Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam

by Fredrik Logevall

  A WOMEN’S DETACHMENT OF THE LIBERATION ARMY, CARRYING WEAPONS AND THE VIET MINH FLAG, IN HANOI, LATE AUGUST 1945. (photo credit 4.1)

  Then on September 2—the same day that Japan signed the instruments of surrender on the deck of the U.S. battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay—he presented the government to the country and, at a rally before hundreds of thousands, proclaimed Vietnamese independence. Thus came into being the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV). The rally took place in Ba Dinh Square, a spacious grassy field not far from the Governor-General’s Palace in Hanoi. A sense of anticipation permeated the city that morning. Young Vietnamese had worked through the night bedecking nearby buildings with flowers, banners, and, notably, the Viet Minh flag—a lone gold star on a field of red. On some banners were nationalist slogans proclaiming in English, Vietnamese, French, Chinese, and Russian: “Vietnam for the Vietnamese”; “Long Live Vietnamese Independence”; “Independence or Death”; “Welcome to the Allies”; “Death to French Imperialism.” Peasants made the trek from nearby villages and now mingled with merchants and mandarins. Schools were closed for the occasion, and teachers armed with whistles walked at the head of bands of children singing revolutionary songs. Scouts who had been mobilized by the French and the Japanese now enthusiastically supported the new national government. Ethnic minority groups from the hills were present as well, clothed in their distinctively colored headgear, skirts, and sashes. One contingent that could not be present was allowed to participate vicariously: Inmates at the Central Prison were given three pigs to slaughter, cook, and eat “in celebration of Vietnam’s independence day.”11

  Ho Chi Minh arrived in a prewar American automobile with outriders on bicycles. He strode to a hastily built platform decked out with white and red cloth; with him were members of the new government’s cabinet. More than strode, he bounded, to the surprise of onlookers who expected rulers to walk in a careful, stately manner. While almost everyone on the stage wore Western suits and ties, Ho chose a high-collared faded khaki jacket and white rubber sandals—his standard uniform as head of state for the next twenty-four years—and an old hat. His address, hammered out on his old portable typewriter over the previous days, was preceded by loud, prearranged chants of “Independence! Independence!”

  He began slowly, spoke a few sentences, then stopped and asked his listeners, “Compatriots, can you hear me?” The crowd roared back, “Yes, we hear you!” At that moment, some who were present later said, a special bond was struck. Tran Trung Thanh, a young self-defense cadre, recalled that, although he didn’t yet know who Ho Chi Minh was exactly, this exchange of words moved him to tears, and led him to take one particular slogan on a banner as his personal motto: “Independence or death!” Said another observer, Dr. Tran Duy Hung: “We did not just shout with our mouths but with all our hearts, the hearts of over 400,000 people standing in the square then.”12

  To the few Americans in the audience, Ho’s next words were stunning. “All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.… All the peoples on the earth are equal from birth, all the peoples have a right to live and to be happy and free.” These were “undeniable truths,” Ho continued, and had been accepted as such by the French people themselves since the time of the French Revolution. Yet for eighty years, France had abused these truths in her treatment of the Vietnamese people—Ho singled out the division of Vietnam into three administrative units, the killing or imprisonment of patriots, the expropriation of raw materials and land, and the levying of “hundreds of unfair taxes.” France referred to herself as the “protector” of Vietnam, yet twice in the past five years she had sold the territory to Japan. Well, no more: “Today we are determined to oppose the wicked schemes of the French imperialists, and we call upon the victorious Allies to recognize our freedom and independence.”13

  The reference to the American Declaration of Independence and the “victorious Allies” was deliberate and was echoed by Vo Nguyen Giap, the former history teacher who now commanded the Viet Minh “Liberation Army,” who took the podium after Ho finished. Giap appealed specifically to the United States and China for support (interestingly, neither he nor Ho mentioned the socialist Soviet Union), claiming that the “Vietnamese masses had eagerly risen to fight Japan,” whereas the French colonialists had joined forces with the fascist Japanese for the duration of the war. Now the French readied to return, and the world community should work to stop them; if it didn’t, Vietnam would struggle alone. “Following in the steps of our forefathers,” Giap exclaimed, “the present generation will fight a final battle, so that generations to follow will forever be able to live in independence, freedom, and happiness.”14

  In between the two speeches, Tran Duy Hung recalled, “an airplane, a small plane, circled over us. We did not know whose plane it was. We thought that it was a Vietnamese plane. But when it swooped down over us, we recognized the American flag. The crowd cheered enthusiastically.”15

  II

  IT IS A STARTLING ASPECT OF VIET MINH THINKING IN THESE CRITICAL weeks, the degree to which Ho Chi Minh and his colleagues looked to Washington for support in their struggle. They understood what every other observer of the international scene understood: that the United States was emerging from the war as by far the strongest nation in the world, as the only real superpower, and therefore uniquely able to affect the course of events in the developing world. In the Asia-Pacific, in particular, America stood supreme. At Tan Trao, Ho had pressed members of the OSS Deer Team on the question of whether Washington would intercede in Indochina or leave matters to the French and perhaps Chinese. The question suggested uncertainty, and the evidence is considerable that he held in this period a dual vision of the United States. On the one hand, as a bastion of capitalism, America could be an opponent of the future world revolution; on the other hand, her leader for most of World War II had been Franklin Roosevelt, a major world voice for the liberation of colonial peoples in Asia and Africa and the principal figure behind the Atlantic Charter. As a foe of European colonialism, the United States could thus be of enormous help to the Viet Minh cause, but not if serious tensions arose between the capitalist powers and the USSR; in such an eventuality, Washington could choose to, in effect, strike a bargain with France, supporting her efforts in Indochina in exchange for help in countering Moscow.16

  At times, the uncertainty regarding U.S. plans slid into pessimism. Not long before his arrival in Hanoi, Ho wrote his friend Charles Fenn a plaintive letter, expressing his satisfaction that the war had ended but disappointment that “our American friends” would be leaving him soon. “And their leaving,” he wrote, “means that relations between you and us will be more difficult.” At other times, hopes must have soared. When on August 15 word reached Tan Trao (on an OSS-supplied radio) that Japan’s Emperor Hirohito had instructed his subjects to capitulate, Americans and Vietnamese broke out in raucous celebration. Flares were launched into the sky, songs were sung, and liquor flowed. The Vietnamese shouted joyously that independence was at hand, and the Americans responded with cheers of “Hip-hip-hooray!”17

  In other parts of Vietnam too, nationalists of all stripes hoped for American support. To a degree difficult to appreciate today, with our knowledge of the bloodshed and animosity that was to follow, admiration for the United States was intense and near universal that summer. It was a Rooseveltian moment. The United States, recalled Bui Diem, later a top official in the South Vietnamese government, was the “shining giant” whose commitment to freedom was real, who would end forever colonial control. These nationalists viewed with apprehension the impending arrival of the Chinese and the British (who were given the task at Potsdam, it will be recalled, of disarming the Japanese in northern and southern Vietnam, respectively, at the conclusion of hostilities), which made them all the more attached to the image of America as savior. Bui Diem again: “We could not understand why they had agreed to let th
e British and Chinese in, but the Americans themselves had representatives in Vietnam, and their presence sparked a wild hope that the United States was interested. And if they were interested, they might yet be prevailed upon to act.”18

  The most important of those representatives was Archimedes L. Patti, an intelligence veteran who had led covert operations in North Africa, Sicily, and Salerno. Born in New York to poor Italian immigrants, Patti had been appointed after Tokyo’s surrender to head a team to fly to Hanoi in order to secure the release of Allied POWs held in Japanese camps, and also to provide intelligence on conditions in Indochina. He arrived on August 22, accompanied by twelve other OSS members and a smaller French delegation headed by Jean Sainteny, the head of French intelligence operations in China, whose ostensible mission was to administer to the needs of French POWs. Sainteny was a former banker in Hanoi and the son-in-law of Albert Sarraut, the former governor of Indochina and a leading French colonial thinker.

  Both groups took up residence at the stylish (then and now) Metropole Hotel in the city’s center. From there, Patti opened negotiations with Japanese occupation authorities and established contact with local Viet Minh leaders. On Sunday, September 26, these Viet Minh officials held a quasi-parade in Patti’s honor (complete with a band playing “The Star-Spangled Banner”) and that same day the newly arrived Ho Chi Minh invited him to lunch—sure signs of the importance they attached to courting the young American. After a meal of fish soup, braised chicken, and pork, the two men appraised the fluid situation. Ho expressed displeasure that Sainteny was now in Hanoi through the good offices of the Americans, and he warned Patti that the French team’s aims went well beyond looking after prisoners of war. France sought to reclaim control and would get support in this goal from Great Britain, Ho told him. The Chinese, meanwhile, would sell out Vietnamese interests to achieve objectives of their own.19

  Patti listened intently. He had met with Ho Chi Minh once before, in April 1945, in southern China, on the subject of potential OSS–Viet Minh cooperation in the struggle against Japan. The two had talked then late into the night, smoking Patti’s Chesterfields and sipping tea. Patti came away “indelibly” impressed with Ho’s patriotism and social acumen. Now they were face-to-face again, and Patti couldn’t help but reflect on the Viet Minh leader’s appearance, so emaciated in comparison with the earlier encounter. But Patti again found himself charmed by Ho’s political sophistication, by his grace, and by his grasp of current world developments. And as in April, Ho left no doubt that he desperately wanted Allied, and especially American, backing. At a subsequent meeting, Ho solicited Patti’s input in the drafting of the proclamation of independence. “Ho called for me to see him urgently,” Patti recalled. “He presented me with these sheets of paper. I looked at them and I said, ‘What do I do with them? I can’t read them.’ He started to translate. So I just listened carefully and I was shocked. I was shocked to hear the first words of our own Declaration of Independence, especially in making reference to the Creator. He had the words life and liberty kind of transposed and I worked it out for him a little bit and said ‘I think this is the way it should be.’ ”20

  One is struck in retrospect by the bond that seemed to develop between the two men, and by the extent to which Ho Chi Minh and his colleagues devoted their energies during these crucial days to Patti. At each encounter, Viet Minh officials pressed Patti regarding U.S. plans for Indochina. The list of tasks they faced as the leaders of a new government was as long as it was daunting—to build a legitimate army; to bring food to a populace still suffering from the effects of the famine; to neutralize competing Vietnamese nationalist groups—but none loomed as large as securing international help in thwarting French and perhaps Chinese designs on their country. By his own account Patti responded cautiously, promising merely to pass on messages to his higher-ups, and to refrain from revealing Ho’s whereabouts to either the French or the Chinese. But more than once he also referenced Franklin Roosevelt’s staunch commitment to Vietnamese self-determination, an assertion that surely raised Vietnamese hopes but oversimplified FDR’s thinking and in any event ignored the change under Truman.21

  Like Roosevelt, Patti could on occasion succumb to a patronizing and cryptoracist view of the Vietnamese, doubting in some (but not all) reports to Kunming that the “Annamites” had the requisite political maturity either to hold their own in negotiations with the French or to govern effectively. But too much should not be made of this attitude, for he nevertheless favored an American policy that had as its aim keeping France from reclaiming control. The Viet Minh’s dedication and fervor, as demonstrated throughout the summer and especially in the heady days of late August, impressed Patti enormously, as did the broad support the front seemed to enjoy from the population. On the evening of September 2, after witnessing the extraordinary events that day in Ba Dinh Square, Patti reported by radio to Kunming, “From what I have seen these people mean business and I am afraid the French will have to deal with them. For that matter we will all have to deal with them.” The French, he concluded in another dispatch, had little chance of reasserting lasting control. “Political situation critical … Viet Minh strong and belligerent and definitely anti-French. Suggest no more French be permitted to enter French Indo-China and especially not armed.”22

  ARCHIMEDES PATTI, WHO REVELED IN THE ATTENTION, IS IN THE SEAT OF HONOR AS HE MEETS WITH VIET MINH OFFICIALS IN HANOI IN LATE AUGUST 1945. ON HIS RIGHT IS VO NGUYEN GIAP. (photo credit 4.2)

  France, however, was already on her way, and with tacit American blessing. At almost the same moment that Archimedes Patti’s airplane touched down in Hanoi, Charles de Gaulle, leader of the French Provisional Government, arrived in Washington, D.C., for a much-anticipated set of meetings with administration officials. No less than his nationalist rival in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, de Gaulle considered the United States the single most important player in the emerging Indochina drama, the main potential obstacle to his plan to once again tie the tricolor to the mast in Saigon and Hanoi. He had been encouraged, in this regard, by the U.S. positions at the San Francisco and Potsdam meetings, which he took to say that Truman would not stand in his way. But the Washington meetings nevertheless carried great importance for de Gaulle, and he made a studied effort to please. Upon landing in the American capital, he offered a glowing tribute to the United States in halting but tolerable English, and speaking in French at a state dinner at the White House that evening, he hailed America and France as “les deux piliers de la civilisation.” A whirlwind of activity followed, including visits to both the U.S. Naval and Military Academies, to FDR’s grave at Hyde Park, and to the vast new airport under construction in Idlewild, Queens (later JFK). In Manhattan, de Gaulle toured the city perched precariously on top of the backseat of a convertible, cheered by hundreds of thousands.23

  Behind the scenes, though, tensions simmered. There was no hiding the fact that, in the eyes of official America, France had suffered a dramatic loss in prestige. And though Truman did not share FDR’s deep personal dislike of de Gaulle, he questioned whether the general was the man for the job of pulling France together. De Gaulle took himself and his ideas far too seriously, the president told British officials in advance of the visit, and, “to use a saying that we have away back in Missouri,” was something of a “pinhead.” Truman said he intended to speak to the Frenchman “like a Dutch uncle” and make clear that Washington expected France to do its full part in her recovery. Whether France could ever recover fully was doubtful: To aides, the president said the French showed none of the “bulldog” tenacity exhibited by the British during the war. To the British ambassador, he said that whereas the rural people in Belgium were getting down to the work of recovery, their French counterparts were listless and content to wait for outside assistance to save them.24

  Yet there could be no question on providing that assistance, Truman believed. France might have fallen out of the ranks of great powers, but Washington needed a stable and frie
ndly France in order to fully secure in peacetime the hard-fought victories of the battlefield. In Europe, this meant providing economic assistance of various kinds to the Paris government and working to smooth out Franco-American differences over the future of defeated Germany; outside Europe, it meant giving assurances that the French empire was, at least for the foreseeable future, secure.25

  On Indochina, administration officials sought to dispel any apprehensions on de Gaulle’s part regarding French sovereignty over the area. They did not object when, at a press conference on the twenty-fourth, he said that “the position of France in Indochina is very simple: France means to recover its sovereignty over Indochina.” And when de Gaulle remarked privately—and ambiguously—that Paris would be prepared to discuss eventual independence for the colonies, Truman replied that his administration would not oppose a return to French authority in Indo-china.26

  On August 30, Patti forwarded a message from Ho Chi Minh to President Truman, via American authorities in Kunming, that asked for the Viet Minh to be involved in any Allied discussion regarding Vietnam’s postwar status. Truman did not reply.

  III

  THERE WOULD BE MORE SUCH LETTERS IN THE WEEKS AND MONTHS ahead; these too would go unanswered. Yet it is this first nonreply that lingers in the mind. August 1945 was the open moment, when so much hung in the balance, when the future course of the French imperial enterprise in Indochina was anyone’s guess. The energies of Truman and his top foreign policy aides may have been directed elsewhere that month—to the paramount tasks in postwar Europe, and to securing Japan’s formal surrender—but savvy French and Vietnamese leaders were not wrong to attach so much importance to American thinking. For at the occasion of Japan’s surrender, the United States had an extraordinary political power in Asia of a kind never seen before (or since). For tens of millions of Asians that summer, the very remoteness of America added to her allure, to her perceived omnipotence. In the words of journalist Harold Isaacs, who traveled in Vietnam and other parts of Asia for Newsweek in the fall of 1945 and wrote a book about the experience, the United States was “a shining temple of virtue of righteousness, where men were like gods amid unending poverty.” It was a country of awesome might, a country that could endure a string of defeats against a seemingly unstoppable foe, roar back to deliver a crushing and emphatic blow, and thereby stand astride all of Asia. Yet amazingly enough, America did not seek to use this power to engage in a colonial power grab; on the contrary, she sought to relinquish territorial control, as evidenced by her formal commitment to granting independence to the Philippines.27