) In Tonking the French destroyed Vietnamese resistance and came to an accommodation with the mandarins. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 106) ANNAM The last area for the French to conquer was Annam. The French dissolved the emperor’s cabinet and replaced it with a Vietnamese and French membership cabinet. “the French took over the collection all taxes [in 1897]. The emperor was granted a handsome allowance and the mandarins became French employees.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 107) After the war and under Diem, the French remained the controlling power in South Vietnam and still maintained their economic interests. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 395)

The problem as DeGaulle saw it was the indecision on the part of the French government in Paris. DeGaulle looked at the decline of the European powers’ control over their empires as an opportunity for the United States. They would need the support of the people they ruled to continue ruling them. (DeGaulle, Charles: Memoirs of Hope: Renewal and Endeavor. Trans. Terence Kilmartin. 11) However, the decline of the European imperial powers led to the revolutionary and independence movements of Arica and Asia. There was, “the dissemination of doctrines which, whether liberal or socialist, equally demanded the emancipation of races and of individuals; and the wave of envious longing aroused among theses deprived masses by the spectacle of the modern economy . . . It was clear that the distant domination on which the empires were founded had had its day. But might it not be possible to transform the old dependent relationships into preferential links of political, economic and cultural co-operation?” (DeGaulle, Charles: Memoirs of Hope: Renewal and Endeavor. Trans. Terence Kilmartin. 11-12) In January 1944 the Free French met in Brazzaville, the capitol of then French Equatorial Africa. The World War had yet to end. The Allies had yet to invade France. However, the Free French, under the leadership of Charles DeGaulle, planned the future of their declining empire. At some point DeGaulle sent Leclerc to “Indochina with considerable forces” to occupy only southern Vietnam and leave northern Vietnam to Ho Chi Minh’s forces. Sainteny would negotiate with the Viet Minh. (DeGaulle, Charles: Memoirs of Hope: Renewal and Endeavor. Trans. Terence Kilmartin. 12) “Although I did not delude myself that a community based on a free and contractual association could replace our empire overnight without clashes and difficulties, I nevertheless considered this great undertaking possible. But it would have to be carried out with determination an d continuity, by a government which appeared to the peoples concerned to be really representative of that generous and vigorous France which seemed to have emerged at the time of the Liberation.” (DeGaulle, Charles: Memoirs of Hope: Renewal and Endeavor. Trans. Terence Kilmartin. 12) DeGaulle had no interest in war as he left office “the use of force had been allowed to prevail. . . . the final result was a grave military reverse followed by an inevitable but humiliating settlement.”(DeGaulle, Charles: Memoirs of Hope: Renewal and Endeavor. Trans. Terence Kilmartin. 13) Vietnamese negotiations with the French began in 1946 but ended in failure. “There, in the Viet Bac, the revolutionaries lived primitively, changing their headquarters frequently to escape capture.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 294) Half of Vietnam was under Vietminh control and they controlled more at night. They began attacks on the French in 1950. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 317) The Vietminh had pockets of troops in various places in Vietnam which the French were unable to eliminate. This “was mainly responsible for France’s losing the war. Whenever the French, after long preparation, moved against their elusive foe, he disappeared, and the French found that they had conquered empty marshes, jungles, and mountains. The guerrillas meanwhile, having dispersed, would reassemble at another base some distance away and repeat their maneuver. Sooner or later the pursuing French, far away from their own bases, out of supplies and ammunition, were left no choice but to return to their base, usually followed closely and harasses by the reappearing guerrillas. It would have been pointless for the French to occupy permanently sites which they had won, for wherever they did so, it meant that a contingent of their army was pinned down in a hard-to-supply, isolated outpost, doomed to inaction, and in control of only a small surrounding area.” This is just what the Vietminh wanted. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 319) “Guerrilla control of territories in the south, center, and delta region, which nailed down increasing numbers of French troops, rather than political acumen was the reason that de Lattre, Salan, and Navarre, the generals commanding the Expeditionary Corps between 1950 and 1954, insisted on the creation of a Vietnamese national army. Only if a Vietnamese army could free their troops from the task of defending and pacifying French-held territories would they be able to dispose of the manpower necessary for invading Vietminh-held territory, destroying Giap’s army, and thus end the war.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 320) Unfortunately, the French depended on the roads which did not lead to Viet Bac. They were stuck in “narrow, densely wooded passes and jungles” surrounded by a nearby, “invisible enemy.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 321) When the French arrived in Viet Bac it was deserted.” (Vietnam: a political history. 320) The French gained nothing. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 321) The French foot soldiers knew they could not win the war but the generals and the politicians were in denial. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 321-322) The French decided on a pacification program. Part of that strategy required them to surround the Vietminh at Viet Bac and “cut them off” from the rest of the country. The French would then “pacify” the rest of the country. However, the French Army was not large enough to occupy and “pacify” in static defensive bases in Vietnam. In fact, their forces were already spread thin. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 322) They were unsuccessful. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 323) 1949 saw ferocious fighting between the two sides. The Vietminh gained more territory in the Red River Delta in the Hanoi and Haiphong area. This continued into 1953. Ironically, the French military began to acknowledge the importance of diplomacy in the conflict. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 323) The Vietminh gained much needed military equipment from now Communist China. Giap launched an attack in May 1950 on an outpost where the French although outnumbered were able to maintain the base. The Vietminh wanted to remove the French from the Vietnamese-Chinese border. In one battle the Vietminh used six battalions to crush the French. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 324) Suffering light casualties the Vietminh forced the French out of the Red River Delta leaving being a “vast amount of equipment” and losing 6,000 soldiers. This was the “greatest military defeat in France’s colonial history.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 324-325) The guerrilla war grew in size as larger units engaged each other. In addition, the Vietminh and French fought throughout the country not just the North. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 325) Although winning on the battlefield, in the early part of the French War the French surprisingly offered to negotiate by sending Viet Nam scholar Paul Mus to Hanoi. He supported Vietnamese independence and had been in the paratroop corps in Indochina. The French Army demanded, in the negotiations, that all foreigners serving with the Viet Minh be surrendered to the French. “There were indeed then with the Viet-Minh a bevy of Japanese officers afraid of Allied war crimes courts and even a sprinkling of Germans from the Nazi missions in China, as well as some Foreign Legionnaires of various nationalities.” They trained the Vietnamese in the use of the many types of weapons the Viet Minh were able to obtain. (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 87-88) This was one of their weaknesses and the French knew it. (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 88) Paul Mus argued unsuccessfully that Ho Chi Minh would never betray people who sought refuge with him. But the French insisted “or the war would go on until victory.” Nevertheless, according to Mus Ho was hopeful as indicated by champagne and glasses being cooled nearby. The famous discussion followed, “Monsieur le professor, you know us very well. If I were to accept this, I would be a coward. The French Union is an assemblage of free men, and there could be no place in it for cowards.” So spoke Ho Chi Minh. (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 88) During both wars there formed, Hanoiologists, people who predicted this or that, and made statements to be taken as fact which were usually totally inaccurate. (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 88-89) Significant military and political actions during the Vietnam War occurred in Laos. One aspect in the early Indochinese effort to establish independent nations occurred in Laos. One of the royal princes met with Ho Chi Minh obtaining support for Laotian independence. However, by the spring of 1946 the French “occupied all the major towns” in Laos. As a result the Laotian government fled to Bangkok where they organized a resistance to the French. (Roger Hilsman, To Move A Nation. 98) However, the Laotian government began to split with some siding with Prince Souvanna Phouma negotiating a peace with the French. Others sided with Prince Souphanouvong who formed the Communist dominated Pathet Lao, a guerrilla organization with very close ties to the Viet Minh. (Roger Hilsman, To Move A Nation. 98) The Vietminh knew the war would last for many years as they could not defeat the French in open combat. By 1950 the Vietminh had a very well trained and equipped army. The French did not know this and made their first mistake in October 1950. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 316) By 1950 the Vietminh used “a modified version of the laws of revolutionary warfare laid down by Mao Tse-tung . . . three stages. . . . Truong Chinh . . . the then chief theoretician of Vietnamese Communism. . . . held the Vietminh will be weak and the enemy strong. The Vietminh therefore will be on the defensive and the enemy take the offensive. In this first phase, the Vietminh had to preserve its forces, withdraw into safe territory, and be content with harassing enemy convoys and bases. In the second phase, that of the “equilibrium of forces and of active resistance,” the enemy will no longer be able to make headway, but the Vietminh will not yet be able to regain lost territory. The military task during this period consists of engaging, tying down, and, if possible, exterminating enemy units through guerrillas and regional troops, and of sabotaging the enemy’s economic activities. This second phase promises to be the longest of the three. It will end when the Vietminh has built up strength to open its own counteroffensive, beginning with a war of maneuver, passing through a war of large movement, into a war of large movement, into a war of position, and ending with the victory of the Vietminh.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 325-326) General Giap believed he was ready to attack near Hanoi in early 1951. His forces were mauled by the French. In March Giap attacked again in the Haiphong area. Again, the French defeated the Vietminh. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 326) General Giap attacked the French in the delta for a third time. However, this was a Catholic region and the Vietminh lacked their requisite “popular support.” In addition, the French Navy attacked the Vietminh’s lines of supply and “used napalm bombs on an enemy who for the first time had left the protection of the jungles.” The Vietminh lost again. The war was at a stalemate. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 327) The French overhauled their command. They made General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny both civilian and military commander of Indochina. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 327-328) De Lattre was able to thwart” Giap’s attempts to expel the French from Hanoi and the delta.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 328) Unfortunately, he was unable to enact long term policies which would help the French defeat the Vietminh. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 329) Buttinger suggests that the French needed to cut Chinese aid to the Vietminh. However, that “could not even be considered.” The French would have to change tactics. They would have to go on the offensive, receive military aid from the United States and, the creation of a native army. In this way the French could create the so-called “de Lattre Line.” However, “the United States was still involved in Korea.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 329) De Lattre went ahead anyway and his defensive line proved futile. The Vietminh were able to infiltrate nevertheless. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 329-330) Although he wanted more mobile forces de Lattre’s soldiers were static and therefor unable to attack the Vietminh who, therefore, increased in strength. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 330) “The Vietminh had an advantage over the French in all respects except in the number of regular troops and amount of heavy equipment.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 330) “The great disadvantage of the French, loudly deplored by de Lattre in 1951, Salan in 1952, and Navarre in 1953, was that with an organized, well-equipped fighting force almost twice the size of Giap’s regular army, fewer troops were available to them for offensive action than to the Vietminh.” The overwhelming amount of French troops were “tied down in static defense.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 330) The French introduced conscription for the Vietnamese. “To avoid conscription, many young men in the South joined the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao militias. Those who enlisted during 1951 were poorly trained and equipped, but the major deficiency then and for a long time to come was the lack of qualified officers. The best elements of the educated middle class had no desire to fight in an army still under over-all French direction for a regime they despised and against people, who even if Communist-led, were fighting for national independence. . . . the Vietnamese National Army never became much of a fighting force. It remained indifferently trained, poorly led, and unmotivated.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 331) The French did not believe that the Vietnamese could be good soldiers. They, of course, ignored the abilities of the Vietminh. There were also Vietnamese in the French Expeditionary Corps who fought well but again, this was ignored by the French command. However, since the French created and controlled Vietnamese army did not fight for independence its utility was useless. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 331) During the war against the French the Vietminh were not interested in spreading communist ideas as they were on, “national liberation and a progressive, democratic state. To say that the Vietminh leaders, being Communists, merely pursued their Party’s aims is politically misleading, for it implies that their nationalism was fraudulent. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 332) Unless one understands this point one cannot possibly understand how the Vietminh could become the vehicle through which the Vietnamese Communists achieved their victories. . . . The truth is that being Communists did not prevent the Vietminh leaders from being authentic nationalists, as extreme and determined as any the anticolonial movement had produced. In fact, the Vietnamese Communists could become effective only by being nationalists first and Communists second.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 332-333) The Vietminh tackled the issues that mattered to Vietnamese in the post-World War II period. Two of these were starvation and availability of medicines. Furthermore, the Vietminh initially had no transportation. “Their soldiers had no shoes, their children no clothing, they had no soap with which to wash the one garment they owned” and they ate a meager diet. In the first four years of the French war the Vietnamese received no outside aid. The peasants were pushed. Rents were lowered and no land confiscated. Although yields were high at times there was not enough food. Most of “the rich food producing areas were largely in French hands” so that any food harvested had to be carried to those who needed it. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 333-334) Also, the Vietminh did not have access to the country’s industrial production. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 334) “Priority was of course given to arms production, and, significantly, to paper. The Vietminh regraded its papers and other propaganda materials as essential to victory as guns. Lack of machinery limited industrial production largely to goods that could be produced with the available handicraft skills and equipment. Thanks to the French policy of preventing industrialization and of keeping the peasants too poor to buy imported goods, these skills had survived. Small establishments turned out textiles, soap, paper, sugar, metal, and simple agricultural implements. Some vitally important articles, such as mechanical pumps, were made from the motors of captured vehicles. The French air force had difficulty knocking out the many production sites, few of which could be rightly be labeled factories. They were well hidden in dense jungles, and many operated either underground or in caves.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 334) The military acumen of the Vietminh astounded the French: their ability to disperse, reorganize, hide and camouflage. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 335) The Vietnamese were able to mine minerals and “all mines were nationalized. There was a complicated method of exporting the minerals and rice, and importing needed weapons, medicines, radios and machinery which was “mostly US Army surplus.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 334-335) The Vietminh combated the long hated illiteracy in the country. “Technical education was stressed, but other branches of higher learning were not neglected. For the Party elite, intensive courses in Marxism were conducted with as much zeal as the training of officers in military academies.” The population also heard the Vietminh economic and political agenda. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 335) “It was the total mobilization of the entire people (which led to organized control of thought and action) and the integration of military and political life that made the Vietminh leadership such a formidable opponent.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 335) “The scope of the political indoctrination of the people was truly fantastic. . . . ritualistic election of leaders, gave the impression of an autonomous and highly decentralized existence, but control over them was total. . . . All leading positions in all organized bodies and on all vital economic, cultural, or military fronts were in the hands either of Communist Party members or their proven allies in the Vietminh.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 335-336) The Vietminh, nevertheless, maintained some governing functions in French held areas. Peasants sometimes threatened to give the Vietminh rice. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 336) In February 1951 the Vietnamese Workers Party, a Communist organization, replaced the Vietminh. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 338) “The Vietminh did not withdraw its political cadres from the South, and although the overthrow of Diem was not their immediate assignment, their activities constituted the greatest challenge Diem had to meet, because once again the masses were receptive to Vietminh propaganda. Hanoi’s triumph over the French had impressed the entire population. The great patriotic demand for freedom from foreign rule had become a reality as the result of the armed struggle led by the Vietminh. . . . The Vietminh, to be sure, was Communist-controlled and the masses were anything but communist.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 389) “When the military units of the Vietminh were withdrawn from the South in accordance with the Geneva agreement, the Vietminh remained in control of the countryside. In some areas it even grew stronger. After the fighting ceased and the French left, the Vietminh no longer needed to secure control by military means. The arms left behind by the troops who had gone North were buried; Vietminh power, for the time being, was to be based on organization and on the influence gained over the people. They were convinced that victory was already theirs, even if its consummation had to await the elections of July, 1956. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 455) State Department official John Ohly warned that taking over the colonial functions of the French in Indochina was not wise. “These situations have a way of snowballing.” (Dean Acheson. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. 678) March 6 Agreement “The main provisions of the treaty signed March 6 [1946] were French recognition of Vietnam as a free state with its own government, parliament, army, and finances,” and Vietnamese agreement that their country was to form part of the Indochinese Federation and the French Union. A referendum to be held in Cochinchina was to decide whether the three “states” of Vietnam should be united under one national government. . . . France promised to withdraw her troops in five annual installments, which would have meant the end of French military occupation in 1952. The Vietnamese pledged to end the war their guerrillas were conducting in the South.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 242) “The outcome of this referendum doubtlessly would have meant the extension of Hanoi’s authority over Chochinchina.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 247) The French army resisted. Vietminh and anti-Vietminh were upset as well. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 242) As well, the French colonial government “assured colonial society in Saigon that the agreement did not apply to Cochinchina.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 247) Commissioner Cedile said the agreement did not apply to Cochinchia only Annam and Tongking. He added that, Cochinchina “would remain a separate state with the Indochinese Federation.” Even the French Socialists betrayed Ho Chi Minh. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 248) D’Argenlieu was duplicitous in his dealings with the Vietnamese. He refused to hold the referendum. He arrested Vietminh negotiators. And he put a price on the heads of the nationalists. Fighting between the two groups “grew more savage. . . . None of the agreement’s provisions was ever implemented in Cochinchina.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 248) Vo Nguyen Giap stated, “In this agreement, there are arrangements that are satisfactory to us and others that are not. . . . Once liberty is obtained we will go toward independence, toward complete independence. . . . We negotiated above all to protect and reinforce our political, military, and economic position.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 243) “Negotiations were preferable to armed resistance. The country was not yet ready for a long-drawn-out war and the French were too strong for a short war.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 243) “The agreement raised hopes for the resolution of Franco-Vietnamese differences, yet in effect it served to destroy any chance for a peaceful settlement. However, the concessions the two sides made in the agreement were so incompatible with the stated objectives that insistence on the aims was bound to end in war.”(Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 244) The French also essentially recognized Vietnamese independence. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 245) The French were the first to break the agreement. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 245) They were determined to crush the Vietminh. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 245-246) Dalat “The Dalat conference opened in April 17 and lasted until May 11. . . . The French delegation consisted mainly of colonial administrators and technicians [who were not] authorized to speak for France or conclude any kind of political agreement.” No agreement was reached. “The Vietnamese delegates allegedly left the conference in tears. Giap, who had emerged as the strong man of the delegation, seemed more upset than his colleagues. It may well be that at Dalat he became convinced that war had become a certainty.”(Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 249) Giap thought of as “opposed to compromise” and Ho chi Minh viewed as a moderate. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 249-250) Paris Negotiations/Fontainebleau As the French and Vietnamese prepared to negotiate, again, this time in Paris, combat continued in southern Vietnam. D’Argenlieu attempted to formally make Cochinchina a separate state, the Republic of Cochichina. He finally recognized it as such, in the name of France, on June 1, 1946. This violated the “March agreement [and] had not been authorized by Paris.” Sainteny then postponed the conference. The French then declared the central highlands of Vietnam autonomous.” The are contains many ethnic minorities. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 250) Modus vivendi agreed to by Ho Chi Minh and Marius Moutet. It “gave the French everything they had demanded first at Dalat and then at Fontainebleau. The chief purpose of this modus vivendi was to bring about a presumption of French economic and cultural activities in the North, as well as a further improvement of their military position. As to the political issues vital for the Vietnamese, the modus vivendi was silent: nothing was said about the promise of ultimate independence. The French flatly refused to reconfirm their recognition of Vietnam as a free state. All Ho Chi Minh received was another promise of negotiations for a final treaty, to start no later tan January, 1947.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 253) D’Argenlieu was a major obstructionist. He constantly changed the rules; sent troops to where they are not allowed. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 252) Overall, the French government was never serious. Even with this, while many in the Vietminh wanted to give up negotiating, Ho Chi Minh persevered. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 252) French Politics France was devastated by World War II. It had been conquered by the Germans and their were questions about why their defeat had been so quick. As a result, “France never had the strength for a large-scale unilateral commitment, and knew that public opinion at home, as well as war wariness among the nationals upon whose territory the war was being fought (a factor that appears to be often forgotten now), demanded that a short-range solution to the conflict be found.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. viii) The French Parliament “restricted the use of draftees to French homeland territory, thus severely limiting the number of troops that could be made available to the Indochina theater of operations. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. viii) Consequently, General Navarre did not receive the number of soldiers he requested. He had to rely on native Indochinese men to supplement his forces. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. ix) After the liberation of France from the Germans the economy struggled. Although the US paid 80% of the French military expenses in Indochina the French people suffered a very heavy economic burden. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 354-355) The Communists in France called it the dirty war which many non-Communist French agreed with. Overall, in analyzing the war, the most French agreed that it was wrong since the war was “nothing but an attempt to preserve what was already lost.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 355) The working class demanded peace. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 355) Initially, the French parliament believed that a quick military solution was possible. As that failed a call for peace and ending the war grew. Finally, on March, 9, 1954 the French parliament agreed to peace negotiations. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 355) However, Ho Chi Minh was disturbed that “The war failed to arouse pro-Vietnamese sentiments in France; public opinion echoed press reports, which were fabricated almost exclusively by colonial officials in Hanoi and Saigon. Not only the Socialists, but the Communists also abstained from making Vietnam a central issue of French politics.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 294) The French people were divided over the war. The right wing of French politics believed that the French politicians were “soft” on the Vietminh with all of the negotiations. However, the division among the French had to do with “means, not ends.” Even the Communists wanted to maintain French control over Indochina. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 279) The French Socialist Leader Leon Blum supported Vietnamese independence. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 268) The Left in French politics accepted the Right’s colonial policy even though they opposed it. They did not have the political will to stop the colonialists. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 281) In addition, while the French Socialist Party opposed recolonization and wanted negotiation with the Vietminh, their representatives in the government supported the war! These socialists “regarded it as a necessary sacrifice but did not feel that it was a betrayal of Vietnam.” Unbelievably, the “Socialist Minister for Overseas Territories . . . believed that French policy in Indochina, although steadily moving toward the inevitable colonial war, would be less disastrous and less reprehensible if presided over by a known friend of the colonial peoples.” The Socialist became prisoners of the “colonial party.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 282) Even the French Socialist leader Leon Blum took the to the war path with class that the war was the fault of the Vietminh. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 282-283) “It is therefore wrong to say, as the Left in France still does, that the war broke out because the nobler intentions of France were continuously thwarted by the advocates of force who held strategic positions both at home and in Indochina.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 283) The Socialist Minister of Overseas Territories, Moutet visited Vietnam but refused to meet with the Vietminh. He subsequently decided that military action was necessary. Dean Acheson became involved with Indochina Affairs as Secretary of State in mid-1950 with the North Korean invasion of South Korea. (Dean Acheson. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. 1969. 671) President Roosevelt had no sympathy for the French effort. “By 1949 Ho’s Viet Minh regime was exercising authority over a large part of the country and was in revolt against the French. Another leader, Prince Bao Dai, was prepared to cooperate with the French in establishing something called self-government within the French Union, which, as time revealed, meant different things to the Vietnamese and the French.” Acheson recognized Bao Dai’s status in Vietnamese society. (Dean Acheson. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. 1969. 671) In March 1949 Bao Dai and President Auriol of France made the Elysee Agreements which “promised Vietnam its won army for internal security, membership in the French Union, a role in foreign and defense policies, and a bank of issue.” While this coincided with US interests the State “Department doubted whether they moved far enough or would be carried out fast enough.” (Dean Acheson. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. 1969. 671) As a result, Acheson claims that the US had to support the French in Indochina so that they could guide Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia to independence. (Dean Acheson. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. 1969. 671-672) Secretary of State Dean Acheson recognized that the French attempt to thwart the Viet Minh as “Prince Bao Dai, was prepared to cooperate with the French in establishing something called self-government within the French Union, which, as time revealed, meant different things to the Vietnamese and the French.” (Dean Acheson. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. 671) Agreements between the French and Bao Dai were supported by the United States but the State Department “doubted whether they moved far enough or would be carried out fast enough.” (Dean Acheson. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. 671) “As we saw our role in Southeast Asia, it was to help toward solving the colonial-nationalist conflict in a way that would satisfy nationalists aims and minimize the strain on our Western European allies. This meant supporting the French presence in the area as a guide and help to the three states in moving toward genuine independence within . . . the French Union. . . . The French balked . . . in transferring authority over internal affairs.” The Vietnamese had no power. The US States Department doubted this agreement would work. (Dean Acheson. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. 671-672) In 1949 Acheson had many meetings with the French that went nowhere. Acheson told the French that they must transfer more administrative functions to the Vietnamese. (Dean Acheson. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. 672) The least the French did was to appoint Bao Dai “chief of state of Vietnam.” The goal was to create a “duly elected Vietnamese government.” Only the US and the British would recognize this government and, the Soviet Union recognized the Viet Minh. The US defended its actions by stating that, “our fundamental policy of giving support to the peaceful and democratic evolution of dependent peoples toward self-government and independence.” The US representative to Saigon agreed. (Dean Acheson. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. 672, 673) In addition, the State Department “recommended aid to France and the Associated States in combating insurgency, which was backed by the Chinese and the Russians.” Interestingly, the Viet Minh are considered the insurgency but the puppet, French and American created government is considered legitimate. There would be economic and military aid but no use of American military forces in Vietnam. The US remained ready for a Chinese or Russian military intervention, however. Interestingly, the US believed that even if the US intervened they would be defeated by the Viet Minh. Thus the French would have to hand over full power including the military to the new government in Saigon. (Dean Acheson. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. 672-673) In 1952 Acheson made it clear that the US “would not contribute ground forces to a war in Indochina, but we would consider with our allies air and naval participation if it was necessary to interrupt communication between China and Indochina.” However, the French never presented effective policies. (Dean Acheson. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. 648) Meanwhile, the view of US policy in 1950 was that it was confused, “directed neither toward deign the French out of an effort to re-establish their colonial role, which was beyond their power, nor helping them hard enough to accomplish it or, even better, to defeat Ho and gracefully withdraw.” If France withdrew, Acheson believed, it would not have been helpful to Southeast Asia or in the “stability and defense of Europe.” This was the best the US could do. (Dean Acheson. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. 673) The French Socialists rejected the Bao Dai solution “on the grounds that the ex-emperor did not enjoy authority in the country, and the Right opposed him because of his rigid insistence on unity and independence.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 307) In response to the impasse of 1947 the French appointed Leon Pignon to lead the country. He had been an Indochina colonial officer and his appointment signified a “hardening of the French position.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 307-308) The also continued in 1947, despite the odds, to try to establish an effective “anti-Vietminh regime.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 308) “On March 12, 1949, France authorized a Cochinchinese assembly. The Socialist proposal for direct, popular elections was rejected in favor of indirect elections by local bodies and provincial councils and by the French chambers of commerce and agriculture. . . . [however] At least forty of the sixty-four members of the new assembly . . . were elected by administration picked people.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 309-310) The elections were a farce. The vast majority of the Vietnamese eligible to vote did not vote. There was vast bribery for votes as well. Other voters were threatened with murder. Nevertheless, Cochinchina voted to become a part of Vietnam. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 310) Even though Bao Dai returned to Vietnam most Vietnamese found him useless. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 310) There was no sympathy for him as the view was that he allowed himself to be used by the French. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 311) Throughout the end of 1950 the “military situation in Vietnam deteriorated. The French virtually besieged in their bases, called for still more aid.” (Dean Acheson. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. 673) Diplomat Livingston Merchant informed Acheson that “the military situation in Vietnam was extremely serious; that military aid should receive highest priority; that Prince Bao Dai should be pushed to assume maximum effective leadership; that although Indochina was an area of French responsibility, in view of French ineffectiveness it would be better for France to pull out if she could not provide sufficient force to hold; that we should strengthen a second line of defense in Thailand, Malaya, Laos, Cambodia, the Philippines, and Indonesia; and that the military problem was essentially one of men and the sinews of war. We could supply the second; the first must come from national forces in Vietnam.” (Dean Acheson. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. 674) While the US provided aid the French did not think it was “enough.” They constantly sent emissaries to the United States to ask for more and more aid. They even urged the US “to declare that the loss of Indochina would be a catastrophic blow to the free world.” The US agreed in a released joint communique. The US even noted similarities between the Indochina conflict and the Korean War. (Dean Acheson. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. 674-675, 676) Yet, they resisted providing progress reports on their military and political activity in Indochina. “Too little seemed to be happening in Vietnam in developing military power and local government responsibility and popular support.” In the fall of 1951 the US Joint Chiefs of State warned against making a commitment of forces to Indochina.” Nevertheless, one issue that would not go away was, what would the US do if the Chinese intervened in Indochina as they had in Korea. (Dean Acheson. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. 674-675) The Indochina War involved not only the French but the United States, Great Britain, and possibly the People’s Republic of (Red China). Under Acheson, the United States met with the French and the British to encourage “further development of indigenous forces”; to warn “Peking against aggression in Indochina”; and to come up with options “should the warning be ignored.” However, Acheson was not to be specific with the French or the British. Later there would be concern about what if the Chinese called the US, French and British bluff and the US did nothing? Therefore, threats were no longer expressed. (Dean Acheson. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. 675,676) While the French constantly demanded US aid they also “resented what they considered United States intervention.” Interestingly, the French continued to complain when the US asked for an accounting of how effective US aid was. By 1950 the US was paying one-third of the French Indochina bill. The French did nothing. In 1951 the US agreed to pay 40% of the “total French expenditures in Indochina.” (Dean Acheson. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. 676) According to Dean Acheson the USA became frustrated with the disconnect between what the US knew as to what was happening in Indochina and “about French military plans.” By the end of 1951 the US no longer trusted the French claim that they would “weaken the enemy.” In addition, the US had no confidence in Vietnamese soldiers and, they had no confidence in French assurances or statements about the war. The US wanted to make its own assessment. (Dean Acheson. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. 676-677) Also, by the end of 1951 the French began to have doubts about their Indochina war. (Dean Acheson. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. 676) In addition, the French believed that Indochina had to become economically independent so as not to pull down the French. Otherwise, the French might decide to just pack up and leave. Also, Bao Dai was not considered capable of leading south Vietnam through this. (Dean Acheson. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. 676) The French also complained that the Vietnamese did not cooperate. Bao Dai said the French would not allow true Vietnamese independence. In addition, State Department official John Ohly feared that the US would replace the French in Indochina and not simply aid them. Acheson again quotes Ohly saying that “these situations have a way of snowballing.” It would take the American experience in the war to prove true. (Dean Acheson. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. 674) Acheson did not want to change course, nevertheless. (Dean Acheson. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. 674) Korea took precedence over Vietnam after the Chinese entered the war. (Dean Acheson. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. 674) By 1952, the French, whose ability for lucid political thought continued to erode, also were pleased that Bao Dai had finally chosen a true, reliable anti-Communist, a man who would neither curry favor with the Vietminh nor make unreasonable demands.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 315) By 1953 the French people were frustrated with the progress of the war. They “had good reason to question the course chosen by their leaders in Indochina.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 354) After the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu the French parliament voted for compromise. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 370) The US sent a military mission under Lieutenant General J.W. Daniel to Indochina to assess the situation. The mission recommended, “in addition to the four hundred million dollars in aid set aside for Indochina, three hundred eighty-five million more should be made available before the end of 1954.” The French continued to promise an accounting of their progress in Vietnam but as usual did not. By the end of 1953 “the situation in Indochina deteriorated.” The French appeared to want to give up and the British wanted to bring the Soviet Union in to help resolve the situation. (Dean Acheson. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. 677) In February 1954 Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union met in Berlin to “bring about a peaceful settlement in Korea and Indochina. A month later President Eisenhower declared Southeast Asia to be of the most transcendent importance to the United States, and during April 1954 consideration was given to getting united tripartite military action there with the British and French. Dienbienphu fell on May 7, 1954, and on July 20 the Convention of Geneva ended the hostilities and French Indochina, and divided Vietnam.” (Dean Acheson. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. 677-678) Chien Tranh Pháp The French Indochina War was a disaster for France. Nothing had changed from 1946 to 1953 for them. (Randle 3) They were politically and militarily incompetent. The cessation of hostilities in Korea in 1953 left the French in a quandary. With little to show for their war they were forced to negotiate. (Randle 4) “The French regarded the Indochinese War as primarily a domestic matter, and France successfully resisted efforts to bring the question of the war to the United Nations.” (Randle 12) The Chinese Communist victory in 1949 provided meant the Vietminh could now receive supplies more easily. (Randle 3) The French War in Vietnam was problematic for the new superpower and world leader after World War II. The issue was how to deal with the Communists not Indochina. In fact, one of the US China experts who would later be tarred by McCarthyism understood the force of “Asian nationalism” at the time. Nevertheless, at Potsdam, President Harry S. Truman agreed to splitting Vietnam in two for purposes of taking the surrender of Japanese soldiers. The British would take the surrender south of the 16th parallel and the Chinese north of the 16th parallel. In the mean time those countries controlled the areas they operated in and this gave the British the opportunity to continue colonial control in Vietnam. “Truman, pushed by his military advisers who were wary of what anti colonialism might mean as far as the future of U.S. naval and air bases in Asia was concerned, urged that we go along with the British.” That was the extent of American thought on the issue. (David Halberstam. The Best and the Brightest. 78-79) The most people knew about Vietnam was that it was rich in resources. (David Halberstam. The Best and the Brightest. 79) The United States began supplying the French in mid-1950. (Randle 3) Nevertheless, Acheson found French politics fickle. Finally at the end of 1950 their national assembly decided to reinforce their military in Southeast Asia and to create militaries in the “Associated States.” (Dean Acheson. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. 674) Spring 1953 Giap “thrust into Laos only to withdraw several months the later.” However, later in the year he “moved his armies in to the Annamite mountains of Laos and Tonkin. In December” he moved further into Laos and took “Thakhek on the Mekong River. By January 1954 . . . [he] controlled more than half of Laos and small areas of northern Cambodia.” (Randle 8) This concerned the French and “peace offers . . . were viewed by an increasingly concerned segment of French option as a realistic basis for negotiation.” (Randle 8) General Navarre and “Maurice Dejean, French High Commissioner for Indochina [believed] that Laos would have to be defended: France, they felt, was obliged to defend Laos under the terms of the Franco-Laotian treaty of 22 October 1953.” (Randle 8) In 1953, influential French believed that the two military forces should negotiate, at least, an armistice. Pierre Mendes-France advocated “negotiations to end the war and [he was] a proponent of a program for granting genuine independence to the Indochinese.” (Randle 5) French premier Joseph Laniel “vowed to perfect the independence of the Associated States.” However, he negotiated with the State of Vietnam and not the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. “Georges Bidault, Laniel’s Foreign Minister, resolutely opposed granting unrestricted independence to the Associated States. They must be joined in the French union, Bidault believed, with impediments upon their sovereignty. Ardent Indochinese nationalists nationalists were sure to reject this kind of independence, but, whatever the attitude of the Indochinese, Bidault’s views were shared by many deputies of the right and center.” (Randle 5) Toward the end of 1953 the Vietminh “controlled more than half of Vietnam: northern part of the country and “the central highlands of Annam, and several important sectors in the Mekong delta in Cochin China”, and the rural areas. (Randle 8) The French controlled the major cities of Vietnam: Hanoi, Haiphong, Hue, Tourane (Da Nang?), Saigon. (Randle 8) “By fall of 1953 a large and growing number of non-Communist French were becoming tired of this war, which had consumed 25 percent of the officers and 40 percent of the noncommissioned officers of the French army - a war that had been singularly devoid of glory and appeared to offer no future gains for Frenchmen or for France.” (Randle 6) A French victory still meant Vietnamese independence and “many Vietnamese nationalists . . . would be satisfied with nothing less than complete independence, withdrawal of the French army.” (Randle 6) The war did not benefit France. And why should they fight for the Bao Dai government? (Randle 6) “There was, moreover, little feeling in France for continuing the war on the margins of China simply because the Vietminh were Communists and because an American policy of containment required it. By the end of 1953 many Frenchmen were unwilling to view the Indochinese War as a struggle against communism.” Ho Chi Minh analyzed the situation thusly by thusly stating that “American Imperialism is making French Colonialists carry on and extend the war of conquest in Vietnam for the purpose of rendering France weaker and weaker and taking over her position in Vietnam.” (Randle 6) The Democratic Republic of Vietnam believed that the only nations that could negotiate were they and France. (Randle 8) Nevertheless, Laniel continued to promise “independence to Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia” but he was stymied “by the French right, which included important figures in the government itself - Foreign Minister Bidault among others. By the fall of 1953 it became clear that absolute independence for the Associated States was out of the question.” (Randle 12) French “domestic politics would not have permitted Laniel, nor perhaps even Mendes-France, to deal directly with the Vietminh in late 1953. So long as hope of a military victory against the Vietminh persisted, the parties of the center and right would have joined to overthrow any government that dared deal with these Vietnamese “rebels.” Despite the anti-war sentiment most French officials continued to feel, throughout the winter of 1953/1954, that victory was possible.” (Randle 7) The Russians sought a peaceful settlement of the Franco-Vietnamese War in 1953. They promoted a policy of “peaceful coexistence.” The Chinese told the French that they “would not oppose a solution to the Indochinese War that might entail Vietnam’s remaining with the French Union.” (Randle 4,18) Furthermore, the Russians proposed “a meeting of the Big Four foreign ministers.” Britain and France agreed. (Randle 18) The Americans were not so sure but “eventually agreed.” (Randle 19) At a meeting of Britain, France, the US, and the USSR. The conference took place in Bermuda. The Russians wanted the Chinese to be represented but the United States resisted. IndoChina was on the agenda. (Randle 20) The French government changed with Pierre Mendes-France taking over. (Roger Hilsman. To Move a Nation. 103) Therefore, the State of Vietnam feared France would abandon them to get a deal with Ho Chi Minh. (Randle 7) Interestingly, the French were not concerned about communism as much as the Americans. (Randle 13) Dean Acheson claimed that the US gave military and economic aid to the French war effort to restore “stability.” The US always claims it wants stability but its own military actions destabilize areas belong belief. Communism must be eradicated and the US desired rice, rubber and tin from Indochina. (Noam Chomsky, At War with Asia. 111-112) The Vietnamese revolution “threatens the new order that we have been trying to construct in Asia with Japan as junior partner, linked to Asia by essentially colonial relationships. (Noam Chomsky, At War with Asia. 114) The French worried that “increased American involvement in the war” would displace them. (Randle 12) The Vietminh ended up surprised that the French who made so much of their own liberation from the Nazis did not understand that the Vietnamese also wanted to be liberated from foreign rule. Buttinger describes this as a “lack of political imagination” on the part of the French. Free French leader Charles DeGaulle did not realize that it was the Vietnamese who would decide their future. The French began to refer to their empire as “the French Community” which they declared on March 24, 1945 while the war in Europe was still going on. The Vietnamese would have none of it. The defeat of Japan would surely show that Vietnam was now a free country. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 212-213) However, with Japan’s surrender it was the British, in the South, and the Chinese, in the North who were assigned to disarm the Japanese. The Chinese forces occupying northern Vietnam did not sit well with the French especially since the Chinese opposed colonialism. “The reconquest of Indochina turned out to be the bloodiest period in the entire history of French Indochina, proving not only that the methods of the French had not changed, but also that colonial rule could no longer be maintained by force alone.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 215) The Potsdam Agreement gave the French the opportunity to return to Vietnam. The French returned to Saigon which was easiest for them. They forced the “ouster of the Vietnamese Government from Saigon and the onset of Vietnamese armed resistance.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 216) The French were willing to negotiate only if “their prewar rule over the country first be restored. . . . No nationalist leader at that time was willing to renounce independence, and most thought than an armed clash was unavoidable.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 218) There were two choices available to the Vietnamese independence movement. One, was to militarily confront the French as soon as possible and, the other, to wait for the victorious western powers to recognized Vietnamese independence. The Vietminh favored the latter and it was a disaster. The West did not recognize Vietnamese independence and in fact supported the French return as colonists in Indochina. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 218-219) An immediate fight against the French would precipitate a fight against the British who came to disarm the Japanese. That would put the Vietnamese in a difficult position. Therefore, the Vietminh ordered that there be no violence and that French personal safety be guaranteed. The Vietminh even postponed their lauded land reform plans. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 219) The Chinese arrived in Hanoi September 9, 1945 and threw Sainteny and his staff out of their buildings. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 230) In February 1946, the French and the Chinese negotiated a treaty which allowed “French troops were to relieve the Chinese armies” in northern Vietnam. “For the Vietnamese, the treaty was just another betrayal of the Vietnamese national cause. No other even in 1946 could have altered more profoundly the circumstances on which the survival of the Hanoi government depended.” The British also stated that they would soon leave Vietnam for the French to do as they pleased.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 238-239) Ho Chi Minh predicted this and the international isolation of his country. Even the Soviet Union did not recognize the Vietminh! Ho decided to negotiate with the French and be prepared for war. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 239) Nevertheless, the Vietminh allowed French soldiers to return to Hanoi. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 240) British soldiers arrive September 12, 1945. The general in charge is Douglas Gracey and he supported the French right of return to Indochina. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 221)He did everything to make this happen including violating “the instructions that the British occupation forces were not to interfere in the internal affairs of Indochina-i.e., that they were not to take sides in the developing conflict.” His orders were “to disarm the Japanese.”(Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 221-222) Gracey ignored his orders. He allowed the French to “evict the Vietnamese from the administration of Saigon.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 222) He also ordered the Japanese forces to “police the city [Saigon].” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 222-223) “To demand that the Vietnamese-made obstacles to a French return be removed by the Japanese was contrary to the Potsdam decision.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 223) The declaration of Vietnamese independence on August 5, 1945 was short-lived as French soldiers came with the British whose assigned mission was to disarm the Japanese soldiers in Southern Vietnam were “bent on reestablishing colonial control over all of Indochina.” (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam see Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 262) “In the northern part of Vietnam, pro-Chinese Vietnamese political groups returned in the wake of Kuomintang troops and tried to abolish all the political and administrative structures set up buy the Viet Minh. By and by, the Viet Minh administration and its followers withdrew into the shadow of secrecy.” (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam see Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 262) The French easily reestablished control over the whole country. Pro-French Vietnamese quickly came into the fold. Pro-Japanese Vietnamese joined them. “The Viet Minh was left quite alone to struggle against the French reconquest of their old colony, just as they had been left quite alone during the war to resist both the French and the Japanese.” (Truong Buu Lam. “Japan and the Disruption of the Vietnam see Nationalist Movement.” In Aspects of Vietnamese History. Walter Vella, ed. 263) At this time, in order to placate any concern with their revolution, the Vietminh “decreed the death penalty for attacks on private property.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 233) The French made sure the Fontainebleau conference failed and that war would ensue. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 253) As the negotiations failed due to French duplicity, the French also illegally occupied Pleiku and Kontum and strengthened the garrison of Tourane.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 254) The French, it turned out, from early 1946, planned to overthrow Ho Chi Minh. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 254) This convinced Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap “that the only way they could win was by conducting a people’s war which enjoyed the fullest support of the entire population.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 254) As a result the Viet Minh abandoned the cities and fled to the countryside. “Saigon and Hanoi, as well as vital Haiphong; fully realizing that what was really vital in that kind of war were not the cities, the bridges, and whatever puny industries he had then or has now, but the allegiance of his people.” (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 89) The Vietminh “called a general strike in protest against the Franco-British effort to stifle the nationalist movement.” The French countered by ending negotiations with the Vietminh. Gracey supported the French by suspending “all Vietnamese newspapers. . . . And on September 21, Gracey proclaimed martial law.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 223) He then armed 1,400 French soldiers who attacked Vietnamese anywhere they saw them. They also occupied government buildings and arrested Vietnamese. “French civilians insulted and attacked Vietnamese walking on the streets while French and British soldiers looked on. Hundreds of Vietnamese were beaten up and jailed.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 224) Gracey and the French colonial leaders were not pleased and ordered the French soldiers to their bases. Nevertheless, the Vietminh "retaliated with a vengeance.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 224) And, they prepared for war. It began on September 24, 1945 and quickly “spread over the entire South, and into Hanoi and the northern half of Vietnam.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 224-225) A “general strike” occurred in Saigon and there was destruction of the electrical works, “and the central market was set on fire.” French and Franco-Vietnamese people were murdered in their residential areas. The Japanese were used to restore order. Random arrests of Vietnamese occurred. Buttinger calls this “the outbreak of civl war.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 225) General Leclerc was in charge of the French military in Indochina and did not understand that this was a political war. He initially drives the Vietminh out of Saigon. The British aided the French including using their air force. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 226) Leclerc then attacked the Vietminh below the 16th parallel. “He thought of his campaign as a simple mopping up operation which would take no more than four weeks.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 227) The Vietminh prepared for an attack on northern Vietnam. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 228) However, the Chinese occupied the north and were sympathetic to the Vietnamese desire for independence. No one contested Vietminh right to rule in the north. In early 1946 the “French still did not have a single armed soldier in the north.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 228) The Chinese would not allow it. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 229) Although the Chinese brought with them anti-Vietminh nationalists. The Chinese were anti-communist. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 235) Also, the Chinese threw their weight around in Vietnam and the Vietminh had to accept it. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 236) The Chinese left a lasting negative impression on the people of northern Viet Nam by robbing “the countryside bare.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 23) Conflict between the French and the Vietnamese developed after the March 6, 1946 agreement. As Ho maneuvered around the French people questioned his desire for “winning a monopoly of power for the Communist Party” and his dedication “to the liberation of his people.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 246) “Finally, on September 14, 1946, the break came. The French proved unyielding on the unification of Viet-Nam and at home not only the right wing but now the left wing was clamoring for results. In a dramatic session, Ho and the French Overseas Minister, Marius Moutet, signed a modus vivendi - an agreement to disagree - after Ho had vainly pleaded with him to relent somewhat on the terms. Moutet, boxed in by his own hawks, explained the he was unable to do so, and Ho signed, muttering audibly: I’m signing by death warrant.” (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 86) He believed that war was inevitable and told David Ben-Gurion so. It may have begun in December 1946 when “the French electrical plants in Viet-Nam . . . blew up. . . . Viet-Minh shock troops began to attack French garrisons from south of Saigon to the Chinese border.” (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 86) The military mania charge was General Giap. Viet-Nam was also isolated from any Communist country. This would change after December, 1949 with the Chinese Communist Revolution. (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 87) After the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu the Vietminh were expected to attack Hanoi. The French were trapped in Hanoi and Haiphong. “Everywhere isolated French posts fell to the Vietminh, who knew that the French no longer had the reserves needed to interfere with their concentrated and determined attacks.” The morale fo the Vietnamese National Army, created by the French, was quite low. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 372) After the fall of Dien Bien Phu a “number of its soldiers chose to join the Vietminh.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 373) French forces remained in Vietnam until July 1955. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 411-412) The French were clueless as to the new Asia. Nationalist independence movements dominated the political and military sphere. In Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh led his communist dominated Viet Minh to leadership of independence for Vietnam and thus all of Indochina. (Roger Hilsman, To Move A Nation. 99) The United States faced a dilemma by the French War in Indochina. It opposed colonialism but opposed communism even more. Some realized that their war to maintain control over their part of Asia was futile. In addition, any self governing governments “within the French Union” could not be taken seriously. Interestingly, State Department and CIA personnel in Saigon believe that the only way to resist communism was to grant full independence to Vietnam. Also interesting was the fact that in 1951 Congressman John F. Kennedy believed that the US supported colonialism. The US formed a middle of the road policy which was “the worst of both worlds.” (Roger Hilsman, To Move A Nation. 99) The US used all its power to keep Red China and other communist nations from directly helping the Viet Minh. Following North Korean attack on South Korea in June 1950 and, the Russian and Chinese recognition of the Viet Minh as rulers of Vietnam “President Truman recognized the three “Associated States.” (Roger Hilsman, To Move A Nation. 99-100) After this US military aid flowed to France. “It is estimated that the United States financed 40 per cent of the total cost of France’s Indochina war between 1951 and 1954, and by mid-1954 was paying for more than 75 per cent of it.” (Roger Hilsman, To Move A Nation. 100) President Truman increased aid to the French in Indochina after the North Korean attack on South Korea in June 1950. It was in September of 1950 that the creation of “indigenous armies in Indochina was the only way to save the situation there and preserve the French army in Europe.” The French demanded financial aid to do this. Guerrilla Warfare However, one guerrilla leader named De Tham fought the French to a standoff and was able to have his own semi-sovereign region in the early 1900s. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 127) “A ruthless application of the scorched-earth policy and incessant attacks by small guerrilla bands succeeded in slowing down the French advance. Never and nowhere were the French safe from the guerrillas. They could be fought off, but they were seldom caught and returned again and again.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 227) It was Nguyen Binh who perfected guerrilla tactics. The French, in turn, terrorized the Vietnamese peasants and destroyed villages “from which they had been fired upon, thus turning thousands of lukewarm nationalists and even people friendly to them into bitter enemies.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 260) “Vietminh strategy between 1947 and 1950 called for keeping the French out of regions vital to the Hanoi government as sources of food, manpower, and minerals, and for harassing the French wherever they had established themselves. Though the Vietminh fighters, as ubiquitous and persistent as the country’s mosquitoes and leeches, did not succeed in expelling the French from their positions, they did succeed in immobilizing the men needed to hold them. . . . the guerrillas . . . carried on their fight chiefly by night, blowing up bridges, building road blocks, ambushing patrols and convoys, assassinating collaborators, and attacking lookouts.” The French were isolated and trapped. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 317) Early in 1951 the Vietminh and French committed “the greatest military blunders” in their attempt to strike a decisive blow against each other. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 320) The Vietminh were well trained and equipped, however, the French defeated them in their first battle. The Vietminh decided to continue guerrilla tactics as a strategy. This was successful as the French gradually lost control of territory. “The famous de Lattre Line of watchtowers and small fortifications built in 1951 to stop further infiltration was about as effective as a sieve. the subversion of french control behind the line was called the “rotting away” (pourrissement) of the delta.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 320) “In October, 1947, when General Valluy launched his first offensive to wipe out the Vietminh, the French were largely unaware of the advantages their opponent enjoyed-mountains in which to set up secret bases, jungles and marshes favoring the guerrillas, seemingly inexhaustible reserves of manpower, skill, and aggressiveness, and, above all, widespread popular support.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 320) Valluy had 30,000 soldiers and hoped to “destroy Giap’s regular army, capture the Vietminh leaders.” He planned to surround Viet Bac with all the French arms they had available “in what was undoubtedly the greatest military action in French colonial history.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 320-321) Throughout the war the French would maintain isolated military bases against the advice of military experts. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 324) The French decided to create a government of anti-communists under the Emperor Bao Dai and to negotiate with him. They believed that this would undermine the Vietminh. If the Vietminh refused to accept this state of affairs of limited independence then the French believed they would crush them militarily. “But now it would no longer be a colonial war. It would become a war between two Vietnamese governments, a civil war, a war between “Communism” and “anti-Communism,” in which the role of the French would merely be to support the “anti-Communist” regime against the Vietminh.” This ignore the reality that nationalism drove the Vietnamese to support the Vietminh. The fact that the French dominated the anti-Communist and Bao Dai political organization made those organizations useless as they would not achieve real independence. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 286) Ironically, it was Leclerc who said, “Anti-Communism will remain useless as long as the problem of nationalism is not solved.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 286-287) The French used all sorts of excuses to delay an independent Vietnam. They claimed they were willing to negotiate and make concessions, but only to a truly representative government, one willing to agree that the free state of Vietnam remain a member of the French Union.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 287) However, the anti-Communist Vietnamese refused because they knew this would not lead to independence. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 287-288) “Bao Dai had been residing in Hong Kong since disengaging himself from the Viet Minh in March, 1946. He had learned of the French plan of using him against the Vietminh back in January, 1947 . . . messengers and old collaborators of the French had been going to Hong Kong . . . only too confirm . . . Bao Dai, his will strengthened by his cautious advisers, was remaining aloof. . . . if the French wished to win his cooperation, they would have to offer him at least as much as Ho Chi Minh demanded: the dissolution of the Cochinchinese government, the reunification of Vietnam under one government, and, of course, independence.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 288-289) The French properly looked at Bao Dai as a playboy. However, by 1947, Bao Dai had political acumen which he would demonstrate. He understood that the French were determined to deny Vietnamese independence. Nevertheless, the French were enthusiastic. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 289) During the French War the French used Emperor Bao Dai but gave him no power. Bao Dai refused to undermine Vietnamese independence by doing the French or go against the Vietminh, which “he frequently referred to as the resistance.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 291) He stated that, “I belong to no party.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 292) Although, in 1947, “Ho Chi Minh even had Bao Dai reconfirmed as supreme counselor of the government [in order to alleviate anti-communist criticism]. It was all in vain . . . Bao Dai . . . determined not to make common cause with Ho Chi Minh.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 296) However, Bao Dai ended up lumping all "resistance to the French as Communist,” thus condemning “all non-Communists fighting with the Vietminh.” Therefore, these non communists, “faced with the alternative of renouncing armed resistance or continuing to fight, these nationalists moved closer and closer to Communism . . . Once again anti-Communism turned more nationalists into Communists than did Communist propaganda.” Bao Dai and other anti-communist nationalists proved ineffective in the fight against colonialism. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 296) The French didn’t even accept Bao Dai’s conditions for peace. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 297) The varied anti-Vietminh nationalists were hopelessly disorganized. They looked to Bao Dai to save their cause. There was the “moribund VNQDD and the Dong Minh Hoi.” They organized the United Front in China in February, 1947. They chose Bao Dai, unbeknownst to him, as their leader. In essence, they agreed to cooperate with the French. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 297) “Bao Dai’s most loyal supporters were the royalist mandarins of Annam and Tongking, the most prominent of whom had been led into collaboration with the French by their hatred for the Vietminh.” The French used them to hide the fact that the French were the real rulers.(Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 298) Anti-Communist nationalists preferred fighting between each other rather than accomplishing their stated goals. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 300) Ironically, some anti-Vietminh nationalists had an interest in a French military failure as the existence of the Vietminh gave them a reason the French needing them. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 301) In the pressure of the moment Bao Dai agreed to collaborate with the French by signing an agreement which “even his most uncritical supporters let him know . . . seriously jeopardized his cause.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 301) Even the ultimate opportunity General Xuan criticized it. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 302) Diem convinced Bao Dai to make more demands, “such as the immediate dissolution of the Cochinchinese government in favor of an Administrative Committee for the South as a first step toward reunification.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 302) In December 1947 Bao Dai extricated himself by leaving Vietnam and traveling to France. He hoped to find out from the French government itself what their policy was. He was disappointed as the French government turned to the Right. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 302) “General de Gaulle’s Rassemblement Populaire was expected to form the next government.” They rejected any previous French government agreements with the Vietminhand supported the “Bao Dai solution” even though Bao Dai “had little hpe” for an independent Vietnam. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 302-303) The French put Bao Dai in charge of the State of Vietnam in 1948 which would be “an Associated State within the French Union.” The British and the Americans recognized this state in February of 1950. Laos and Cambodia received similar status. The People’s Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics “recognized the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRVN) in early 1950. (Randle 4) “On August 18, 1945, Bao Dai had addressed a moving appeal to de Gaulle on behalf of Vietnamese independence, in which he prophesied that, even if you were to . . . re-establish a French administration here, to would no longer be obeyed; eat village would be a nest of resistance, every former friend an enemy, and your officials and colonists themselves would ask to depart from this unbreathable atmosphere.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 270-271) Bao Dai was put on the throne. His father was the Emperor Khai Dinh. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 146) He liked being a playboy rather than an emperor. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 160) Bao Dai spent his early life in France returning in 1932 to become emperor. But the court life was alien to him. The nationalists believed him a traitor for cooperating with the French. In 1945 the Japanese captured him while he was out hunting. “In exchange for his life he signed a proclamation announcing the independence of his country and the end of French rule.” After the Japanese surrender Ho Chi Minh forced Bao Dai to abdicate and given “the derisory title of Ho’s supreme counselor,” as described by Bodard. Ho took Bao Dai to “revolutionary meetings.” The “superstitious populace . . . believed Bao Dai to be a god.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 69) Bao Dai maneuvered his way to China and away from the Viet Minh. Interestingly, the Americans operated on the belief that Vietnam was a southern Chinese province. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 69) Continuing his bouncing around by the major players in Vietnamese politics the Governor-General Pignon again put Bao Dai on the throne. Pignon’s attempts to reform the reactionary colonial government in Saigon with “the active zeal of Nguyen Binh’s Resistance” failed so, he brought in Bao Dai. The is the French butting into someone else’s business. Bao Dai would be a puppet supporting the French created Republic of Vietnam. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 69) Bao Dai joined the Vietminh as well as "wealthy men . . . a Catholic leader agreed to become Ho Chi Minh’s first minister of economics, why Catholic priests came out in support of the government.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 232) In Hue . . . Bao Dai declared his willingness to have Ho Chi Minh form a government, but popular sentiment expressed at a mass rally in Hanoi prevented this compromise with the old regime, though Ho Chi Minh probably would have accepted. Instead, Bao Dai was asked to resign. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 209-210) There is no more convincing testimony to the popular support the Vietminh enjoyed at that time than that Bao Dai gave up his throne on August 25 and expressed has support of a Vietminh regime.” Bao Dai later stated that “he would rather be a simple citizen of a free country, he said, than the ruler of one that was enslaved.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 209-210) “The year 1948 brought the gradual erosion of Bao Dai’s resistance; 1949, its collapse.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 303) The French manipulated the demise of the influence of Bao Dai by claiming they were about to negotiate with the Vietminh; they were not. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 304) Bao Dai appointed General Xuan head of government. “The armed forces and foreign policy were to remain in French hands, while the transfer of governmental authority in other fields was envisaged only on the basis of separate accords still to be concluded.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 305) In the end “no respected nationalist would join any of the governments created later in the name of Bao Dai.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 307) With the Chinese Communist revolution of 1949, Bao Dai believed that the French would agree to an independent Vietnam in order to get American aid as the Americans were eager to counter a perceived communist threat. However, the French never allowed that to happen. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 309) The French made another flawed attempt to counter the Vietminh with a Bao Dai government. They allowed the Vietnamese to have their “own police force and granted the right to appoint some ambassadors and delegates to the Assembly and High Council of the French Union, two bodies distinguished for their total lack of influence on policy-making. In matters of real importance, the agreement either permanently restricted the exercise of sovereignty or made it dependent on separate, yet-to-be-concluded accords.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 309) This was complicated because the agreement between Bao Dai and the French required “the creation of a territorial assembly for Cochinchina to decide on where this part of Vietnam was to be returned to centralized rule. But permission for the creation of such an assembly had to be given by the French parliament, and once constituted, the decisions it reached also required approval by the French legislature.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 309) Bao Dai appointed Nguyen Van Tam prime minister of Vietnam in 1952. This was the last of the so called Bao Dai solution. Tam was considered a French lackey. This, consequently, pleased the Vietminh. By 1950 controlled territory and had an army. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 315) Regarding the creation by the French of a Vietnamese national army to fight the Vietminh, Bao Dai said, “It would be too dangerous to expand the Vietnamese Army, because it might defect en masse and go to the Vietminh.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 331) “In fact, a few companies did defect; others refused to go out on patrol or move for their home districts. Nguyen Van Hinh, a French citizen and French officer, who became its general and chief of staff, said it would take seven years before the National Army would be ready to relieve the Expeditionary Corps of its static duties and take part in offensive operations against the Vietminh.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 331-332) Officials in the Bao Dai government lived in luxury at the “expense of the people.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 336) His supporters were “rich Vietnamese in the cities, and above all the large landowners.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 343) Attempts by Bao Dai’s government to keep Vietnam afloat and independent went for naught. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 343-344) The Bao Dai government felt betrayed. However, they were created by the French. They claimed that only Bao Dai represented the Vietnamese nation and that the Vietminh had no standing. They argued that the Vietminh army should be integrated into the army of the State of Vietnam and that the agreed upon elections should use the State of Vietnam as the authority. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 376) Any government elected would serve under Bao Dai, they maintained. Only the Americans supported this. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 376) However, the French recognized the Bao Dai government and Ngo Dinh Diem was called by Bao Dai to lead that government. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 377) Partition was now a fact. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 378) After the Chinese Communist Revolution of 1949 the Laokay path to connect with the Viet Minh fell to them and thus, could out flank the French in Tonkin. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 47) Chien tranh Phap - “It was at Laokay (Lao Cai) that I first had the painful revelation that the war in Indochina might be lost,” wrote Bodard. “Up until then I had lived in a state of illusion. Like all the rest of the French I admitted that the Vietminh had an undoubted superiority in treacherous art of guerrilla warfare, that murderous, bloody hide-and-seek.” French soldiers claimed they could beat the Vietminh in an open battle. Now, Bodard had his doubts. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 47) Chien tranh Phap - “For at Laokay (Lao Cai) I saw Giap’s regiments attack the French army in force. For the first time the Vietminh regulars, slipping out of their quadrilateral, launched a real offensive. And in the face of their attack the French officers changed their presumptuousness for fear, their complex of superiority for a complex of inferiority, and all this in a matter of days, even of hours. They fought with wonderful courage; yet at the same time they fought like mens who were going to be beaten in time to come.” This fore told Dien Bien Phu. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 47-48) Chien tranh Phap - Bodard waited for the “new, hard, pure, remorseless Asia.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 48) Chien tranh Phap - Major military combat took place along R.C. 4. “Everywhere else it was guerrilla fighting and small-scale murder.” “In this part of Tonkin, an almost uninhabitable jungle, the French strategy was to hold strong points such as Langson and Caobang, which were linked by the road, the R.C. . They therefore depended entirely on the road, whereas the Vietminh did not, for they were supplied by coolies coming through the jungle paths. So the Vietminh strategy was to cut the road. They already had whole regiments for this task, and presently they were to have whole divisions.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 48) “In the end the Vietminh did cut the R.C. 4 for good and all and the French had to rely on airlift; but in 1949 things had not reached that stage.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 48) Several miles of trucks of various sorts traveled the R.C. 4 which was simply a gash in the landscape. There was the French military and the many ethnic traders. The French forces made up peoples of various nationalities who “could only be told from one another by the range of their headgear.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 49) Nevertheless, the Viet Minh “shoot us like rabbits,” said a French sergeant. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 51) “The sergeant explained how impossible it was to protect a convoy, whatever one did or tried to do: and yet everything had been tried. The defense had begun in the simplest way. The army built a post wherever an ambush had taken place. They had to build a great many. For no sooner was one finished than the next ambush was laid just next to it, only a few hundred yards away: a new fort was set up on the spot. . . . there began the practice of sweeping the road. This was carried out from one end of the R.C. 4 to the other. On a convoy day each post sent a patrol out as far as the next post to inspect the road, drive the Viets away from it and fill up the holes and cutting they had made. It was a huge and very dangerous task, with small groups of men searching every yard of the road, fighting and carrying out repairs. The convoy would only leave when messages came in from every post announcing that the way was clear. Often it was not. The Viets only had to hide in the green walls on either side not to be seen. The convoys went on being shot to pieces, and often a sweeping party was destroyed as well, as a preliminary.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 53) The French decided on a very detailed search of the area twice a week. Every mountain, every hill, and every cave was searched. The French forces cut paths to all of these areas. However, there was not enough manpower. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 53) The French realized that large numbers of forces had to be deployed on every military operation. Every detail had to be taken care of. Planning had to be thorough. Nevertheless, the result were the same. “The Viets always had the advantage. It was absurd to imagine that it was possible to go through such a solid jungle and such ragged, tumbled mountains with a fine tooth comb. Trying to do so never stopped the Viet regulars from slipping though the networked of French defenses in thousands whenever and wherever they chose, and massing on the sides of the R.C. 4; just as they had done before, they remained hidden behind the embankments until the convoy arrived, and then they destroyed all or part of it.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 53-54) Bodard calls this section of his book, the dirty war. “I saw every sort of guerrilla and counter guerrilla fighting. So often I wanted to ask a French officer, man to man, Can you defend civilization while you let yourself slide toward everything most inimical to it - violence, deliberate cruelty, torture?” Even in France this type of warfare was condemned. Interestingly, the soldiers themselves “took a strange pleasure in knowing themselves alone and misunderstood.” Few officers doubted French military policy or the military leaders in Indochina. “Their superiors were tolerant of mediocrity, eccentricity, and even vice, but not of independent thinking or, or, worse, pessimism.”(Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 59) “Both the Vietminh and the French, of course, showed me masses of pictures of atrocities committed by the other side. I never, with my own eyes, saw any French atrocities. But I see ugly things. Often I saw French patrols returning from abandoned villages, garlanded with chickens, and driving herds of pigs and water buffaloes.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 59) Muslim soldiers raped Vietnamese men which was an unusual practice. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 60) “Whole villages were burned and dynamited” on French military orders for “anti-French activities.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 60) The French dropped Vietminh captives from planes. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 60) French journalists knew not to report what they saw or what they were told. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 59, 60) Torture, said one officer, was the “least wasteful method - the method which saves most lives.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 61) The officer continued, “I was in the Resistance in France. When I got to Asia, I was revolted by what I saw. We are like to Boches I thought. We are applying the principles of the occupation of France: Order, Collaboration Repression. I am an assassin like them. I thought of resigning my commission, but I hadn’t the courage: it would have been casting a terrible slur on the French army.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 61) “We French had come back to Indochina to fight a war of colonial reconquest. But very soon, almost inspire of ourselves, and certainly in spit of our second thoughts, our monstrous errors, and our basic incomprehension, we have become the only force which keeps the Vietnamese from falling into the Kafkaesque world of Asiatic Communism. And because of that we have millions of people with us, notables and nha-ques alike. No doubt they don’t like us, and will want to get rid of us later. But in their hearts they have the anguish of knowing that only we can save them.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 61) “We are here to defend human values. . . . to defend them, we must degrade ourselves.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 61) “People . . . must be “converted to the Good. . . . Whoever resists the Good . . . is a criminal.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 62) The officer then defends the torture and murders of the Inquisition of the middle ages. He then claims torture is part of Asian civilization. It is necessary against the “Viets.” The French would lose the war “and we would lose all the support of the population” if they did not torture. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 62) Nevertheless, the officer believes that the Indochinese War with its torture drives one insane. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 63) But the officer explains that the Vietminh on the other hand have a “well-established criteria” for their atrocities. The so-called guilty persons crimes are described and the appropriate punishment implemented. This establishes the “Reds” as the supreme arbiter of conflict and confirms an “obsessive belief that the Party is omnipresent and omniscient. Not even an evil thought can be hidden from the Party.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 63) “The discipline of Viet guerrillas, regulars and cadres is unbelievable. The great rule is that the soldier is the people’s friend. In the villages he helps with the housework and the harvest, he smiles, he’s polite, he plays with the children, he makes himself useful in every way he can. He never steals; any soldier who takes a handful of rice by force is promptly shot before the whole population.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 63) “But he does not know what the Expeditionary Force will do when it bursts into his village; perhaps they will burn down his house, perhaps they will give him medicine. Their punishments and rewards make no sense to him.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 63) “What does a regular army, an occidental army, do about a population in which every individual is involved in the hostilities? The old international law, in which civilians who fight are treated as francs-tireurs, cannot be applied, or we would have to shoot millions of men, old people, women, and children. There is no official point of view. Saigon insists on mildness, and says that we are not making war but suppressing a revolt (though it seems to me the word suppression is even worse than the word war). The high command forbids flam throwers and napalm, and recommends that tanks and artillery should be used with extreme moderation. But big set-piece operations in battalion strength are mounted in areas where there are only guerrillas and assassination committees. Useless and murderous. You attack a village; it turns out no Viets are there; but you have have killed a crowd of nha-ques; and you find women and children lying on the ground torn to pieces by your shell bursts. And after that, they’re supposed to love you!” There are appalling atrocities committed by the Expeditionary Force. Soldiers killed “people passing by” but were simply transferred. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 63-64) The officer claims also that the French execute their own soldiers for rape, for example. However, he claims that frequently the Vietnamese woman claims rape when she doesn’t believe she was paid appropriately. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 64) The officer blames the Vietminh for provoking atrocities by committing much more than the French. The Americans, he said, in what became true during the American War, would commit many more atrocities by simply bombing selected areas. “Liquidate the population and liquidate the problem.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 65) In what would become a familiar tale during the American War, Chien Tranh My, “the officer spoke mournfully of the high command’s clumsy tactics, of poor training for jungle fighting, of too-heavy equipment and a want of mobility, of the army’s enormous and absurd bureaucracy, of excellent Intelligence and purblind staff interpretations, of the Commander in Chief’s shortsighted optimism. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 65-66) “Pignon, the French High Commissioner from 1948-1950, dreamed of a great Vietnamese policy.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 69) Guerrilla Warfare - “Guerrilla warfare is not merely one aspect of the art of fighting. It is in the first place a pitiless logic - the logic of the utter want of compassion. It is the mathematics of persuasion, into which there enter precisely weighed doses of brainwashing and atrocity. It is a matter of arriving at correct solutions by means of dialectic reasoning, solutions that will allow one to dominate human beings completely and turn them into perfect tools for the cause. It requires a total dehumanization; all civilized society’s feelings vanish; individuals no longer exist. The goal is the creation of the People, the politically worked-over mass that acts as the supporting basis for the guerrillas, the mass that is to be urged and drawn on to a higher fate and that is to be sacrificed to that fate.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 33-34) This “infected the French.” It became a facet of their counterinsurgency. “it was corrupting, catching delight in it - Asia’s well-known sadism. In the end it was a sickness of the mind that infected even the most normal human beings.”(Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 34) Despite descriptions of Asian cruelty, Bodard describes the inability of the French Foreign Legion to defeat the Vietminh due to the latters holding “impregnable places of safety just at hand.On the one side the Plain of Reeds thrust out an arm as far as Hocmon, and on the other the Moi forest stretched out to Thuddaumot, a few miles away. Saigon was in easy reach, and there were the hunted Vietminh leaders concealed themselves under a variety of disguises.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 34) A French officer told Bodard that once one of his soldiers is wounded he stops fighting and uses every available soldier to transport the wounded. Due to the jungle marshes this is necessary. He didn’t know what the Vietminh did. “So you don’t kill many Viets? We kill scores of them. But there are always just as many left - in fact more. There’s an inexhaustible supply. And then it’s not always the real full-blown Viet that we kill. We only know afterwards, and not always then. Often they are just villagers, people’s militia . . .” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 40) A large area of jungle occupied by the French “was totally cut off from the Tonkin delta. It was separated from it by the Vietminh” who also had access to Ho Chi Minh’s headquarters. French planes “had to leapfrog” for supplies. The pilots flew on sight alone. There were no communications towers. They frequently crashed. They would also take off with “zero visibility.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 41, 42) The French soldiers “displayed a kind of weariness, a kind of deliberate carelessness.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 41) Dying in Indochina was stupid. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 44) The French High Commissioner d’Argenlieu vehemently opposed the agreement. “The Admiral had served in World War I and . . . joined the Carmelite Order.” He rejoined the navy at the beginning of World War II. He was very close to Charles DeGaulle. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 246) “Like so many Frenchmen, he (d’Argenlieu) was unaware of the force and purpose of the national movement. But once in Saigon, he realized that his mission was bound to fail unless the national rebels were defeated.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 247) Although the French were winning the war against the Viet Minh it was draining them of “postwar treasure (it finally cost France about $10 billion, in addition to $954 million United States aid actually expended in Indochina prior to July, 1954) it became increasingly clear that France had entirely lost sight of any clearly definable war aims. General Henri-Eugene Navarre, the unfortunate French commander-in-chief at the time of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, was to argue later in his book Agonie de l’indochina that there were two acceptable but contradictory war aims: France could be expected to fight the Indochina War alone but with all her might only if the Indochina States would accept a special relationship that would justify the expenditure in blood and money that would entail - and if they were willing to help in the fight to the utmost of their abilities. If, on the other hand, the Indochina War had become an integral part of the world-wide struggle, led by the United States, for the containment of communism, all other nations concerned with stopping communism had an obligation equal to that of France to participate in the struggle.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. vii-viii) Nevertheless, the Vietminh controlled more territory toward the end of 1946 than they had before. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 260) “French intransigence became something like a secret weapons for the Communists. . . . The French insisted on collaboration under conditions that made native self-rule a farce, and the Communists insisted on unity under conditions that forced all other resistance groups to give up their identities and become satellites of the Vietminh.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 260) When war between the Vietminh and the French officially broke in 1946 out the Vietminh had 100,000 soldiers. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 261) The spark for the conflict occurred on August 29, 1946 when “French Army units at Haiphong expelled the Vietnamese from their customs house at Haiphong.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 262) On November 20, 1946 actual combat took place. The first at Langson where the French defeated the Vietminh. The second occurred at Haiphong. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 263) A French seized a Chinese boat so, the Vietminh seized that same French boat and took three prisoners. In the fighting that followed the Vietminh took three more prisoners. The French commander decided to retrieve them all by force. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 263-264) Negotiations followed and the prisoners were released. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 264) On November 23, 1946 the French demanded that the Vietminh forces leave Haiphong. When they did not, "the French threw everything they had into the battle for Haiphong-Infantry, takes, artillery, airplanes, and even naval guns, which fired at Vietnamese sectors where there was no fighting at all. Even civilians who had managed to reach open terrain outside the town were fired upon by the naval guns because they were mistaken for soldiers massing for an attack. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 265-266) Anywhere from 6,000 to 20,000 people were killed. “There was no one left in Haiphong in a position either to count the dead or interested in doing so. . . . The battle for Haiphong lasted several days. Vietnamese resistance was strong, but their arms were inadequate.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 266) The Vietminh government tried to ameliorate the situation. However, the French continued to assert their power over Vietnam much to the despair of the Vietnamese. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 266-267) Giap prepared for war by sending his soldiers out of Hanoi and other large cities. He also ordered “roadblocks between Hanoi and Haiphong. In Hanoi itself, the Vietminh began to erect barricades, dig trenches, fell trees, and bore tunnels for safe passage between their various strongholds. . . . Some needed little provocation to attack French soldiers or even civilians, and not a day now passes without shooting in some part of the city.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 267) However, the French “became daily more aggressive.” And the Saigon French derailed any attempts by Ho Chi Minh to negotiate with Blum. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 268) The French attacked Hanoi removing all barricades and occupying Ho Chi Minh’s house. Better equipped French soldiers were able to push the Vietminh out of areas they controlled. The took over the major “towns and cities in Tongking and northern Annam. However, as in the South, the countryside was and remained under effective Vietminh control.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 269) FRENCH PUBLIC Much has been made about who fired the first shot. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 269) But the real issue is French resistance to historical inevitability, namely, nationalism. Also, and ironically, the French war against the Vietnamese “violated the very principles on which France herself bases her political existence.” The wartime leader Charles DeGaulle exerted heavy influence on French politics at the time and stated, “United with the overseas territories which she [France] opened to civilization, France is a great power. Without these territories she would be in danger of no longer being one.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 270) The French argued that the were fighting against communism, nothing else. “France, it seems, was sacrificing her wealth and her manpower to save Vietnam for the free world. It was a conflict between Democracy and Communism.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 278) It quickly became clear that this was a colonial war. “The military welcomed the war . . . for they knew that negotiation meant recognition of Vietnam’s independence, and this the French were unwilling to grant.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 278) As Paris began to make “concessions” to end the war the French colonials sabotaged them which led to charges of French “duplicity” as well as extended the war. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 280) Those who wanted negotiations created the question of, if you do not negotiate with the Vietminh, then who do you negotiate with? The French contended that the Vietminh “were not really representative of the people.” Therefore, would it be possible for the French to create another government that they could negotiate with? “And if such a government were to become capable of taking the wind out of the sails of the Vietminh, would it not have to obtain what the Vietminh tired to achieve-full independence. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 281) Interestingly, General Leclerc initially believed that the war “could not be won” as the Vietnamese were united against the French. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 284) He believed that there was only a political solution. Despite this the French military in Vietnam was confident. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 285) Interestingly as well, the French government claimed that Vietminh radio broadcasts desiring peace could not be considered official and therefore could be ignored. Even the French Communists supported the hostile French Indochina policy. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 285) “However, when, after two months of fighting, it became evident that prospects for a quick military solute were anything but good, Leclerc’s belief that the main problem in Vietnam was political rapidly gained ground in the more enlightened circles of the Left and Center.” The military “remained ludicrously optimistic.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 285) “Once the war spread to the North and Ho Chi Minh called the nation to arms, even the exiled anti-Vietminh and the Dong Minh Hoi appealed to the people to join the fight against the French.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 288) The French then offered liberty over independence. What did that mean? It “meant that the army, diplomacy, the federal services, and the federal budget would remain in French hands.” The French were determined “to remain masters of Vietnam.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 293) “Driven from Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh and his government had retired into the old rebel country known as the Viet Bac, as inaccessible to the French for the time being as were the large Vietminh held territories in northern Annam and their mountainous retreat south of Hue.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 294) “The first great attempt to destroy the Vietminh militarily was known to have failed.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 303) In October 1949, the same time the Communists took control over China, the French agreed to limited self government for the Vietnamese. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 309) “After five years of costly and arduous effort, the French were farther from their goal than they had been at the outbreak of hostilities. . . . At first the war had gone badly for the Vietminh. They had lost not only Hanoi, Haiphong, and Hue, but by the end of March, 1947, they had also almost all towns in Tongking and northern Annam and many of their lines of communication. The Vietminh army, which had remained largely intact, was moved into the Viet Bac, the mountainous region north of Hanoi, and for the duration of the war the Viet Bac remained a training ground, supply base, and command center of the armed forces, as well as the governmental and organizational headquarters of the Vietminh.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 316) First, the French could not occupy the whole country. By 1947, the Vietminh controlled the countryside and the the only conclusion that could be reached was that the whole country of Vietnam was against the French. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 316-317) “The strong nationalist and anti-French sentiment of the population explained the widespread support enjoyed by the Vietminh fighting units. This support made it possible for them to assemble without fear of discovery, to replenish their ranks, and to create an intelligence network that kept them informed about the strength, movement, and even the plans of the French.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 317) As the Vietminh began to attack the French in 1950 and, as the Vietminh controlled most of the country, the French realized that they could not garner enough soldiers to defeat them. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 319) “An erroneous opinion that gained currency soon after the outbreak of the Indochina War holds that the defeat of the French was due to their alleged ignorance of Vietminh military theory and Vietminh ingenuity in mobilizing the population. But the French knew a great deal more in 1952 than the Americans had learned in 1965.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 336) “Nor was the French defeat due to massive outside (Chinese) aid to the Vietminh, despite the claims of Western propaganda. The French were losing long before Chinese aid became effective. And since Chinese aid resulted in vastly greater and speedier US assistance, it is safe to say that the Vietminh would have defeated the French also without Chinese aid.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 336-337) The Viet Minh began their attacks on the northern highlands where Dien Bien Phu is located in October, 1952. They “overran the first line of French defensive positions in less than a week.” Next came a battle at Na-San. The French brought in enormous amounts of troops and artillery. General Giap decided to have the Viet Minh use “human wave attacks” which were successful for the Chinese in the Korean War. However, the French positions held. The French would use the same strategy at Dien Bien Phu. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 24) “While Giap laid siege to Na-San, a part of his forces bypassed the French hedgehog and plunged deeper into T’ai territory, sweeping aside the light screen of small outposts which stood between them and the border of Laos. The French high command suddenly became aware of the new danger and hurriedly marched a Laotian light infantry battalion from San Neua to Dien Bien Phu. But it was obviously no match for of the Viet-Minh’s 316th Division plus the 148th Independent Regiment. Dien Bien Phu was evacuated without a fight on November 30, 1952.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 25) The French military downplayed the loss of Dien Bien Phu. However, “journalists and other observers knew that the loss of the whole highland area . . . constituted a severe French defeat. The occupation of Dien Bien Phu in particular gave the Viet-Minh an open door into northern Laos. General Salan, despite what his press officer said, was perfectly aware of the importance of the valley of Dien Bien Phu.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 25) However, a secret order, issued by General Salan, recognized the significance of the valley and ordered the recapture Dien Bien Phu in early 1953. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 25) It was also an acknowledgement that the “situation had badly deteriorated” in the Red River Valley. Retaking Dien Bien Phu would threaten “the Viet Minh rear areas.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 26) “Salan underlined the usefulness of a reconquest of Dien Bien Phu as a stepping stone to the relief of the garrison of encircled Na-San. There can therefore be no doubt that the importance of Dien Bien Phu had become ingrained in French military thinking. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 26) In late November of 1952 a Laotian battalion allied with the French had withdrawn from Dien Bien Phu and left the area to the Viet Minh. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 8-9) Interestingly, no one thought that the Viet Minh would attack the local village because it was economically and agriculturally successful. Opium that was produced was used by the Viet Minh to buy American weapons and European medicine “on the black markets of Bangkok and Hong Kong.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 9) Large Viet Minh units formed at Dien Bien Phu. They had combat experience; victory and defeat. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 9) “What had attracted Viet-Minh heavy weapons units to Dien Bien Phu was exactly what made the valley attractive to the French High Command also : wide open spaces in the midst of a mountain area whose unused airfield (the Viet-Minh, of course, did not possess a single aircraft) could be put to good use as both a firing range and a training ground for the troops.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 9-10) The airstrip at Dien Bien Phu was “sabotaged against possible use by French aircraft.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 10) The Viet Minh knew that the upcoming battle would see them face the best of the French Army. As the French paratroops dropped the Viet Minh began shooting. The paratroops were scattered. This proved a problem for the Viet Minh as well as the French forces were not in one place. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 11) There were French military officers who “opposed to the idea of establishing another airhead behind Communist lines.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 18) Navarre presented plans that ignored the air base at Na-San. “Na-San tied down the effectiveness of a light division and an important share of the available air transport tonnage without tying down even its own equivalent in enemy manpower.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 31) After the war, Navarre and Cogny argued over who and why a base at Dien Bien Phu was set up. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 31) “Certainly it would be unrealistic to expect the Vietnamese to rally to a French colonial cause, to fight the Vietnamese of the Vietminh with only unreliable promises of something describes as free association with the French Union.” In France, however, French officials questioned relying on Vietnamese forces to fight the war. It would also take about a year to train these forces. (Randle 9) General Pau Ely, the French army chief of staff, “warned the government that the Navarre Plan would not permit General Navarre to hold Laos, and might even result in the loss of the Red River delta if the Vietminh launched a determined offensive.” (Randle 9) The American military establishment doubted the workability of the Navarre Plan. However, the Americans decided to let the French make their own decisions which included “the Laniel government’s rejection of negotiating directly with the DRVN.” (Randle 17) “The Indochinese War had not yet caught the attention of the American public.” (Randle 17) An American government concern was how to support the French and keep the war a French affair and to modify right-wing Republicans. (Randle 17) Laniel played both sides in France: those who wanted to end the war through negotiation and those who wanted to pursue victory. (Randle 18) In the years of the Laniel government, “the Vietminh were rebels and therefore could not demand to be treated as a legitimate entity, particularly since France and her allies had recognized another government of the Vietnamese people.” (Randle 18) Operation Castor began on November 20, 1953. First, there was an aerial assessment of Dien Bien Phu as to where beast to drop paratroopers and supplies. Weather was most significant. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 1) General Rene Cogny commanded the French in Viet-Nam. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 2) The airplane mechanics worked exhaustively to keep the planes supplying Dien Bien Phu in working order. however, there were not enough mechanics for the planes. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 3) The Viet Minh already had forces in the area and this would endanger some of the troop and supply drops at Dien Bien Phu. Therefore, General Gilles hoped to paratroop soldiers in such a way as to surround the Viet Minh and capture their commander. But that was a fantasy. The French did not have enough soldiers to perform such as task. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 4) “Natasha” was the name of the first drop zone. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 5) The paratroopers were supremely confident of victory. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 6) However, the paratroop drop from the planes meant that they would be dispersed over more territory than had been planned. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 7-8) In the first battle it was French and Vietnamese fore who defended the base. This is significant because “mixed French-Vietnamese units on the whole fought better than purely Vietnamese units and also purely European units (who did not have the benefit of the knowledge of local terrain and language of their Vietnamese comrades) is an important lesson of the French-Indochina War that apparently was forgotten in south Viet-Nam ten years later.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 8) French General Navarre built up his forces to achieve victory in 1954 or 1955. (Roger Hilsman. To Move a Nation. 100) However, the French generals “persisted in fighting the guerrilla war with large-scale conventional tactics-which permitted General Giap, the Viet Minh supreme commander, to choose just when and where he would accept the challenge to fight a conventional battle.” (Roger Hilsman. To Move a Nation. 100) Dien Bien Phu would be the place chosen by the French to defeat the Viet Minh by blocking their supply lines from China. Thus, Navarre put his best soldiers, “elite parachutists, and made it a standing dare to the Viet Minh” at Dien Bien Phu. (Roger Hilsman. To Move a Nation. 100) By January 30, 1954, the portions were set as Giap place soldiers “in the hills around Dien Bien Phu while other troops and thousands of peasant sympathizers began the “impossible” task of hauling artillery up over the mountainous trails by hand.” (Roger Hilsman. To Move a Nation. 100) However, believing he had the upper hand “Giap attacked Na Sam on November 23 [1953 and was] repulsed.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 349) Licking his wounds Giap took “a rather unimportant and poorly garrisoned town by the name of Dien Bien Phu.” He took posts along the Laotian border. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 350) In December 1953 Giap moved his forces into Laos. In January 1954 General “Navarre began his much advertised and later much criticized Operation Atlante. He “relied heavily on units of the Vietnamese National Army. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 355-356) The French moved north where they were met by the Vietminh. The battle that ensued was more bloody than Dien Bien Phu and the French forces were wiped out. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 356) “On May 7, 1954, the French forces at Dienbienphu surrendered, and on May 8, the discussions at Geneva turned to the question of Indochina.” Continued military advances by the Vietminh left the Russians and Chinese concerned that the US would become involved. The two nations were sure that a partition of Vietnam would benefit the Vietminh in the long run. This pressure on Hanoi did not sit well with the Vietminh. (Roger Hilsman. To Move a Nation. 102-103) The defeat of communism in Indochina became a serious issue after the Chinese communist victory in 1949. The US refused to negotiate with Ho Chi Minh and believed that the future of the war against communist expansion lay at Dien Bien Phu. The Eisenhower Administration supported the Bao Dai solution. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 360) This made the Franco-Vietnam War a war between East and West, between communism and democracy. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 360) Many American “legislators, political analysts, and military leaders, were opposed to aiding France as long as the Associated States were denied full independence.” The US, however, decided that aid to the French would not help them defeat the Vietminh. The US support for the French in Indochina had to do with fighting communism rather than, as it appeared, to support French colonialism. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 361) In May 1950 the United States committed monies to support the French military effort in Indochina which they claimed would “bring stability and order to Indochina.” The beginning of the Korean War increased the Truman Administrations concerns over the war in Indochina. Following the armistice in Korea in 1953 the Eisenhower administration focused on Indochina. (Randle 10) President Eisenhower evoked concern that communist armies would shift their efforts from Korea to Indochina thus misunderstanding the war on a fantastic scale. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles reiterated this view two days later. (Randle 10) The PAVNs invasion of Laos in April 1953 prompted the United States to give “C-119 troop transports to the Royal Laotian government.” The Eisenhower Administration worried that Thailand could be threatened and so would receive American military aid. Following the Korean War the Chinese increased their aid to the DRVN. (Randle 10) As a result, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles announced on September 2, 1953 that, “Communist China has been and now is training, equipping and supplying the communist forces in Indochina. There is the risk that, as in Korea, Red China might send its own army into Indochina. The Communist Chinese regime should realize that such a second aggression could not occur without greave consequences which might not be confined to Indochina.” (Randle 11) In addition, the Americans were frustrated by French failure “to solve the problem of Vietnamese independence. Unless the charge of colonial repression could bee avoided - unless the French could be persuaded to give the Vietnamese genuine independence - the government of the State of Vietnam could not win the allegiance of the Vietnamese nationalists and the Navarre Plan could not succeed.” (Randle 11) “A report of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs stated in June 1953: . . . that until the peoples of the Associated States are assured of receiving their ultimate independence, success in driving out the communist invaders will be difficult, if not impossible to achieve.” (Randle 11-12) The US pushed France to do at least give the semblance of independence to the Vietnamese but decidedly did not lobby for real independence. Furthermore, the US did not want to be associated with maintaining French colonialism. (Randle 12) The US also introduced the domino theory, namely, that all of Southeast Asia would go communist if the Vietminh were not defeated and the French were not victorious. This became more important than the independence of Vietnam. The US spread propaganda that the Communists were outside influences and indigenous to Vietnam. The US would do all it could to derail a peace agreement after the fall of the French. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 361) Other Americans were shocked by the French acceptance of defeat and appalled by the idea of compromise. The China Lobby and Republicans viewed this as, “another betrayal of the cause of freedom. Vice-President Nixon, Secretary Dulles, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Radford, also took the position that such compromise must be avoided, if necessary through direct U.S. military intervention.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 365) “The maneuverings of these three powerful men, which, in the absence of Presidential leadership, remained uncoordinated throughout, are among the saddest chapters in U.S. diplomacy. The first one to act, entirely on his own, to bring about direct military intervention, was Admiral Radford. He induced Ely to postpone his departure for Paris . . . during which he persuaded the receptive French general that a massive U.S. airstrike could still save the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu. Radford assured Ely that Eisenhower would approve such a step.” The French agreed. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 365-366) However, the US changed its mind. However, “Dulles had an entirely different concept of the U.S. role.” However, he needed US Congressional support. And, Dulles did not want a one time attack to help at Dien Bien Phu; he wanted to free Indochina from communism. And, the US would lead a “Western coalition.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 366) However, with popular support for the war waning in France the French believed that the Americans were “willing to fight to the last French soldier.” (Randle 13-14) American involvement in the war was “suspect.” (Randle 14) There was talk that the US would become directly involved. Congressional reaction did not support this. (Randle 14) “The United States could increase its diplomatic pressure to persuade the French to grant independence to the Associated States. This could result in the French pulling out of Indochina altogether, which, in view of the popularity of the Vietminh in many areas of Indochina (a fact appreciated in hight government circles), would result in a Vietminh takeover of Vietnam, and possible even Laos and Cambodia. If, on the other hand, this increased pressure did not eventuate in a withdrawal of French Union forces, it would antagonize the French, weaken the Western alliance, and most certainly jeopardize the European Defense Community treaty, which had not yet been rectified by the French National Assembly.” (Randle 14) The United States did not look at a Communist Vietnam as independent of the USSR and Red China in 1953. Therefore, Indochina was still considered “strategically important” by the United States. (Randle 16) Thus, the American view “on the strategic significance of a Vietminh victory described the situation in such metaphors as a chain reaction, a cork in a bottle, and a row of dominoes - implying that all Southeast Asia would become Communist if the Vietminh should emerge victorious.” (Randle 17) The spread of communism worried the Americans more than “satisfying the nationalist aspirations of Vietnamese elites.” French negotiation with the Vietminh appeared to satisfy that issue. (Randle 17) In early April 1954 Eisenhower and Dulles decided against military intervention in Indochina “unless the Chinese intervened.” Nevertheless, the Americans threatened intervention. (Randle, Robert. Geneva 1954: the settlement of the Indochinese War. ix) Interestingly, Dulles misjudged the French military situation at Dien Bien Phu. He was unimpressed by the significance of the battle. In addition, Dulles wanted international support, namely, from the British. They refused to be involved in Indochina. In the end both the French and British refused to be involved in any Dulles plan. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 367) However, Dulles’ approach was “characterized by astuteness and an acute sense of political realities and the limited they imposed and the possibilities they offered.” (Randle, Robert. Geneva 1954: the settlement of the Indochinese War. ix) Finally, by 1953, the Vietnamese national army under Bao Dai came to be. This made the war now a civil war. In addition, the conflict became internationalized with “the Communist powers on the one side and the United States on the other.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 338) However, it was clear that the “Bao Dai solution” had failed to produce a [peaceful result and this left many Vietnamese frustrated. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 303) By 1953 the Vietminh had grown in power and the Vietnamese National Army under Bao Dai floundered. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 347) “clear heads in the nationalist camp foresaw that France would lose Vietnam even thong she might still win the war. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 347) By 1953 the Viet Minh had grown and now contained “well-trained, regular combat divisions that could take on anything the French could oppose them with.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. ix) “With Korean War terminated . . . Chinese instructors and Chinese-provided Russian and American equipment began to arrive in North Viet-Nam en masse. The enemy now had seven mobile divisions and one full-fledged artillery division, and more were likely to come rapidly from the Chinese divisional training camps near Ching-Hsi and Nanning. ” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. ix) Consequently, the French believed that their best strategy was to “induce the enemy to face up to them in a set-piece battle, by offering the Viet-Minh a target sufficiently tempting to pounce at, but sufficiently strong to resist the onslaught once it came. It was an incredible game, for upon its success hinged not only the fate of the French forces in Indochina, and France’s political role in Southeast Asia, bu the survival of Viet-Nam as a non-Communist state and, to a certain extent, that of Laos and Cambodia as well - and perhaps (depending on the extent to which one accepts the falling dominoes theory) the survival of some sort of residual Western presence in the vast mainland area between Calcutta, Singapore, and Hong Kong.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. ix) Giap began the final military struggle in October, 1952. “He assemble east of the Red River.” The French prepared to be attacked. However, the Vietminh secretly moved their forces elsewhere. They capture Nghia Lo and soundly defeat the French forces. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 348) The French respond with Operation Lorraine where General Salan will throw most of his forces in an effort to block General Giap because Giap did not move as Salan thought he would. However, Operation Lorraine collapsed “of its won weight. . . . It took the French a full week to retreat behind the de Lattre Line.” The Vietminh ambushed the French as well. In addition, the Vietminh refused to enter into a major battle. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 349) The French believed that the Viet-Minh would again invade Laos. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 34) General Cogny’s staff was horrified. They were “vociferously opposed to the whole operation.” Gogny agreed. He wrote that the General Staff prepared for a European war and that their ideas were outright wrong. There is, they said, no way to stop Viet-Minh infiltration. The whole battle will turn into a meat grinder. That the Viet-Minh can easily block the base with just one regiment. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 35-36) More communications revealed that Cogny’s staff believed that “being cut off from the rice of Dien Bien Phu would be of only minor importance to the enemy in any case; that French-led guerrilla units in the area were not yet effective and than an early operation at Dien Bien Phu could well bring about their destruction.” Bombing the area around Dien Bien Phu was a waste, they argued, because too much French aircraft would be needed. They concluded that the French forces would be outnumbered. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 36) The French believed they could defend their Dien Bien Phu with what experience showed was too little men. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 40) In addition, the French were either over confident of their abilities or dangerously condescending of the Viet Minh’s. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 44) The Viet-Minh made clear that they would fight “in the jungle valley.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 45) At the same time, Navarre ordered an attack in south central Viet Nam, called Operation Atlante. This weakened his defense of Dien Bien Phu. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 45) It was a contradiction. Navarre had refused Cogny’s request to relieve the pressure on Dien Bien Phu with an attack on the Viet Minh. Now Navarre proposed an attack of little military value. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 46) One of the areas the French meant to attack with Atlante had been under Viet Minh control for nine years. “After an initially successful landing at Tuy-Hoa behind Communist lines on January 20, 1954, the operation bogged down completely. The Vietnamese troops who were to receive their baptism of fire in the beachhead either gave a poor account o themselves or settled down to looting. The Vietnamese civil administrator who began to pour into the newly liberated areas were, if anything, worse than the military units.” The Viet Minh were not phased. The “went on the counteroffensive on the southern mountain plateau, destroying Regimental Combat Team 100 and compelling Navarre to summon from North Viet-Nam airborne troops which had been located there as theater reserves for Dien Bien Phu.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 47) At the same time, in December 1953, the Americans vastly increased their military aid to the French for their war in Indochina. Therefore, “more French troops had become available and there was plenty of American materiel on hand to arm them. Tens of thousands of new Vietnamese recruits were joining the French Union forces. The French forces held the initiative throughout Indochina and the enemy seemed for once uncertain as to what to do next.” However, Ho Chi Minh told a Swedish reporter that he was ready to negotiate “an armistice and a settlement of the Indochinese question.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 47) The Battle of Dien Bien Phu was set and meant that the French would sacrifice some soldiers in order to defeat the Viet Minh. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 50) A post war investigation by the French found that General “Navarre’s lack of knowledge of jungle warfare in the marshes of Indochina was the principal cause of a fatal flaw in reasoning : On the basis of intelligence provided him, Navarre felt that the Viet-Minh could hardly concentrate more than one division at Dien Bien Phu within a month’s time and that it would be impossible for the enemy to maintain more than a two-division siege force at Dien Bien Phu even for a limited period in view of the severe pounding of his communication lines by the French Air Force.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 50) This was the main flaw in French thinking; “underestimation of the Viet-Minh’s capabilities.” Later the French military would believe that this was a substitution of the facts. Interestingly, Viet Minh commanders shared these doubts as well. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 50) Viet-Minh soldiers were “inexperienced in the destruction of well-entrenched and mutually supporting strongpoints. Thus, a series of headlong rushes against such French fortifications could well result in extremely heavy losses and a perhaps crippling deterioration of morale. Failure could set back the over-all Communist plan for a general offensive by a year, after which the new influx of extremely large amounts American aid would make itself felt in Indochina and would permit the French vastly to expand the native Indochinese armies.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 51) “In the deadly guessing game that is grand strategy, the little Vietnamese history professor with his largely self-taught military science had totally outguessed the French generals and colonels with their general staff school diplomas. As the divisions of the Viet-Nam Peoples’ Army swiftly began to close in on the garrison of Dien Bien Phu, and the latter made no move to evacuate the valley, Giap knew that the final victory in the battle was to be his.” He achieved surprise and that he said was the key to his victory. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 51) “The Battle of Dien Bien Phu was lost during the brief fortnight between November 25 and December 7, 1953. It was not lost in the little valley in Viet-Nam’s highland jungles but in the air-conditioned map room of the French commander-in-chief.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 51-52) The lightly armed French airborne forces were not familiar with building or defending fixed positions. They also did not realize that an attack was imminent “by vastly superior forces.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 53) One French military officer refused to command the base because he said “that the defense of Dien Bien Phu would be be an open invitation to disaster.” Finally, Col. de Castries took the position. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 54) Viet Minh well camouflaged. French fire artillery but hit their own forces instead. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 82) The French attacked and slowly cleared the the hidden Viet Minh positions but at a great loss of life. Hand to hand combat, “flame throwers and explosive charges” were used. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 83) From December 20, 1953 to February 15, 1954 the French lose about ten percent of their troops in battle. The French forces are told to use less ammunition. The French lose the high ground around Dien Bien Phu. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 84) While the Viet Minh camouflaged the French did not. They did not even try to hide their positions. “The urgent needs for construction wood led, to be sure, to the almost immediate felling of all the trees in the position area. The trees were followed within a short time by all the bushes, which were used as fuel for the hundreds of cooking fires of the garrison. The constant marching to and fro of 10,000 men, 118 vehicles, ten tanks, and five bulldozers took care of the grass. Within a few weeks, even the slightest slit trench or the brown earthy background of the valley like a Chinese ink drawing. Each artillery piece and mortar could be seen from far away, glistening in its wide-open firing position. And since there was neither space nor materials available for alternate gun positions, enemy observers hidden in the hills were able to pinpoint every heavy weapon in the fortress.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 93) In addition, many radio sets required antennae which also gave away the operator’s position. Furthermore, no camouflage was used. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 94) “General de Castries counted firmly on the massive use of firepower and the relative mobility of his forces to destroy the enemy before he could decisively harm the garrison.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 96) “As it became clear that the battle for Dien Bien Phu was going to be a slugging match, the French High Command decided to provide Dien Bien Phu with sufficient heavy firepower to enable it to destroy the enemy’s field pieces by counterbattery fire, and to smash his infantry attacks against the strongpoints by withering protective fires.” They believed their artillery to be first rate. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 98) American artillery supplies helped. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 99) In addition, the French believed their fighter bombers gave them a significant advantage. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 98) An American officer suggested that the French “quadruple mounts of .50 caliber machine guns” as they had been devastating against human wave attacks in the Korean War. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 99) “By mid-March, the French defenders at Dienbienphu were in trouble, and Washington was worried.” The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Radford offered US bombers to “eliminate” the Viet Minh positions at Dien Bien Phu. This was called Operation Vulture. (Roger Hilsman. To Move a Nation. 100-101) The United States, as Hilsman stated, relied on strategic bombing to win wars, and thus, “make war “immaculate,” to move it up above the jungle muck and blood of ground combat to the clean blue skies. General Navarre was ecstatic and believed this would also deter the Chinese from entering the war as they did in Korea. (Roger Hilsman. To Move a Nation. 101) American congressional leaders were not impressed with Radford’s claims. And if the bombing failed to destroy the Viet Minh they asked, would the US send military forces to Indochina, as had happened in Korea? And, “the wanted to know why Radford and Dulles were so sure that the Chinese Communists would not intervene.” Also, where did our allies stand? (Roger Hilsman. To Move a Nation. 101) In the end, congressional leaders stipulated that US allies would have to also aid the French; that Indochina should be given its in dependence as soon as possible; and, however, that the French keep its army in Indochina. (Roger Hilsman. To Move a Nation. 101) However, beginning on “March 13, Communist artillery fire rapidly neutralized the main artillery positions inside Dien Bien Phu itself, while the field guns stationed at Isabelle found themselves beyond effective range of the northern strongpoints and thus were incapable of taking the place of the muzzled artillery positions.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 100) Also, put out of commission were the artillery “observation posts and observation aircraft . . . during the first forty-eight hours of the battle.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 101) The artillery commander was Piroth. He would commit suicide after the first day of fighting. He bragged that the Viet Minh would not get their artillery close enough to be of any use. If they did, Piroth’s artillery would “smash them.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 101) At the same time “Navarre was worried: Beatrice was surrounded by impenetrable jungle hills which could conceal scores of enemy heavy guns, and once Beatrice was in enemy hands, it was obvious that much of Dien Bien Phu was going to be under enemy fire.” However, Piroth dismissed that fact saying that French artillery would first destroy the Viet Minh artillery. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 102) In addition, it was nearly impossible to aerial photograph the area. So, the Americans supplied “infrared film” and “newly developed camouflage-detection film as well. Both had worked effective in Korea. In Viet-Nam, they were total failures.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 103) Nevertheless, the French Air Force accurately estimated the amount of heavy equipment the Viet Minh were able to set up. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 104) “As early as February 14, 1954, Le Monde’s veteran correspondent Robert Guillain reported from Dien Bien Phu all that had to be known about the Viet-Minh’s siege techniques: Without us seeing it, the Views built their positions right under our eyes, and not on the reverse slope but on the one facing us. Guillain, who had been to Korea, correctly stated that similar situations have existed there, but that fantastically dense American air strikes usually overcame the obstacle and neutralized such positions.” Guillain concluded that the French lacked effective “airborne fire power.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 104) Nevertheless, the French did not hold the high ground. They thought they had superior fire power to counter this imbalance. They were wrong. In addition, French maps of Dien Bien Phu were poor and certainly not of good to artillery planners. To make matters worse the Viet Minh captured the French artillery planning map. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 104) In the French favor however realized the effectiveness of Viet Minh artillery and set out to correct the situation. They were helped in that they “deciphered Communist logistics code” so that they knew the where Viet Minh artillery were located. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 105) Despite all the fighting the Viet Minh “refused to come out in the open and fight.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 105) The French defenses at Dien Bien Phu were not good. Aircraft and ammunition dumps were dangerously close and were hit during the battle. Defensive positions were poorly constructed as well. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 105, 107) Ironically, none of the civilian or foreign military observers made note of these deficiencies. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 105-106) An American, General Trapnell, was impressed as he observed American supplies being used. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles told President Eisenhower that the French were concerned that the war was not going well for them. French General Blanc wrote a report which stated that, “by April 15 the fortress would be a marsh drowning in the monsoon rains, and to destroy the enemy’s main battle force there was a pure illusion.” Nevertheless, Eisenhower replied to Dulles that, Lieutenant General John “Iron Mike” O’Daniel assured him that things were fine. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 108) There were two American army colonels and one American air force officer observing and advising at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and none of them counsels the French against their folly. By March, 1954, the Viet Minh artillery had wrecked many. French aircraft and the air field as well. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 109) According to French intelligence the nearby village was ordered cleared “by noon Saturday, March13, 1954. . . . Previous experience suggested that the enemy would attack at an hour when it would still be light enough for him to register his artillery fires, but too late for the French fighters based at Dien Bien Phu effectively to intervene in the battle, and for those based in Hanoi to intervene at all.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 110) The Viet Minh “chose to drive approach trenches as close as possible to the French portions, from which they emerged at the opportune moment under the cover of their own artillery fire.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 94) So it was not surprising that during the beginning of the battle at Dien Bien Phu Viet Minh artillery proved incredibly accurate. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 94) French forces multinational: Laotian, “French, Foreign Legion, Vietnamese, Arabic, and African.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 53) 500 observation aircraft landed at Dien Bien Phu. At the same time another small airfield, described as dangerous for pilots, was also vulnerable to nearby Viet Minh attacks. It was finally evacuated to Dien Bien Phu. This began in November 1953. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 19) The withdrawing French forces knew the terrain well. However, “roving units of [Viet Minh] finally caught up with them when they were two days’ march away from Dien Bien Phu, and their last leg of their march became a continuous battle against well-laid Communist ambushes.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 19-20) T’ai people fought with the French. There is animosity between the T’ai and the Vietnamese who regard the T’ai as savages. The French told the world that they had successfully taken Dien Bien Phu and were there to stay. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 20) However, the French overextended. Their air force did not have the range to aid them at Dien Bien Phu. Nor did they have enough artillery or armor. Thus, the Viet Minh “began to find the valley of Dien Bien Phu most attractive.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 20-21) Following the French return to Viet Nam in 1946 the Viet Minh “refused to be drawn into a major battle. Finally, the French offered them 17,000 troops in the valley of Dien Bien Phu as bait, just as the Mongols had attempted to corner Dao in the plain of Bach-Dang. In a grueling fifty-six day fight the Viet-Minh won.” (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 47) However, “Dien Bien Phu sealed the division of Viet-Nam into a northern Communist and a southern non-Communist state; their cultures would soon diverge under the competing influences of Russian and Chinese training in the north and American training in the South. (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 47) Before Operation Atlante the Vietminh had already surrounded Dien Bien Phu. Ironically, Dien Bien Phu was strategically insignificant. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 356) The Vietminh were entirely camouflaged; not even to be seen by air reconnaissance. The French were outnumbered two to one. However, they believed their superior equipment would rule the day. American officials agreed. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 357) The battle began on March 13, 1954. In a few days, with heavy Vietminh artillery and suicide attacks the French airstrip became problematic. As a French defeat appeared likely the French requested US military intervention. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 358, 359) In 1954 as the battle of Dien Bien Phu raged the French asked for US. Help in defeating the Viet Minh. However, the US still smarted from the Korean War. However, the Vietminh had superior artillery and were too well concealed to be bombed. In addition, French aircraft could not use the airstrip because of Vietminh artillery and bad weather. The Vietminh were able to use human muscle to bring up their heavy weapons and supplies. The French did not consider this. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 357) Also, Giap delayed the attack for weeks and this frustrated the French. They would know that the Vietminh had them in a tighter noose than previously realized. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 357) Some French leaders questioned this French military strategy. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 358) “Vietminh artillery had put the airstrip out of commission; the wounded could no longer be evacuated; supplies had to be parachuted into the camp. Digging a complex network of trenches within yards of the French defenses, the enemy encircled the garrison and the French were unable to break through.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 369) “On the Viet-Minh side March 13 was the payoff for almost five months fo backbreaking labor: the transportation through hundreds of miles of jungle of thousands of tons of supplies, and the gamble of Gen. Giap and his able chief of staff at Dien Bien Phu, General Hoang Van Thai.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 125) The Viet Minh had failed in previous attacks on French fortified positions. “French artillery and fighter bombers in 1951-1952, had been a failure.” There were others. “Considering how long it took the Viet-Minh logistical system to build up supply depots with human carriers and its small pool of Russian trucks, a last-minute French decision to pull out from Dien Bien Phu by air would leave the bulk of the Communist battle force almost in the middle of nowhere, while the French would be free, thanks to their high airborne mobility, to concentrate their troops for an attack on the Viet-Minh’s sensitive rear bases to the north of the Red River Delta.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 125) However, Giap used “daring raids” to force “Navarre to fritter away his last mobile reserves.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 125) In November, 1953 Viet Minh “General Vuong Thua Vu’s crack 308th Division, composed almost entirely of volunteers from Hanoi and the province of Vinh-Puc-Yen, started its march toward Dien Bien Phu . . . under steady pelting by French fighters and bombers which, to all appearances, had little effect.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 126) If the Viet Minh had only infantry to attack the French they would have lost even though they out manned the French three to one. The Viet Minh learned from the Chinese and the Russians the concept of the “Heavy Division.” They created the famed 351st which used “concentrated artillery fire” which the Russians used to defeat the Germans during World War II. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 126) There were several Viet Minh artillery units which received training in China and 75mm howitzers and 105mm howitzers captured during the Chinese Civil War or the Korean War. They entered Dien Bien Phu in late 1953 and early 1954. Also, Viet Minh infantry was well equipped with anti-air weapons and the “normal complement of heavy weapons and mortar battalions.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 127) This gave the Viet Minh superiority in weapons and the French air forces could not overcome this. The Viet Minh did not have an air force. Nevertheless, this did not surprise the French They knew for over a year that the Viet Minh had this capability. “What surprised the French completely was the Viet-Minh’s ability to transport a considerable mass of heavy artillery pieces across roadless mountains to Dien Bien Phu and to keep it supplied with a sufficient amount of ammunition to make the huge effort worth-while. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 127) “Essentially, then, the battle of Dien Bien Phu was won along the communications lines leading from the Chinese border at Mu Nam Quan over Provincial Road 13-B to the Red River, thence via Provincial Road 41 to Dien Bien Phu. The total length of that trek from the border with all its detours, deep fords, substitutions for blown bridges, and alternate bypasses, was over 500 miles. It is difficult for the Western observer to imagine what it means to keep open 500 miles of jungle road in the face of the constant threat of aerial bombardment and strafing. It would have been extremely difficult had there been available modern roadbuilding machinery and adequate protection against air attacks, as had been the case when American engineers built the Burma Road during World War II. The road to Dien Bien Phu required nearly 20,000 coolies and tribesmen impressed from the nearby villages, who slaved for three months to rebuild the shattered remains of Road 41 and to widen its turns to accommodate the artillery pieces and the 800 Russian-built Molotova 2 1/2-ton trucks which were to become the backbone of the conventional supply system.” Viet-Minh radio broadcast “Everything for the Front, Everything for Victory.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 128) General Giap wrote, “our troops razed hills, cut roads in to the mountainsides and opened the road to the artillery. . . . The secret was well kept thanks to excellent camouflage, and roads were kept open until the end of the battle. . . . Night and day, the enemy bombed those very difficult roads and nonetheless our transports got through on the whole. Hundreds of thousands of dan cong [civilian coolies], women as well as men, surmounted perils and difficulties . . .” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 128-129) According to Fall, there was more than just popular enthusiasm that aided the Viet Minh. It was the 151st Engineer Regiment of the 351 Division. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 129) “Contrary to later allegations, the French High Command was fully aware of the fact that all depended on whether the Communist supply system could be effectively disrupted. Unfortunately, on the basis of the devastating effect of aerial bombardment on conventional supply lines in Europe (and a myth sedulously fostered in the early 1950s by the American proponents of heavy-bomber warfare and used against the Ho Chi Minh Trail in 1965-66), the French Air Force shared the belief of its American colleagues that round-the-clock bombardment of the one Communist communication axis with Dien Bien Phu would actually succeed. Apparently, the United States Air Force had failed (at least by late 1953) to inform its French colleagues in the Far East of the highly ineffective American aerial interdiction operations in 1951-52, known under the code name of Operation “Strangle.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 129) While the Americans destroyed bridges and tunnels the Koreans and then the Vietnamese would use “human carriers” who did not need them. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 129) The American way of war, however, fell victim to “poor roads and bad weather.” The French did not know of the problems the Americans faced in the Korean War. Therefore, they continued. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 130) The French attempted to interdict the Viet Minh supply routes. However, the Viet Minh were able to rebuild roads that had been bombed or simply create new ones, ironically, in places that had been previously bombed by the French. In addition, Viet Minh antiaircraft weapons had markedly improved. The French fly through a “gauntlet” of antiaircraft. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 131) The French did bomb supply routes close to the Chinese border. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 133) To avoid French aircraft the Viet Minh “actually tied the tall tall treetops together until they formed a tunnel of vegetation.” The Viet Minh soldiers kept receiving their ammunition. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 133) “Inexorably, like hundreds of little streams joining together to form a major river, the flow of Viet-Minh coolies, trucks, thousands of hand-pushed bicycles, and pack animals converged on the valley.” The Viet Minh had almost 50,000 personnel including more than 33,000 soldiers. An additional 23,000 Viet Minh support troops “were strung out along communication lines.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 133) The French had about 7,000 combatants. “Thus, in addition to enjoying firepower superiority, Gen. Giap’s forces also enjoyed a superiority in manpower of five-to-one. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 133-134) When the fight began on March 13 the Viet Minh had Beatrice “tightly surrounded.” There was “fierce hand-to-hand combat” and the French “liberally napalmed the area.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 134) One Viet Minh 75mm. howitzer “damaged and destroyed almost a dozen aircraft without being located by the French.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 134) The French defeat at Dien Bien Phu was not the final battle of the French War but it demonstrated that the French could not hold onto Indochina. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 369) A commander at Dien Bien Phu sank into a deep depression. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 1) 85,000 soldiers died and were wounded in the war and the French people and their leaders looked for a way out. “The story of American policy toward Diem illustrates the power of wishful thinking, the shortcomings of U.S. diplomacy, and U.S. ignorance of the most effective methods of fighting Communism. In principle no fault can be found with the decision to help South Vietnam survive as a non-Communist state, if that a turned out to be what the people wanted. But whether or not this was the wish of the people could not be fairly determined in 1954.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 431) The only choice in an election in the South was the much hated French allied candidates. Therefore, Washington wanted there to be a choice between the Vietminh and Diem. “The hope of most Americans for such an anti-Communist Vietnam was for a state that brought its people prosperity, social justice, and the gradual realization of the freedoms for which they had fought in the long struggle for independence. This, according to some Vietnamese nationalists, was the South’s vocation, and only if these conditions were fulfilled could the South become viable, defensible, and worthy of survival. . . . The American people would not have supported their government’s policy of aiding south Vietnam after 1954 had they foreseen that the country, ruled by brutal and sterile dictatorships, could only if the United States went to war.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 431) There was, therefore, a “three-sided tug of war.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 290) The United States did not criticize the French nor did they support the Vietminh. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 294) The only way the United States would support the French in Vietnam is if there was an “independent, not a colonial country, that its government was not headed by a French puppet, and that anti-communism cease to be a device for maintaining French rule.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 308) The United States did not want to offend France either over its Indochina policy. As the war progressed, “Washington was gradually induced to drop its officially neutral stance and take an active part in in the struggle for Indochina.” Ironically, the US believed that “they were being faithful to American ideals of political pragmatism.” US Ambassador William Bullitt claimed that the Vietnamese wanted independence and that precious few were communists. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 359) He did not understand, however, that France and Vietnam were not going to come to an accommodation without Vietnamese independence. Also, going to war against the communists was not going to be agreed to as they were the leaders of Vietnamese independence movement. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 359-360) On April 7, 1954?, President Eisenhower introduced the concept of the domino theory, which stated that if Indochina became communist then the rest of Southeast Asia would become communist. Nevertheless, Eisenhower would not have the US go it alone in Indochina. (Roger Hilsman. To Move a Nation. 101) According to Hilsman, British policy was crucial. They supported the use of atomic weapons as the only way to destroy Viet Minh artillery at Dien Bien Phu. (Roger Hilsman. To Move a Nation. 101) Nevertheless, the British argued, ground forces would be needed as the “Viet Minh strength was popular support for independence and and end to French colonialism.” The result would be Chinese intervention and another Korean War. (Roger Hilsman. To Move a Nation. 101-102) As the Battle of Dien Bien Phu unfolded General Paul Ely of France went to Washington to ask for military assistance including the use of American pilots to fly missions in Indochina. US official were mixed in their reactions. The vast majority of Congress and the vast majority of the Joint Chefs of Staff opposed what they considered another possible Korean War. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 365) President Eisenhower himself could not decide whether to militarily enter the war or not. He would have agreed to intervention if the British had agreed to participate. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 369) “During the entire Geneva period, the diplomacy of the Eisenhower Administration was never anything but wildly incoherent.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 370) They were full of contradictions. One of the most significant was the inconsistent promotion of the domino theory. “On April 9 [before the fall of Dien Bien Phu], Eisenhower had said that the loss of Indochina would cause Southeast Asia to fall like a set of dominoes, but barely five weeks later both he and his secretary of state stated flatly that the retention of Indochina was not essential for the defense of Southeast Asia.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 365) Another group also formed a United Front. They, however, had been French collaborators. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 297-298) Bao Dai, however, was not impressed as he knew they had questionable nationalist commitment. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 298) “Collaborators and would-be collaborators, including the discredited separatists who had helped d’Argenlieu create the Republic of Cochinchina. . . . Le. Van Hoach, still head of the Republic of Cochinchina, representing the Cao Dai, and Nguyen Van Xuan, whom the French had since promoted from colonel to general-the first Vietnamese to be so honored. As soon as it became clear that the that the French considered dropping Cochinese separatism in favor of a national anti-Vietminh regime, Xuan returned to Saigon, and in a repulsive display of opportunism transformed himself from a separatist into a nationalist.” He offered his services to Bao Dai and changed the name of the Cochinchina government to the Government of South Vietnam. Other political parties formed had no “popular appeal.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 299) However, because of the duplicity of Xuan people who joined his government quickly quit. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 307) “The Xuan government, although useless to the French and detrimental to the anti-Vietminh, was allowed to survive for a full year, the second year in which the French made no progress in the war against the Vietminh.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 307) The Vietminh would later try Xuan in abstentia “and sentenced him to death, but because the discredit he brought on anti-Communist nationalism benefited the Vietminh, no effort was made to carry out this sentence.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 306) Most of these people were entirely depended on the French for sustenance. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 300) All of a sudden, however, the Bao Dai hangers on who had demanded a separate state, now insisted on a unified Vietnam. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 303) There were Vietnamese who criticized these French sponsored governments writing that they would not be popular. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 307) Bodard recounted a French officer’s frustration with the insanity of the war and higher ups stupidity. Sound familiar. Unfortunately, he thought the population liked the French even after they destroyed their villages. Also, described Muslim forces raping men. I have hear about this in other wars. (Bodard. 71) “But above all, the great motor, a great driving power, revolved steadily, ceaselessly, efficiently, to the profit of one and all. And this engine that turned out the pilasters without which there would have been no history, no events, no Indochinese war, was Saigon. It was Saigon’s inhabitants, Saigon’s two million piaster-worshipping inhabitants, who kept the war going and who in return derived a wonderful degree of prosperity from it.” (Bodard. 71) Saigon was a multifaceted city, although a city in name only. There was big money with a “civilized . . . middle-class” attitude. The residents had no clue as to why there was a war. (Bodard. 71) Although Saigon presented itself a moral is was immoral. “The only thing that counted was money, and it counted a degree unknown in the rest of the world. . . . This big-money Saigon was the one that carried weight in Paris, the one that had its own lobby there. . . . this particular Saigon owned the Vietnamese government. . . . His Excellency Nguyen De, the Emperor’s principal private secretary, was a former comprador (go between for foreign firms) in the Bank of Indochina. And as for Huu, the prime minister, he had been an official in another bank, the Credit Foncier.” (Bodard. 72) Rich and poor worshipped the piaster to the detriment of any sense of humanity. (Bodard. 72-73) There “was an unknown Saigon, an unhealthy, dangerous city, almost as remote as the other end of the world. The Europeans knew only that undesirable things happened there at the soldier and nha-que level.” (Bodard. 73) Asian millionaires controlled Indochinese banking and therefore the piaster. They joined French and Chinese capitalism which allowed them to exploit the native population.” (Bodard. 73) While the bankers and financiers lived well in Saigon in the rest of the city “there were the straws, a hopeless labyrinth, a shantytown of nearly two million wholly anonymous beings. . . . There were no streets, no shops, no laws. The people had built their own cabins on the bare and stinking earth, on the mud, in the midst of the canals that wound in every direction - canals that were themselves densely populated, covered over with floating cities of sampans and barges crammed side by side in utter promiscuity . . . The whole population of these shantytowns was made up of rootless, displaced people. There was no steady work, no proper way of earning a living. . . . turned themselves into coolies, trishaw drivers, peddlers., . . . outlaws, small-time pimps, small time gangsters, a few laborers and a few men employed at pitiful wages. There were crowds of beggars, cripples, men who were walking corpses, abandoned, eaten up by vile diseases.” (Bodard. 76) “In addition to this there were three main organizations the squeezed the masses by mere brute force. The Vietminh. The Binh Xuyen. The police. They waged a three-sided war among themselves for the monopoly of the racket.” (Bodard. 78) The thirty thousand French who lived in Indochina were concentrated in a small part of Saigon. “Their happiness consisted of pursuing money.” There were official and black market money changers for the piaster. (Bodard. 78) “The very exclusive Sporting Club” did not admit Vietnamese or Chinese. (Bodard. 79) The Saigon elites did not talk about the war although the French press kept them informed. Even though these people could hear “the thunder of artillery or the rattle of machine guns” just outside the city, there was massive “indifference.” Life went on alongside the “fighting and dying.” (Bodard. 80) “Indeed sometimes people would go to watch the war. The best place to see it was from the Majestic. . . . This is where the snobs of Saigon gathered, together with jovial Americans remarkable for their pattered shirts, which they wore outside their trousers.” (Bodard. 81) French sailors strolled over to a village for fun and were murdered. Other sailors responded by burning the village and subsequently killing forty. (Bodard. 81) Bodard describes Cholon as a twin city to Saigon where “the China of the old days, allied to European capitalism. Europeans did not live there, but they went to Cholon for its exotic flavor, for its sophisticated pleasures . . . and for the love of the haughty taxi girls.” (Bodard. 82) As far as the roads are concerned the Vietminh “attack anything that moves.” (Bodard. 83) The beast way to avoid conflict was to travel by air. “The people of Saigon could leapfrog from point to point all over Indochina.” (Bodard. 84) Although the war was expensive for the French it also brought in money to France. And politicians of all political persuasions profited. (Bodard. 87) It was the Chinese who controlled secret banks who “were the real governors of money in the Far East.” (Bodard. 88) Chinese from Macao controlled the economy of Saigon but “the Binh Xuyen wrested it from them after a hidden, underground war.” (Bodard. 93) The reward “was the notorious Grand Monde.” “Cholon was a true Chinese city with all the proper traditions. It was a huge watertight club whose eight hundred thousand members devoted themselves to the practice of wisdom as it was understood in the ancient Chinese conception of life. Life’s only aim was sensual enjoyment. So right conduct consisted of getting the necessary money for pleasure and a life full of delights, whatever the cost.” Most people eked out a living and suffered from “disease and death” for the profligating lifestyle of the few.” (Bodard. 93) Cholon was a sleepy town in the daytime. (Bodard. 93) However, it exported an enormous amount of rice. This all occurred during the war. (Bodard. 94) The Chinese and Vietnamese labored under strenuous conditions and had to pay taxes to both the Vietminh and the Binh Xuyen leaving them very little to live on. (Bodard. 94) Nevertheless, “Cholon was scarcely menaced by famine.” Food was everywhere. (Bodard. 95) Grand Monde - a pivotal battle in Vietnamese history in which the powerful Macao Chinese “Lam Giong was crushed by the small-time bandit Bay Vien, thanks to the support of His Majesty Bao Dai.” (Bodard. 103) The Grand Monde was a collection of “gambling houses” on the “outskirts of Cholon.” It was surrounded by toughs of various types providing security. (Bodard. 103) There were also poor peasants and laborers with their bone protruding; the sight of rich and poor being very stark. (Bodard. 104) “Furthermore this wonderfully organized Grand Monde was one of the pillars of Vietnam. Every year the government once more awarded the contract to Monsieur Lam Giong.” (Bodard. 107-108) Lam Giong paid any potential enemies and key government people to secure his investment. The Vietminh, the police, the Emperor Bao Dai, the sects, especially the Binh Xuyen, all received payments. (Bodard. 108) “At the beginning of 1950 all the Chinese of Cholon and Saigon admired and respected Monsieur Lam Giong.” (Bodard. 109) That soon changed as a grenade was thrown in to one his businesses. “Sixty gamblers around a table were blown to pieces. But the explosion was anonymous. It was not yet known what gang had gone into action against the Macanese.” (Bodard. 110) “Next there was a kidnapping. At first it seemed a perfectly commonplace affair.” Cholon was shocked but Giong would not allow the police to investigate as he knew who the culprits were. And, so did everyone else. It was the Binh Xuyen gang. After a ransom was paid they released the hapless victim. “Bay Vien had chosen this way of announcing his claim to the Grand Monde.” (Bodard. 110) “[Bay Vien] The former convict had become Bao Dai’s favorite and His Majesty’s tool for the total exploitation of the Grand Monde by the court. . . . To be sure, the knowing Lam Giong had already allocated a very handsome share to Bao Dai in 1949, when His Majesty returned to Vietnam. But nevertheless the Macanese Grand Monde remained within the prime minister Huu’s sphere of influence, and Bao Dai wanted it to be within his. The whole of Vietnamese policy in 1950 was concerned with the bitter struggle between the head of the state and the head of the government over the Grand Monde.” (Bodard. 110-111) Bay Vien emerged victorious and Prime Minister Huu and Bao Dai became enemies. Bay Vien changed little in the activities of the Grand Monde but he did stop paying protection to the Vietminh and others, except for the government. The government but no officials were paid. “Bay Vien kept everything for himself . . . the Emperor and the imperial cabinet. This two-handed monopoly of the Grand Monde was to have exceedingly important consequences for the history of Vietnam; it caused jealousies that five years later it caused the fall of Bay Vien and then that of Bao Dai.” (Bodard 111) Interestingly, the Binh Xuyen were part of the Vietminh. However, they were not trusted and so their leaders were killed and the soldiers made a part of the Vietminh. Nguyen Binh knew that Bay view kept funds that were supposed to go to the Vietminh and that Bay Vien was close to French intelligence. The two’s hatred for each other was so strong that they arranged for each other’s murders. For keeping the Vietminh monies Nguyen Binh attacked Bay Vien who “fled blindly across country and reached his oldest haunt, the village of Binh Xuyen near Cholon - in his distress he returned to the place where his gang had first been formed and from which it took its name. Bay Vien was safe, but more than a thousand of his soldiers, surrounded in the rice paddies by the Vietminh, had had their throats cut. He ordered terrible reprisals, for his murder committees in Saigon were still intact, and in one night they wiped out the rival murder committees of Nguyen Binh.” (Bodard. 113) Nevertheless, Bay Vinh was in trouble and the French offered him safe passage to France as a way out. (Bodard. 114) The French and Vietnamese who opposed the Vietminh “sacrificed in cold blood” their countrymen for “speculating and profiteering.” “The models for most Bao Dai ministers and high officials were the French and Vietnamese war profiteers who led luxurious or at least very comfortable lives while their countrymen starved and died. Corruption flourished. Bao Dai officials sold high positions . . . for the defense of the free world. . . . The soldiers of the Vietnamese National Army . . . were shamelessly betrayed by their leaders. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 339) Life was most difficult in the Vietminh areas as the war was fought. There was less suffering, although there was still suffering, in the French held areas. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 338-339) Black market dealing of the currency, the piaster, was “one of the greatest financial scandals in the entire history of colonial Indochina.” The result was an inflation of the piaster and a huge profit made by the dealer. Many French and Vietnamese millionaires were created. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 340) Interestingly, all this aided French exports to Indochina which in turn aided the French colonials in Indochina. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 341) The French manipulation of the piaster destroyed the Vietnamese economy in 1953 leaving the claim of an independent Vietnam hollow. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 341-342) The French colonial leader Sainteny believed that the Americans interfered with the French attempt to reconquer Indochina. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 229) The OSS teams in northern Vietnam were sympathetic with Vietminh nationalism. “The French felt betrayed by an ally whose support they considered vital. French bitterness toward the Americans has given rise to the myth that the difficulties the French encountered in regaining control of the North were as much due to American hostility as to Chinese obstruction.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 229-230) However, it was on American ships the French soldiers arrived in southern Vietnam. (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 231) “Secretary of State Byrnes soon let the OSS and other American agencies in Vietnam know that the United States did not oppose a French return to Indochina.” (Joseph Buttinger. Vietnam: a political history. 231) “The first battle [of Dien Bien Phu] lost was that of the long-range penetrations designed to dislocate the enemy’s rear areas. The second battle was now under way. Its design was to dislodge the enemy from his dangerous northern and northeastern look-out posts from which the whole valley and the so-essential airfield could be constantly watched. The French were now in the process of losing the battle.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 82) Dien Bien Phu desperately needed tons of construction material which could not be supplied soon enough. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 89) This made preventing Viet Minh infiltration impossible. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 93) General Giap split Laos in two by the end of 1953 and had “advanced toward Luang Prabang” at the end of the Berlin Conference at the end of January 1954. This encouraged the French to seek a settlement. (Randle 27) “In February [1954] the chiefs of staff and their president, General Paul Ely, concluded that a military decision could not now be obtained in Indochina and that the only possible policy was to seek favorable military conditions for a political resolution of the conflict.” (Randle 27) The war began in favor of the French “The Vietminh were no more than scantily armed guerrillas, who live off the Expeditionary Force, procuring their weapons by ambush and theft.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 1) In addition, the French had popular support and “could get all the native soldiers and partisans they wanted.” They also had an endless supply of money. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 2) In 1948, although there was blood and death, Saigon had “a standard of living that was unbelievable for Asian peasants.” The war in the countryside did not disturb this. The main war took place “far north, in the mountains of Tonkin near the Chinese border, the Expeditionary Force” against the Viet Minh. “But nobody bothered to talk about it. The war was endless; the war was routine; and Indochina was a chessboard on which the innumerable pieces had become immobile. It was the elisement, the bogging down.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 6) The government of Indochina in 1948 “belonged to the Expeditionary Force; in the countryside there was no civilian state to be seen - no administration, no laws, no courts, no public services. Whether or not they were successful in fighting the Viet Minh, after every battle soldiers decorated soldieries with medals and “elegant officers came in from their rural fiefs to trust like lords” through Saigon. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 6) Furthermore, French soldiers in Indochina and from the French colonies were paid very well as oppose to the pay a French soldier received in France. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 6) And, because the exchange rate from piasters to francs was so good “real fortunes could be made in money changing.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 7) Nevertheless, even in the economically well off Cochinchina, Vietnamese nationalism had a following. “Vietnamese partisans prowled the Plain of Reeds.” Even the French approved Cochinchina government sought unification of the country with Annam and Tonkin. The French colonial residents of Indochina believed that the time honored French policy of cutting off the heads of Vietnamese nationalists would sustain Indochina as a French territory. They argued that “before 1940 absolutely any Frenchman could travel wherever he liked, even in the wildest districts, without carrying a weapon.” Bodard describes these well fed colonials “fat bellies” as the “colonial egg.” They believed they were the kindest of rulers and could not understand Vietnamese desires for independence. (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 7) Then they bickered among themselves. They disliked “soldiers like Sainteny, who had openly sympathized with Ho Chi Minh’s nationalism, and General Leclerc, who had come to pacify the rebellious country but had ended by concluding it was pointless to try to return to colonialism. Even Admiral d’Argenlieu, the first high commissioner, had, as they saw it, made dangerous and unnecessary concessions.” Those who followed d’Argenlieu. Sympathized with independence as well. This did not satisfy the “colonial egg.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 7) 70% of the French forces were not French. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. x) “The French reoccupation of the valley lasted a total of 209 days, and the actual siege 56 days. The Germans held Stalingrad for 76 days, while the Americans held Bataan for 66 days and Corregidor for 26; . . . . The record World War II siege was no doubt that of the French coastal fortress of Lorient, held by German troops for 270 days from 1944 to VE day.” Many of these sieges involved hundreds of thousands of troops. Dien Bien Phu, on the other hand, had 13,000 thousand French forces against approximately 100,000 forces of the Viet Minh. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place.) So, with such small numbers, how did this turn out to be the decisive battle of the French War in Indochina? “On 20 November 1953, six battalions of parachutists of the French Union army occupied the basin at Dien Bien Phu in northwestern Tonkin; and in December, General Navarre declared that Dien Bien Phu must be held at all costs.” (Randle 8-9) The Navarre Plan was a “political-military plan.” There would be 550,000 French soldiers, most of whom would be Vietnamese although there would be other soldiers from the “French Union.” However, to give the Vietnamese something to fight for there would have to be “genuine independence for the State of Vietnam.” (Randle 9) Civilian airlines in Indochina took up the slack created by a smaller than needed air force. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 16) “A few months earlier, on August 12, Na-San, an airhead far closer to Hanoi than Dien Bien Phu, had finally been evacuated because it had tied down more troops and more air transport that it was worth. . . . But . . . Dien Bien Phu was picked precisely because the valley . . . draws far too large to become a hedgehog position in which the French troops could be sealed off. Here, there was space for maneuvering. Thanks could be employed if they could be brought in by air, as indeed they were, later.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 18) Although successful, memories of Na-San did not sit well with General Gilles. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 18-19) Lieutenant General Henri Navarre took command of French forces in Indochina on May 28, 1953. Some of his subordinates liked him because he did not bother them. Major General Rene Cogny referred to him as an “air conditioned General.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 26-27) Time magazine, in a profile of the general, wrote, “A year ago none of us could see victory. There wasn’t a prayer. Now we can see it clearly - like light at the end of a tunnel.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 28) The French liked an air base at Dien Bien Phu because they could now “spread a sufficient degree of insecurity into the enemy’s own rear areas so as to compel him in turn to disperse his troops for the purpose of protecting those areas. Since successful infiltration of Communist-held areas could be attempted only with hand-picked French and Vietnamese special forces units, conventional military means had to be found for something more massive than infiltration. This out to be strongly defended hedgehog positions resupplied by transport aircraft and supported, in case of direct enemy attack, by combat aircraft.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 30-31) After plans for fighting at Dien Bien Phu were approved by the French government “planning of the battle of Dien Bien Phu took on the preordained air of a Greek tragedy.” The Viet Minh we’re surprised that the French abandoned Na-San. However, they did it so quickly that they left “behind many of the fixed installations, large stocks of reserve ammunition, and the precious pierced-steel mats with which part of the airfield was covered. The vast mine fields which covered the various strongpoints were also left behind and later carefully dug up by the Viet-Minh and used against the French elsewhere. The French sabotaged as much of the materiel as possible and the French Air Force bombed many of the remaining installations, but a great deal nevertheless fell into Communist hands.” (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 34) Following World War II Laos also agitated for independence from the French. One of the Laotian leaders sought help from the Viet Minh. (Roger Hilsman. To Move a Nation: the politics of Foreign Policy in the Administration of John F. Kennedy. 1967. 97-98) French sign “a treaty of association” with Laotian Prince Souvanna Phouma who was Prime Minister of Laos. This meant Laos was an independent nation within the French Union. (Bernard Fall. Hell in a Very Small Place. 34) Ho’s nationalism was honed when during the Geneva Conference and the scheduled 1956 elections he did not have the support of the Chinese or the Russians, so-called below Communists. (Bernard Fall. Last Reflections on a War. 89) In early 1954 the French believed that the United States “was willing to see French soldiers sacrificed in a desperate war rather than negotiate with the Chinese. (Randle 26) “Opium was a military objective for both the Vietminh and the French. . . . [For the Viet Minh] Drug trafficking was justified by dialectic: the people were to make use of everything, even vice and evil, to ensure their triumph. [For the French] possession of the opium crop meant that the Vietminh were denied the opportunity of filling their coffers; and what was more it allowed the Expeditoaryu Force and the administration to add to their secret funds, which, officially, were absurdly meager.” (Lucien Bodard. The Quicksand War. 46)