While Nguyen Ai Quoc was awaiting news about his request, the Comintern agent operating under the code name Serge Lefranc was continuing his journey throughout Southeast Asia. After his stop in Saigon, he visited several other countries in the region and then sailed on to the British colony of Singapore on the U.S.S. President Adams. Although posing as a commercial traveler, his real purpose was to confer with members of the newly established Malayan Communist Party (MCP) and convey information on its activities to Nguyen Ai Quoc in Hong Kong and Hilaire Noulens in Shanghai, both of whom had been eager for months for such news. Alerted to his arrival by a letter from Nguyen Ai Quoc, the MCP leader Fu Dajing, an overseas Chinese who had earlier cooperated with Nguyen Ai Quoc in establishing the Siamese Communist Party, arranged to meet Lefranc secretly on the sidewalk at Collier Quay, along the Singapore waterfront.52
British authorities in London had long been aware of Lefranc’s tour and had attempted to locate him during short stops that he made in India and Ceylon, but they had lost track of him. Now, however, they had a stroke of luck. Fu Dajing was under police surveillance in Singapore because of his relationship with the Indonesian Communist Tan Malaka. When informed that Fu and a colleague had met with a European named Lefranc on Collier Quay, the local police concluded that Lefranc might be the Joseph Ducroux whom London had been warning them about. After placing Lefranc and his local contacts under arrest, they searched his hotel room and seized all of his papers. Lefranc had been careless about his wastepaper, and had in his possession letters from Nguyen Ai Quoc in Hong Kong (under the pseudonym of T. V. Wong), and from Noulens in Shanghai. Based on that evidence, Lefranc and his accomplices were tried in Singapore and sentenced to terms in prison, while the local police telegraphed the information to British police in Hong Kong and Shanghai.53
At 2:00 A.M. on June 6, British police arrived at Quoc’s apartment in the crowded residential quarter of Kowloon. There they found a man in a second-floor flat in company with a young Vietnamese woman. The man claimed to be a Chinese by the name of T. V. Wong while the woman identified herself as his niece, Ly Sam. Numerous political tracts and manifestos seized in the apartment, however, suggested strongly that the man was indeed Nguyen Ai Quoc, the veteran Comintern revolutionary. The woman was later identified as Ly Ung Thuan, the wife of Party member Ho Tung Mau. Nguyen Ai Quoc’s arrest was a major setback, which not only ruptured his fragile contacts with Party members inside Indochina but also threatened to throw him into the arms of the French, or of the imperial government in Annam. If that should occur, his future role as a Comintern agent and the leader of the Vietnamese revolutionary movement would be in serious jeopardy.54
VII | INTO THE WILDERNESS
The 1931 arrest of Nguyen Ai Quoc in Hong Kong was part of a widespread series of operations by colonial authorities to round up Communist activists throughout eastern Asia. It had begun in early June, with the arrest in Singapore of Serge Lefranc, the Comintern agent who had been undertaking a tour of Southeast Asia on behalf of its Pan Pacific Trade Union Secretariat in Shanghai. On June 5, Le Quang Dat, the ICP member who had been assigned by Quoc to serve as liaison with the FEB, was arrested in the French concession in Shanghai. Early the following morning, Nguyen Ai Quoc and his colleague Ly Sam were seized in Hong Kong. A few days later, Hilaire Noulens and his wife were detained by municipal police in the International Settlement in Shanghai. Noulens, whose real identity was somewhat of a mystery to colonial authorities, declared himself to be a Belgian citizen, but it soon became clear that he possessed several passports under various names and nationalities, and his claim was denied by the Belgian consulate in Shanghai.
Although there was no evidence that Noulens was guilty of any offense in the International Settlement, European security officials were convinced of his secret role as Comintern representative in the Far East, and after a few days in detention in Shanghai, Noulens and his wife were turned over to Chinese authorities in neighboring Jiangsu province, where he was sentenced to life imprisonment at a trial in Nanjing. As a result of efforts by the Soviet-sponsored International Red Aid, Noulens and his wife were eventually released from prison and returned to Moscow.1
Meanwhile, Nguyen Ai Quoc (claiming to be the Chinese journalist Song Man Cho) was detained without warrant, as the local police sought to obtain evidence that might link him with subversive activities promoted by the Comintern. Although he had not committed any known offense in Hong Kong, British policy did not permit the use of British territory to foment unrest in neighboring countries. Local officials were convinced that the detainee was actually Nguyen Ai Quoc; some hoped to find a means to turn him over to French authorities in Indochina. Since an existing Franco-British agreement did not permit extradition for political offenses, the only recourse was to obtain a warrant to banish him from Hong Kong territory. After determining to their own satisfaction that Song Man Cho was really Nguyen Ai Quoc, the Hong Kong government decided six days after his apprehension to make a formal request for a warrant of deportation. In those days, banishment under deportation warrant was usually carried out on a specific ship to a specified port and often took place under armed guard.2
Although Nguyen Ai Quoc did not produce a passport, he claimed to possess one under the name of Song Man Cho and insisted that he was not Vietnamese but Chinese. The normal procedure in such cases was to conduct a banishment inquiry to establish true identity and place of birth before reaching a determination on how to dispose of a case. Such an inquiry convened on July 10, 1931. Speaking in English, the prisoner denied that he was Nguyen Ai Quoc and claimed that he had been born at Tung Hing, a small town in Guangdong province near the Indochinese border. He declared that he had indeed been to France, but had not visited Soviet Russia, nor had he ever been connected with the Comintern. He insisted that he was a nationalist, not a Communist. He denied knowing Serge Lefranc, but admitted having signed a postcard that had been found in the latter’s pocket in Singapore. Arguing strenuously against being deported to Indochina, he demanded extradition to Great Britain.
Before the end of the banishment hearing, Nguyen Ai Quoc began to receive legal assistance from an unexpected source. There are several versions of how the young Hong Kong solicitor Frank Loseby became involved in the case. One version maintains that a clerk in his office was Vietnamese and casually mentioned it to his employer. In his own memoirs, Ho Chi Minh explained that he and Loseby had an unnamed mutual friend in Hong Kong. Sources in Hanoi today, however, maintain that Loseby was retained formally on Nguyen Ai Quoc’s behalf by the International Red Aid and the League Against Imperialism, another Moscow-based organization that provided support for prominent radicals arrested in capitalist countries.3
Loseby immediately became involved in the proceedings. Denied the possibility of an extradition order, the government of French Indochina (which had been following the inquiry closely) requested through the French consulate general in Hong Kong that it be informed when and how Nguyen Ai Quoc would eventually be deported from the crown colony. Loseby, however, warned Hong Kong authorities that if normal deportation procedures were followed, Nguyen Ai Quoc and Ly Sam, the young woman who had been arrested with him, would undoubtedly be placed in serious jeopardy, since the French would seize him at his point of disembarkation and return him to Indochina for trial. Loseby therefore requested that Quoc and Ly Sam be allowed to leave under their own arrangements, and to a destination of their choice. The governor of the colony reluctantly agreed. On July 24, he telegraphed the Colonial Office in London with the proposal that Nguyen Ai Quoc be set free, on condition that he leave Hong Kong within seven days. To deport Quoc to Indochina, the governor declared, would simply be a disguised form of extradition and “repugnant to British principles.”4
By now, however, press reports sponsored by the Comintern and its affiliates had brought Nguyen Ai Quoc’s arrest to broad public attention throughout the world. Jules Cambon, the French ambassador in London, had expressed his government’s conce
rn over the issue, stating that Quoc was “an international danger” and should not be permitted to remain at large. Although Paris had no legal grounds on which to make a formal request for his extradition to Indochina, Cambon wanted the British to know French views on the matter. He also reiterated the request of the French consul general in Hong Kong that Nguyen Ai Quoc be deported in a manner “to facilitate the task of the governor-general of Indochina.” The British Foreign Office, which was eager to please the French on a matter relating to joint anti-subversive activities, agreed with the consul general’s proposal and suggested that Quoc be deported to Annam, as Paris had requested.5
The Foreign Office request provoked a flurry of memos within the Colonial Office in London over the merits of turning Nguyen Ai Quoc over to the French. Some officials felt that since he had committed no offense against British law, the only ground for deporting him was that he was a Communist. That, in the words of one official, was the equivalent of “putting his neck in the French noose.” But others argued that he should be turned over. As one colonial official noted in August:
Personally I am in favor of sending this man to his native country as the F.O. suggests. He is one of the worst agitators who was put into the bag in the round-up following the Le Franc seizure in Shanghai and it is probably only bad luck that we have not got enough evidence to imprison him for revolutionary activities in Hong Kong.
All one’s sporting instincts of course are in favor of letting the man go to Russia instead of in effect handing him over to his enemies, but I think that this is a case for suppressing those instincts. Revolutionary crime in Annam is a really low-down dirty business, including every kind of murder, even burning public officers alive and torturing them to death. For much of this crime Nguyen is personally responsible, and it is not in his favour that he has directed the affairs from afar instead of having the guts to go and take a hand in things himself.
Apart from the fact that if he is allowed to go free, he will continue to foment this kind of crime, I do entirely agree with the F.O. and the French government that it is in the general interest of civilization in the East that the Colonial Powers should stand together and help one another to suppress this kind of crime, which is highly infectious.6
As a result of the request by the Foreign Office, the crown colony’s governor issued a new order to deport Quoc directly to Indochina, To forestall that possibility, Loseby had already instituted a suit in the Superior Court of Hong Kong for a writ of habeas corpus as a means of forcing a public trial. On August 14, the Superior Court convened to hear the case. During the proceedings, which lasted several weeks, Loseby challenged the government’s new deportation order, claiming that the banishment inquiry had followed improper procedures by asking the defendant questions of a political nature that went beyond the purview of the original purpose of the inquiry. When Chief Justice Sir Joseph Kemp warned Hong Kong officials that he might rule against the existing deportation order, a new one was immediately drawn up under a different section of the Deportation Ordinance of 1917. The Court approved the change, noting that although a deportation order whose consequence was tantamount to extradition might be objectionable on the grounds of policy, it was not contrary to British law. Nguyen Ai Quoc’s request for a writ of habeas corpus was thereupon denied, and he was once again subject to deportation to Indochina. Ly Sam was ordered released and permitted to leave Hong Kong by her own arrangements.7
Frank Loseby had already anticipated this judgment by the Supreme Court, however, and he now gave instant notice of appeal to the Privy Council in London on the ground that the decision represented an abuse of executive power. In accepting the case, the Privy Council provided Nguyen Ai Quoc with a change of scenery. Since the appeal would not be considered for several months, he was now transferred from Victoria Prison to the Bowen Road Hospital. Loseby informed the authorities that if the deportation order to Indochina under section 6 of the Deportation Ordinance were to be canceled, Quoc would agree to leave on his own initiative. He requested permission to go temporarily to Great Britain.
Although Nguyen Ai Quoc was not visibly ill, he was worn out and emaciated. In his memoirs, he complained that in Hong Kong he was housed in a virtual dungeon, where he was regularly maltreated and was fed meals of bad rice, rotten fish, and a little beef. Sometimes he fell momentarily into despair when it appeared that he would not be released. Hunting for bugs, he related, was his only amusement. To pass the time he also sang songs or wrote poetry and letters to friends on scraps of paper that he managed to find in prison.
According to some sources, however, in the Bowen Road Hospital he was lodged in relative comfort and was regularly visited by the colonial secretary and his wife (who was a friend of Mrs. Loseby), as well as by a number of other Europeans. Because hospital fare was inadequate, Frank Loseby arranged to have meals brought in from a local restaurant. Nguyen Ai Quoc spent his idle hours reading and reportedly writing a book in English on his personal philosophy. Unfortunately, the book was lost by the Losebys during World War II.
As usual, Nguyen Ai Quoc missed no opportunity to propagandize on behalf of the future revolution. British visitors frequently visited the prison or the hospital to stare at the “strange” Bolshevik. Chinese employees and their friends occasionally stopped by as well, but they were more respectful. As Quoc related it in an autobiographical account:
One day, a Chinese nurse who was assigned to care for Uncle [as the author referred to himself in the book] asked him secretly: “Uncle, what is communism? What did you do as a Communist to get yourself arrested?” The nurse knew that Communists were not smugglers, thieves, or murderers, so she couldn’t understand why Communists were arrested.
“To put it simply,” Uncle replied, “Communists hope to make it so that Chinese nurses will not have to take orders from their British superiors.” The nurse looked at Uncle with wide eyes and replied, “Really?”8
While in detention, Nguyen Ai Quoc was permitted to send and receive correspondence. A few weeks after his arrest he sent a letter to Lam Duc Thu, the former Revolutionary Youth League member who had lost the trust of his revolutionary colleagues out of growing suspicion that he was a French intelligence agent. Quoc explained that he had been in prison for three weeks and was deeply ashamed. “I have no parents,” he lamented. “Who will be a witness to my innocence?” Quoc appealed to his onetime colleague to do all in his power to restore his freedom and pledged his eternal gratitude.
Apparently Nguyen Ai Quoc’s request was in vain. Several months later, Thu reported to his French contact officer that Quoc had asked him for HK $1,000 to enable him to travel to Europe after his release. When Thu replied that he had no money to provide assistance, Quoc asked Thu to persuade his wife to sell some of her possessions. He also asked Thu to help reorganize the Party, but Thu replied that he could do little, since Party members remained suspicious of him. Despite this rebuff and the fact that Nguyen Ai Quoc must have known that Lam Duc Thu was a renegade, he maintained the correspondence. In late November, he wrote his former comrade that he was in poor health and vomited blood regularly. If the condition persists, he lamented, “I fear to die in prison. But I keep my thoughts fixed on Heaven.” He advised Lam Duc Thu not to visit him in order to avoid getting in trouble with the authorities.9
It may indeed have been a lonely time. His most recent love interest, the young Nguyen Thi Minh Khai, was now in prison in China. His father had died two years before, virtually penniless, in Cochin China. Quoc did manage to keep in touch with his brother and sister through an occasional exchange of letters. His brother, Khiem, had been imprisoned by the French for subversive activities in 1914. After being released in 1920, Khiem was kept under police surveillance in Hué, where he practiced medicine and taught geomancy, a vocation that allowed him secretly to engage in clandestine activities. He must have been in financial need, for in 1926 Quoc secretly sent him a small amount of money with the assistance of Phan Boi Chau.
Quoc’s sister, Nguyen Thi Thanh, had also encountered continuing problems with the authorities. Arrested on the charge of possession of firearms in 1918, she was released in 1922 but placed under surveillance; she also settled in Hué where, like her brother Khiem, she practiced medicine while secretly taking part in the anti-French resistance. When her father died in 1929, she visited Kim Lien briefly to console remaining members of the family.10
With the decision on Nguyen Ai Quoc’s fate now in the hands of the Privy Council in London, British officials continued to discuss the issue. Opinion at the Colonial Office favored the governor’s advice that he be released and permitted to leave Hong Kong on his own accord. But the Foreign Office was still concerned about how to square such an action with the French and asked that the Hong Kong authorities detain Quoc until the French could be queried about the charges levied against him. In the meantime, the Colonial Office agreed to delay further action on his release until the Privy Council had decided on the matter.11
On December 22, the new French ambassador in London, Jacques Truelle, responded to the British request for information on the current charges against Nguyen Ai Quoc in Indochina. Truelle told the Colonial Office that the minister of colonies in Paris was in possession of recent information that had confirmed French suspicions that Nguyen Ai Quoc was indeed the Comintern’s liaison agent with all Communist parties in Southeast Asia. Among such parties, he noted pointedly, was the Communist Party of Malaya, which was a British colony. As for Quoc’s alleged crimes in Indochina, Truelle noted that the imperial government in Annam had accused him of being the primary instigator of the rebellion that had recently taken place in the central provinces. At first, the provincial tribunal in Vinh had condemned him to death, but in October 1929, after review by the Supreme Tribunal in Hué, the sentence was reduced to forced labor in perpetuity. In February 1930, the tribunal had decided that Nguyen Ai Quoc would be judged anew after his arrest by French authorities. At a new trial, noted Truelle, the charges that would be levied against Quoc would include plotting and instigating rebellion against the royal Annamite government, provoking murder and pillage, and the propagation of subversive doctrines. These accusations, he declared, were based on the evidence contained in several documents, some containing Quoc’s signature, that were in the possession of the French authorities. Truelle assured London that these charges would not be definitive until approved by the French résident supérieur in Annam. If Nguyen Ai Quoc were to be convicted of criminal activities, Truelle assured his British colleagues, the résident supérieur would make sure that no sentence of capital punishment would be carried out.12
Ho Chi Minh Page 29
