4. According to Nigel Gould-Davies, “compromise, retreat, flexibility” and “avoidance of war,” hallmarks of the moderate tendency in Vietnam, should not be interpreted to mean that its adherents were “realists,” that is, practitioners of realpolitik. It was common for devout communists during the Cold War, he suggests, to combine as Lenin did “an acutely realistic orientation to political action with an unswerving commitment to revolutionary goals.” See Nigel Gould-Davies, “Rethinking the Role of Ideology in International Politics during the Cold War,” Journal of Cold War Studies 1, no. 1 (Winter 1999): 100.
5. On Johnson’s decision to commit U.S. ground forces to South Vietnam in 1965, see Fredrik Logevall, Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001).
6. “To say that Vietnamese communists thought of Marxism merely as a tool, that their revolution was not inspired by Moscow, that they were forced by circumstances against their will to align with the Soviet bloc, and that they were loyal to the Soviet Union only when there were contacts and aid,” historian Tuong Vu writes, contradicts documentary evidence and “denigrates their revolutionary commitment and efforts.” See Tuong Vu, “From Cheering to Volunteering: Vietnamese Communists and the Coming of the Cold War, 1940–1951,” in Christopher Goscha and Christian Ostermann, eds., Connecting Histories: The Cold War and Decolonization in Asia, 1945–1962 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2009), 198.
7. Jeremi Suri, Liberty’s Surest Guardian: American Nation-Building from the Founders to Obama (New York: Free Press, 2011), 211.
8. A new edition of the book was published in 1996. See William J. Duiker, The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam, 2nd ed. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1996).
9. Carlyle A. Thayer, War by Other Means: National Liberation and Revolution in Viet-Nam, 1954–60 (Cambridge, Mass.: Unwin Hyman, 1989).
10. Ang Cheng Guan, The Vietnam War from the Other Side: The Vietnamese Communists’ Perspective (New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002); Ang Cheng Guan, Vietnamese Communists’ Relations with China and the Second Indochina Conflict, 1956–1962 (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1997).
11. Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, Hanoi’s War: An International History of the War for Peace in Vietnam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012).
12. William S. Turley, The Second Indochina War: A Concise Political and Military History, 2nd ed. (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009).
13. Ralph B. Smith, An International History of the Vietnam War, Vol. 1: Revolution versus Containment, 1955–61 (London: Macmillan Press, 1983); Ralph B. Smith, An International History of the Vietnam War, Vol. 2: The Struggle for Southeast Asia, 1961–65 (London: Macmillan Press, 1985); Ralph B. Smith, An International History of the Vietnam War, Vol. 3: The Making of a Limited War, 1965–66 (London: Macmillan Press, 1991); Arthur J. Dommen, The Indochinese Experience of the French and the Americans: Nationalism and Communism in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001); Mari Olsen, Soviet-Vietnam Relations and the Role of China, 1949–64 (New York: Routledge, 2006); Robert K. Brigham, Guerrilla Diplomacy: The NLF’s Foreign Relations and the Viet Nam War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1999); David W. P. Elliott, The Vietnamese War: Revolution and Social Change in the Mekong Delta, 1930–1975, concise ed. (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 2007); Chen Jian, Mao’s China and the Cold War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001); Qiang Zhai, China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950–1975 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000); Ilya V. Gaiduk, Confronting Vietnam: Soviet Policy toward the Indochina Conflict, 1954–1963 (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2003); Ilya V. Gaiduk, The Soviet Union and the Vietnam War (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1996); Donald S. Zagoria, Vietnam Triangle: Moscow, Peking, Hanoi (New York: Pegasus, 1967); W. R. Smyser, The Independent Vietnamese: Vietnamese Communism between Russia and China, 1956–1969, Southeast Asia Series no. 55 (Athens: Ohio University Center for International Studies, 1980).
14. On the origins of ideological decision-making in Vietnam, see Tuong Vu, “From Cheering to Volunteering,” 172–204.
15. Le Duc Tho, “Let Us Strengthen the Ideological Struggle to Consolidate the Party,” Tuyen huan, no. 4 (April 1964). Reproduced and translated in Folder 03, Box 25, Douglas Pike Collection: Unit 06—Democratic Republic of Vietnam, Vietnam Archive at Texas Tech University, 22.
16. Adam Fforde and Suzanne Paine, The Limits of National Liberation: Problems of Economic Management in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (London: Croom Helm, 1987), 45; Mark L. Haas, The Ideological Origins of Great Power Politics, 1789–1989 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2005), 147.
1. CHOOSING PEACE, 1954–1956
1. Viet Minh is short for Viet Nam Doc lap Dong minh hoi, literally, Independence League of Vietnam.
2. France established the SOVN in Saigon in March 1949 with former emperor Bao Dai as chief of state and Tran Van Huu as president. A stereotypical puppet regime, the SOVN gained a veneer of legitimacy when the French National Assembly voted in April 1949 to repeal the département status of Cochinchina and grant autonomy to Vietnam (Tonkin, Annam, and Cochinchina) within the French Union (Union française). Under that arrangement, the SOVN government became ostensibly responsible for the domestic and some foreign affairs of Vietnam, and had its own army under its own flag.
3. On the circumstances that produced the Geneva accords, see Pierre Asselin, “The Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the 1954 Geneva Conference: A Revisionist Critique,” Cold War History 11, no. 2 (May 2011): 155–95. The text of the “Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities in Vietnam” is reproduced in United States Senate—Committee on Foreign Relations, Background Information relating to Southeast Asia and Vietnam, 90th Congress, 1st Session (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1967), 50–62.
4. “Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference: On Restoring Peace in Indochina, 21 July 1954,” in United States Department of State, The Department of State Bulletin 31, no. 788 (2 August 1954): 164–66. The Final Declaration listed all the participants in the conference but was unsigned. The participants included representatives from the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, who cochaired the conference, plus the United States and the PRC, as well as the main parties immediately involved—that is, France, the SOVN, the pro-French governments of Laos and Cambodia, and the DRVN.
5. See “Statement by the Under Secretary of State at the Concluding Plenary Session of the Geneva Conference, 21 July 1954,” in ibid. During the Geneva Conference, U.S. secretary of state John Foster Dulles reportedly told French prime minister Pierre Mendès France that his government could not be party to an agreement on Indochina endorsed by the “Red Chinese” because “we cannot give them [even] indirect recognition.” See “Conversations Franco-Anglo-Américaines (compte rendu)” [Franco-Anglo-American Conversations (summary)], 23 October 1954, Bôite 5, Dossier: Indochine [hereafter D:I], Archives de Pierre Mendès France à l’Institut Pierre Mendès France, Paris [hereafter AIPMF], 211–12.
6. “Chi thi cua Ban Bi thu, ngay 27 thang 7 nam 1954: Tuyen truyen ve nhung Hiep dinh cua Hoi nghi Gionevo—Tinh hinh va nhiem vu moi” [Secretariat Instruction, 27 July 1954: Information on the Agreements of the Geneve Conference—New Situation and Responsibilities], in Dang Cong san Viet Nam, Van kien Dang—Toan tap, Tap 15: 1954 [Party Documents—Complete Series, Vol. 15: 1954] (Hanoi: Nha xuat ban Chinh tri quoc gia, 2001) [hereafter VKD: 1954], 238–41.
7. Fredrik Logevall, Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam (New York: Random House, 2012), 619. I expound on the DRVN leadership’s reasoning for accepting and abiding by the Geneva accords in 1954–55 in Pierre Asselin, “Choosing Peace: Hanoi and the Geneva Agreement on Vietnam, 1954–55,” Journal of Cold War Studies 9, no. 2 (Spring 2007): 95–126.
8. According to Christian Lentz, VWP cadres “led everyday forms of state formation in wartime and in the early in
dependent DRV.” They were “trained individuals” who “worked alongside, and monitored the attitudes of, peasant bureaucrats performing everyday official tasks in line agencies, local government, or mass organizations.” See Christian C. Lentz, “Mobilization and State Formation on a Frontier of Vietnam,” Journal of Peasant Studies 38, no. 3 (July 2011): 569.
9. “Chi thi cua Ban Bi thu, ngay 30 thang 7 nam 1954: Ve viec chap hanh lenh dinh chien” [Secretariat Instruction, 30 July 1954: On the Matter of Implementing the Cease-fire], in VKD: 1954, 248–49.
10. “Chi thi cua Ban Bi thu, ngay 31 thang 8 nam 1954: Ve viec don tiep bo doi, thuong binh, mot so can bo va dong bao mien Nam ra Bac” [Secretariat Instruction, 31 August 1954: On the Matter of Repatriating to the North Southern Soldiers, the Wounded, Some Cadres, and Compatriots], in VKD: 1954, 259.
11. Entry for 14 December 1954 in “Diary of Sherwood Lett, Commissioner, Canadian Delegation to the ICSC, Hanoi, Vietnam,” R219-121-3-# (ICSC files), Vol. 3068 [Part 1], Record Group [hereafter RG] 25, Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa [hereafter LAC], 109.
12. “Note du Général Ély: a/s de la mission de la Délégation française au Nord Vietnam dans le cadre général de la politique de la France en Indochine” [Note from General Ély: On the French Delegation’s Mission in North Vietnam in the Context of France’s Policy in Indochina], undated [November 1954], Bôite 7, D:I, AIPMF, 7.
13. Commissioner, Canadian Delegation to ICSC for Vietnam, Hanoi, to Secretary of State for External Affairs, Ottawa, 11 November 1954, R219-121-3-# (ICSC files), Vol. 3068 [Part 3], RG 25, LAC, 1.
14. Entry for 14 December 1954 in “Diary of Sherwood Lett, Commissioner, Canadian Delegation to the ICSC, Hanoi, Vietnam,” 109.
15. See Christopher E. Goscha and Stein Tønnesson, “Le Duan and the Break with China: A 1979 Document Translated by Christopher E. Goscha, with an Introduction by Stein Tønnesson,” Cold War International History Project Bulletin, no. 12/13 (Fall/Winter 2001): 277.
16. Céline Marangé, Le communisme vietnamien, 1919–1991 [Vietnamese Communism, 1919–1991] (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 2012), 304.
17. On that role, see Pierre Asselin, “Le Duan, the American War, and the Creation of an Independent Vietnamese State,” Journal of American East-Asian Relations 10, nos. 1–2 (Spring–Summer 2001): 1–27; and Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, Hanoi’s War: An International History of the War for Peace in Vietnam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012).
18. Mark Bradley argues that incarceration in French colonial prisons radicalized many Vietnamese communists. See Mark Philip Bradley, Imagining Vietnam and America: The Making of Postcolonial Vietnam, 1919–1950 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 40. See also Peter Zinoman, The Colonial Bastille: A History of Imprisonment in Vietnam, 1862–1940 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001).
19. On Le Duan’s formative years, see Bui Tin, Following Ho Chi Minh: Memoirs of a North Vietnamese Colonel (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999), 33; Huynh Kim Khanh, Vietnamese Communism, 1925–1945 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1982), 101n19, 162; Tran Thanh, “Dong chi Le Duan, nha lanh dao kiet xuat cua Dang ta, nha ly luan Macxit-Leninnit sang tao, nguoi hoc tro xuat sac cua Chu tich Ho Chi Minh” [Comrade Le Duan, Illustrious Leader of Our Party, Innovative Marxist-Leninist Theoretician, Devoted Pupil of President Ho Chi Minh], in Vien nghien cuu Ho Chi Minh va cac lanh tu cua Dang, Le Duan va cach mang Viet Nam [Le Duan and the Vietnamese Revolution] (Hanoi: Nha xuat ban Chinh tri quoc gia, 1997), 9–12; “Tieu su dong chi Le Duan, Tong Bi thu Ban Chap hanh Truong uong Dang Cong san Viet Nam” [Biography of Comrade Le Duan, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Vietnamese Communist Party], in Nguyen Khoa Diem, ed., Le Duan: Mot nha lanh dao loi lac, mot tu duy sang tao lon cua cach mang Viet Nam [Le Duan: An Outstanding Leader, an Innovative Thinker of the Vietnamese Revolution] (Hanoi: Nha xuat ban Chinh tri quoc gia, 2002), 9–11; and Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, Hanoi’s War, 17–31.
20. “Tieu su dong chi Le Duan,” 10.
21. Tran Van Dinh, ed., This Nation and Socialism Are One: Selected Writings of Le Duan, First Secretary, Central Committee, Vietnamese Workers’ Party (Chicago: Vanguard Books, 1976), 250n14; J. J. Zasloff, Political Motivation of the Vietnamese Communists: The Vietminh Regroupees (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1968), v, 26; William J. Duiker, The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam, 2nd ed. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1996), 183; Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, Hanoi’s War, 31; Commissioner, Canadian Delegation to ICSC for Vietnam, Hanoi, to Secretary of State for External Affairs, Ottawa, 11 November 1954, 1.
22. “Le Duan, First Secretary of the Lao Dong Central Committee,” 11 March 1973, 20-VIET N-6, Vol. 9167 [Part 1], RG 25, LAC, 1; “Factions within the North Vietnamese Regime: Their Bearing, If Any, on Policy Pursued towards South Vietnam,” undated [1960], FO 371/160122, National Archives of the United Kingdom, Kew [hereafter NAUK], 3.
23. “Nghi Quyet cua Bo Chinh tri: Ve tinh hinh moi, nhiem vu moi va chinh sach moi cua Dang” [Politburo Resolution: On the New Situation, New Tasks, and New Policy of the Party], in VKD: 1954, 283–315.
24. Ban chi dao tong ket chien tranh truc thuoc Bo chinh tri, Chien tranh cach mang Viet Nam, 1945–1975: Thang loi va bai hoc [The Vietnamese Revolutionary War, 1945–1975: Victory and Lessons] (Hanoi: Nha xuat ban Chinh tri quoc gia, 2000), 88; and Trung tam Khoa hoc xa hoi va nhan van quoc gia—Vien su hoc, Lich su Viet Nam, 1954–1965 [History of Vietnam, 1954–1965] (Hanoi: Nha xuat ban Khoa hoc xa hoi, 1995), 54–65, 179–80.
25. “Vietnam: Chronology,” part of “Memorandum for the Minister,” 9 March 1965, 21–13-VIET-ICSC [PT 1.1], Vol. 10122, RG 25, LAC, 3.
26. “Thong tri cua Ban Bi thu, ngay 22 thang 11 nam 1954: Ve may viec can lam de chinh don bien che trong quan doi” [Secretariat Circular, 22 November 1954: On the Tasks to Reorganize the Personnel in the Armed Forces], in VKD: 1954, 370–72.
27. Bui Tin, From Enemy to Friend: A North Vietnamese Perspective on the War (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2002), 11.
28. “Conversations Franco-Anglo-Américaines (compte rendu)” [Franco-Anglo-American Coversations (summary)], 23 October 1954, Bôite 5, D:I, AIPMF, 211–12.
29. Douglas Pike, PAVN: People’s Army of Vietnam (New York: Da Capo Press, 1991), 41. The Canadian delegation to the ICSC subsequently acknowledged that “it seems unlikely that it will be possible to show . . . that the PAVN [that is, the DRVN’s regular armed forces] is directly responsible for subversive activities” in areas investigated by the commission. See Canadian Delegation to the ICSC in Vietnam, Hanoi, to Secretary of State, Department of External Affairs, Ottawa, 4 July 1955, R219-121-3-E (ICSC files), Vol. 3069 [Part 1], RG 25, LAC, 1.
30. “Notes of the Freedoms Committee Meeting (10 of 1965) held on Wednesday the 22nd September, 1965 in the Indian Delegation, ICSC in Vietnam, Saigon,” 100-10-6 [Pt. 1], Vol. 32, RG 25, LAC, 2; “Report of Mobile Team 26 on Incident 26E under Article 38 of Geneva Agreement” (1955), 50052-A-12-40 [4E-FP (3.1)], Vol. 4667, RG 25, LAC, 2.
31. “Note du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères: a/s application des accords sur la cessation des hostilités” [Note from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: On Implementation of the Cease-fire Accords], 19 October 1954, Bôite 6, D:I, AIPMF, 4.
32. According to a French estimate, more than a third of Viet Minh forces consisted of “irregulars” who under the terms of the Geneva accords had to disarm but not regroup north of the seventeenth parallel. See “Observations présentées par le Président Bidault au cours du débat général dans la scéance du 24 mai 1954” [Observations Presented by President Bidault during the General Debate at the 24 May 1954 Session], undated, #4, Cabinet du Ministre: P. Mendès France (1954–1955) [hereafter CM:PMF], Archives Diplomatiques de France, La Courneuve [hereafter ADF], 5.
33. Canadian Delegation to the ICSC in Vietnam, Hanoi, to Secretary of State, Department of External Affairs, Ottawa, 4 July 1955, 2. According to William Duiker, between 50,000 and 90,000
of an estimated 100,000 Viet Minh troops in the South in 1954 regrouped to the North, some with their families. See Duiker, Communist Road to Power, 183. William Turley claims it was 87,000 troops and 43,000 civilians. See William S. Turley, The Second Indochina War: A Concise Political and Military History, 2nd ed. (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009), 25.
34. British Consulate General, Hanoi [hereafter BCGH] to Foreign Office, London [hereafter FO], 31 August 1956, FO 371/123395, NAUK, 1.
35. Quoted in Zasloff, Political Motivation, 59.
36. BCGH to FO, 31 August 1956, 1.
37. “Report of Mobile Team 55 concerning the Situation regarding Freedom of Movement in Thanh Hoa Province,” 14 April 1955, 50052-A-12-40 [4E-FP (2.2)], Vol. 4667, RG 25, LAC, 5.
38. Appendix A, 14 April 1955, 50052-A-12-40 [4E-FP (2.2)], Vol. 4667, RG 25, LAC.
39. “Report on Freedom of Movement by Mobile Team 56 (Nghe An Province)” (1955), 50052-A-12-40 [4E-FP (3.2)], Vol. 4667, RG 25, LAC, 7.
40. Dang Cong san Viet Nam—Ban Chap hanh Dang bo thanh pho Ha Noi, Lich su Dang bo thanh pho Ha Noi, 1954–1975 [History of the Hanoi City Party Committee, 1954–1975] (Hanoi: Nha xuat ban Ha Noi, 1995), 10. The “transfer” of Hanoi and the withdrawal of French forces from the city “unfolded in perfect order and without notable incidents.” See French Delegation, Hanoi [hereafter FDH], to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Paris [hereafter MFA], 11 October 1954, #157, Asie-Océanie [hereafter AO]: 1944–1955, ADF, 1; and “Entretien Guy La Chambre—Sainteny du 12 Octobre 1954 sur l’entrée du Viet Minh à Hanoi” [Guy La Chambre—Sainteny Meeting of 12 October 1954 on the Viet Minh’s Entry into Hanoi], undated [October 1954], Bôite 7, D:I, AIPMF, 1.
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