31. Jay Taylor, China and Southeast Asia (New York: Praeger, 1974), pp. 13–14; Bernard B. Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1966), p. vii; Henri Navarre, Agonie de l’Indochine (Paris: Plan, 1956), p. 181, and Vo Nguyen Giap, People’s War, p. 179.
32. According to Chinese documents, on January 24 the Central Military Commission in Beijing instructed Chinese advisers to propose a cautious “bit by bit” strategy at Dien Bien Phu to their Vietminh colleagues. See Zhongguo junshi, p. 98, and Qiang Zhai, “Transplanting the Chinese Model,” p. 709.
33. President Eisenhower’s indecision over how to respond to the situation in Indochina has been the subject of considerable scholarly interest. I have dealt with the issue in my U.S. Containment Policy and the Conflict in Indochina (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1994), chapters 5 and 6. For Nixon’s private comment, see de Folin, Indochine, p. 254, citing telegram 2414 from the French Embassy in Washington, April 8, 1954, MAE.
34. Philippe Devillers and Jean Lacouture, La Fin d’une guerre: Indochine 1954 (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1960), p. 149; Vo Nguyen Giap, People’s War, p. 153; Zhongguo junshi, pp. 102–3. Surviving French prisoners of war were released after the signing of the Geneva Agreement in July.
35. For a brief excerpt to that effect by the Party secretariat and dated May 1, 1954, see Chu tich Ho Chi Minh, p. 144.
36. According to U.S. Embassy Saigon telegram 2312, dated May 10, 1954, in RG 59, UPA, French intelligence sources estimated that nine Vietminh infantry battalions—the equivalent of one division—could be transported from Dien Bien Phu to the delta in ten days. The entire Vietminh force of twenty-seven battalions could arrive in three weeks’ time. There were already an estimated sixteen Vietminh battalions in the area. Some French officers were less pessimistic. General René Cogny, one of Navarre’s senior military commanders, was convinced that the Vietminh needed time to regroup and would not attack the Red River delta until at least October, predicting that he could hold the area temporarily if provided with needed reinforcements—see Saigon 2363, May 12, 1954, in RG 59, UPA. Vietminh sources confirm his estimate, conceding that logistical problems alone would have prevented a successful assault on the Hanoi region until at least 1955.
37. Chen Jian, “China,” p. 108. Many years later, Mao Zedong conceded to Ho Chi Minh that the Chinese diplomatic strategy at Geneva had perhaps been faulty—see Odd Arne Westad et al., 77 Conversations between Chinese and Foreign Leaders on the Wars in Indochina, 1964–1977 (Washington, D.C.: Cold War International History Project/The Woodrow Wilson Center, 1998), p. 134.
38. For a detailed analysis of the meeting, see Joyaux, La Chine, pp. 251–54. In a cable from London, the U.S. Embassy reported that Zhou told Nehru that China was agreeable to neutralist governments in Laos and Cambodia, on condition that neither should be turned into bases for hostile acts against China. He stated further that the Vietminh would agree to cease large-scale military operations if the French did so as well, and that the DRV would respect a division of Vietnam into separate regroupment zones. See U.S. Embassy, London to Department of State, no. 32, July 2, 1954, in RG 59. UPA.
39. After the meeting, the VWP Politburo instructed Pham Van Dong to adopt a more conciliatory position. See Qiang Zhai, China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950–1975 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), pp. 60–62. Also see Joyaux, La Chine, pp. 262–64; Chen Jian, “China,” p. 109; 77 Conversations, p. 134.
40. Pham Van Dong’s reluctance to compromise, a consequence of the Vietminh victory at Dien Bien Phu, is explored in Qiang Zhai, China and the Vietnam Wars, pp. 61–62, and Chen Jian, “China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950–1975,” pp. 159–161, and Chen Jian, “China …,” p. 109, citing Qu Xing, “On Zhou Enlai’s Diplomacy,” p. 258, and Shi Zhe, Together with Historical Giants, p. 557, Also see Zhai Qiang, “China and Geneva Conference,” p. 111, citing Shi Zhe, “Rineiwa huiyi Sanj,” [Random recollections of the Geneva Conference] in Ran wu (January 1989), p. 43.
41. Wang Bingnan, Zhongmei huitan jiunian huigu [Recollections of nine years of Sino-U.S. talks] (Beijing: Shijie Zhishi Publishing, 1985), p. 13.
42. Report to the Sixth Plenum in Ho Chi Minb: Selected Writings (Hanoi: Foreign Languages Press, 1977), pp. 181–83. See the comment by the Vietnamese diplomat Mai Van Bo that international factors intervened to prevent a total victory at Geneva, in his Chung toi hoc lam ngoai giao voi Bac Ho [I studied diplomacy with Uncle Ho] (Ho Chi Minh City: Tre, 1998), p. 80.
XIV | Between Two Wars
1. Ho’s speech before city officials is printed in Toan Tap I, vol. 7, pp. 49–51. For the arrival of Vietnamese troops and the reference to Ho’s arrival in the city, see Hanoi 278 to Department of State, October 10, 1954, and Hanoi 314 to Department of State, October 20, 1954, both in RG 59, UPA. Also see Joint Weeka, October 24, 1954, in ibid. Ho Chi Minh’s rules of behavior to civilian and military personnel are listed in BNTS, vol. 5, p. 540. For his decision to refuse the use of the palace for his private residence, see the Vietnam Courier (May 1985), p. 3.
2. Reported in Hanoi 318, dated October 21, 1954, in RG 59, UPA. For Nehru’s visit, see Joint Weeka 43, October 24, 1954. Ho’s speech welcoming Nehru is in Toan Tap I, vol. 7, pp. 52–53.
3. Jean Sainteny, Ho Chi Minh and his Vietnam, trans. Herma Briffault (Chicago: Cowles, 1972), p. 117. According to Sainteny, Vietnamese soldiers stationed outside the U.S. consulate carefully registered the license numbers of the automobiles transporting guests to this party.
4. For the eight-point decree, see Memo, Joseph Yager, to Ambassador Johnson, dated July 16, 1954, in RG 59, UPA.
5. Toan Tap I, vol. 7, pp. 20–27.
6. For a reference to the number of trained administrators, see Ken Post, Revolution, Socialism, and Nationalism in Vietnam, vol. 2 (Aldershot, U.K.: Dartmouth, 1989), p. 54. For remarks on why so many refugees left for the South, see Mieczyslaw Maneli, War of the Vanquished (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), pp. 38–39.
7. The law on People’s Councils was passed by the National Assembly in July 1957, and the first elections were held in November—see Post, Revolution, vol. 2, p, 55.
8. Toan Tap I, vol, 7, pp, 20–27.
9. One of those weighing in on the issue is Carlyle Thayer, who estimates that in 1954 there were about 100,000 Vietminh supporters in the Southern provinces and 90,000 of these went to the North—see his War by Other Means: National Liberation and Revolution in Viet-Nam 1954–1960 (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1989), p. 18. On Ho’s confidence regarding the elections, see Vu Thu Hien, Dem giua ban ngay [Between Night and Day] (Westminster, Calif.: Van Nghe, 1998), p. 230.
10. Ironically, however, Vietminh sources had predicted as early as the fall of 1950 that the United States would eventually replace Bao Dai with Ngo Dinh Diem. See Saigon 245 to Secretary of State, October 10, 1950, in RG 59, UPA. For information in State Department archives on Diem’s activities in the United States and his appointment as prime minister, see Memorandum of Conversation, Ngo Dinh Diem with Gibson and Hoey of PSA, January 15, 1951; Saigon 2363, June 30, 1951; Memo PSA (Bonsal) to FE (Allison), January 16, 1953; Paris 1076 to Secretary of State, September 14, 1953; Paris 4530 to Secretary of State, May 25, 1954; Paris 4538, May 26, 1954; Paris 4756 to Secretary of State, June 8, 1954, in ibid. For reaction in Saigon to his appointment, see Saigon 2819 to Secretary of State, also in ibid. For his view that the South Vietnamese were too easygoing either to become soldiers or to resist Communist subversion, see Saigon 105 to Secretary of State, July 8, 1954, RG 59, UPA. Only six of seventeen portfolios in his first cabinet went to southerners. The comment about the “messiah without a message” was Robert McClintock’s—see Saigon 48 to Secretary of State, July 4, 1954, RG 59, UPA.
11. BNTS, vol. 5, pp. 563–64, 568. Thayer, War by Other Means, p, 26. For a Ho Chi Minh interview with a French journalist, in which he offered such concessions, see Toan Tap I, vol. 7, pp. 68–70. For the reaction by Dulles and other U.S. officials, to Diem’s decision, see William J. Duike
r, U.S. Containment Policy and the Conflict in Indochina (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1994), p. 215.
12. The quote from Molotov is in Thayer, War by Other Means, pp. 35–37. For Ho’s activities in China, see HZYZ, pp. 143–47. Ho’s speech on his return to Hanoi is printed in Toan Tap I, vol. 7, pp. 286–89. Also see ZYG, p. 65. According to Mieczyslaw Maneli, then the Polish representative on the ICC in Hanoi, Moscow adopted a cautious attitude on Vietnam after the Geneva conference, supporting the Vietnamese position on issues relating to the settlement, but not at the expense of their new foreign policy promoting peaceful coexistence—see Maneli, War of the Vanquished, p. 24. For Soviet reservations about the ideological line in the DRV, see ibid., p. 36. For the international context, see R. B. Smith, An International History of the Vietnam War, vol. 1, 1955–1961 (New York: St. Martin’s, 1983), pp. 30–33, 62.
13. Ta Xuan Linh, “How Armed Struggle Began in South Vietnam,” Vietnam Courier (March 1974), p. 20, cited in No Other Road to Take: Memoirs of Mrs. Nguyen Thi Dinh, trans. Mai V. Elliott (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Data Paper No. 102, 1976), p. 12.
14. Neil Sheehan, After the War Was Over: Hanoi and Saigon (New York: Vintage, 1992), p. 77.
15. An English-language version of the speech is in Ho Chi Minh: Selected Writings (Hanoi: Foreign Languages Press, 1977), pp. 188–91. Also see Toan Tap I, vol. 7, PP. 329–32.
16. Post, Revolution, vol. 1, pp. 267–68.
17. Bernard B. Fall, ed., Ho Chi Minh on Revolution: Selected Writings, 1920–1966 (New York: Praeger, 1967), p. 12. For Ho’s private comments, see Vu Thu Hien, Dent giua ban ngay, p. 221, and his article in Chroniques Vietnamiennes (Fall 1997), p. 12. Also see Edwin E. Moise, Land Reform in China and North Vietnam: Consolidating the Revolution at the Local Level (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1983), pp. 191, 239–41.
18. Le Duc Tho, “Lam the nao de phat dong chien tranh du kich o Nam bo” [How to carry out guerrilla warfare in the South], in Cuoc khang chien than thanh cua nhan dan Viet Nam [The sacred war of the Vietnamese people], vol. 3 (Hanoi: Su that, 1958), pp. 289–92. Also see Georges Boudarel, Cents fleurs écloses dans la nuit du Vietnam: Communisme et dissidence, 1954–1956 (Paris: Jacques Bertoin, 1991), p. 171.
19. Bui Tin, Following Ho Chi Minh: Memoirs of a North Vietnamese Colonel (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1995), p. 23; BNTS, vol. 5, p. 559; Nhan Dan, November 19, 1954.
20. Duong Van Mai Elliott: The Sacred Willow: Four Generations in the Life of a Vietnamese Family (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 344–45. Also see Moise, Land Reform, chapter 11.
21. See Moise, Land Reform, pp. 218–22, and Boudarel, Cent Fleurs, p. 177. For an example of Le Van Luong’s views, see his “Vi sao phai chinh Dang” [Why the Party must be purified], in Cuoc khang chien than thanh, vol. 3, p. 293–302. Le Van Luong was the younger brother of Nguyen Cong Hoan, a popular writer of fiction who remained in the North after the Geneva conference.
22. “Speech at the recapitulative meeting of the second phase of land reform, Thai Nguyen, Bac Giang,” in Toan Tap I, vol. 7, pp. 112–21. Also see Post, Revolution, vol. 1, pp. 273, 289; Boudarel, Cents fleurs, pp. 177–78, 188.
23. Bui Tin, Following Ho, pp. 28–29; Vu Thu Hien, Dem giua ban ngay, p. 224; Moise, Land Reform, pp. 218–22,
24. Toan Tap I, vol. 7, pp. 179–82. For a discussion of the seventh plenum and its decisions, see Post, Revolution, vol. 1, p. 271.
25. Cited in Post, Revolution, vol. 1, p. 272.
26. Ibid., p. 274. Ho’s speech is contained in Toan Tap I, vol. 7, pp. 354–59. The comparison with a bowl of soup is cited in Georges Boudarel, “Ho Chi Minh,” in George Fischer, ed., Hommes d’état d’Asie et leur politique (Paris: Université René Descartes, 1980), pp. 127–28.
27. Post, Revolution, vol. 1, p. 274; “Bai noi chuyen tai hoi nghi can bo cai cach mien bien” [Speech to a conference of reform cadres in maritime areas], in Toan Tap I, vol. 7, pp. 413–16. Vu Dinh Huynh’s plea is cited in Vu Thu Hien, Dem giua ban ngay, p. 225.
28. Cited in W. R. Smyser, The Independent Vietnamese: Vietnamese Communism Between Russia and China, 1956–1969 (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Center for International Studies, 1980), pp. 5–6. According to Georges Boudarel, when a reporter from Radio Moscow asked Truong Chinh for his views on the decisions reached at the Twentieth Congress, Chinh had responded with an ambiguous remark about “the analysis of the new situation leading to very profound theoretical remarks and resolutions on audacious tasks”—see Boudarel, Cent fleurs, p. 193. Vu Thu Hien claims thar only members of the Politburo and the Secretariat received copies of the de-Stalinization speech—see Dem giua ban ngay, p. 101.
29. Vu Thu Hien, Dem Giua Ban Ngay, p. 333; “Vu Thu Hien parle,” in Chroniques Vietnamiennes (Fall 1997), p. 13.
30. “Loi be mac Hoi nghi lan thu 9 (mo rong) cua Ban chap hanh Trung uong Dang Lao dong Viet Nam” [Concluding speech at the Ninth (Enlarged) Plenum of the Party Central Committee], in Toan Tap I, vol. 7, pp. 426–30.
31. Boudarel, Cents fleurs, pp. 199–200. Ho Chi Minh’s letter is “Thu gui hoi nghi tong ket cai cach ruong dat dot 5” [Letter to summary conference of land reform wave 5], in Toan Tap I, vol. 7, pp. 460–61.
32. The speech is in Toan Tap I, vol. 7, pp. 506–9. The concept of the “mass line,” adopted from Chinese practice, called for a policy of responding to the immediate aspirations of the people (from the masses to the masses) at the early stage of the socialist revolution.
33. Nhan Dan, October 30, 1956, quoted in Thayer, War by Other Means, 89–90. I have used Thayer’s translation.
34. Moise, Land Reform, pp. 244–46; Post, Revolution, vol. 1, p. 280; BNTS, vol. 7, p. 364.
35. BNTS, vol. 7, p. 334. Also see Vu Thu Hien, Dem giua ban ngay, pp. 457–58. For a brief discussion of how ordinary Vietnamese assessed Ho Chi Minh’s responsibility for the campaign, see Elliott, Sacred Willow, pp. 343–44.
36. Post, Revolution, vol. 1, pp. 282–83. For Chinh’s response to the dismissal, see Bui Tin, Following Ho, p. 31, and Hoang Gian, “Une goutte bleu dans le grand ocean,” in Chroniques Vietnamiennes (Winter–Spring 1988), p. 23.
37. For the speech, see Toan Tap I, vol. 7, pp. 585–86. Fall, Ho Chi Minh on Revolution, pp. 277– 81, has an English version. Moise, Land Reform, pp. 246–50, also has lengthy excerpts from this speech. For the notes on Quynh Luu, see ibid., pp. 258–60.
38. Boudarel, Cents fleurs, pp. 202–4. For various estimates of the numbers killed and punished, see ibid., p. 203–4. Boudarel cites a source to the effect that Ho Chi Minh himself admitted that 12,000 to 15,000 had been erroneously executed—see p. 203. For a lower estimate, see Moise, Land Reform, pp. 218–22.
39. Post, Revolution, vol. 1, p. 287.
40. Nguyen Manh Tuong, Un excommunie. Hanoi: 1954–1991: Procès d’un intellectuel (Paris: Que Me, 1992), p. 9.
41. Boudarel, Cent Fleurs, p. 143. Information in the above paragraphs comes from Post, vol. I, pp. 280–90, and vol. 2, pp. 156–57, and Boudarel, Cent Fleurs, passim. Also see Hirohide Kurihara, “Changes in the Literary Policy of the Vietnamese Workers’ Party, 1956–1958,” in Takashi Shiraishi and Motoo Furuta, ed., Indochina in the 1940s and 1950s (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, 1992), pp. 165–96. For Truong Chinh’s comment about freedom of speech, see Nguyen Van Tran, Viet cho me va Quoc hoi [Letter to My mother and the National Assembly] (Westminster, Calif.: Van Nghe, 1996), p. 275.
42. See Bui Tin, Following Ho, pp. 36–37.
43. Ibid., pp. 32–33; Vu Thu Hien, Dem giua ban ngay, p. 322.
44. U.S. Department of State, Working Paper on North Viet-Nam’s Role in the War in South Viet-Nam (Washington, D.C., 1968), appendix item 204. For a discussion, see William Duiker, The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam, 2d ed. (Boulder, Colo.: West-view Press, 1996), pp. 186–87.
45. Vietnam News Agency, April 3, 1956. For Hanoi’s initial reaction to the new Soviet policy and Mikoyan’s visit, see Sm
yser, Independent Vietnamese, pp. 6–7, and Ang Cheng Guan, Vietnamese Communists’ Relations with China and the Second Indochina Conflict, 1956–1962 (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1999), pp. 19–20. According to Russian Scholar Ilya Gaiduk, Truong Chinh may have been one of the doubters, expressing skepticism to a Soviet official in 1955 that a peaceful solution to the problem was possible. See his “Developing an Alliance: The Soviet Union and Vietnam, 1954–1975,” in Peter Lowe (ed.) The Vietnam War (New York: St. Martin’s, 1998), p. 141.
46. I have used the English version of the speech in Fall, On Revolution, pp. 269–71. For the Vietnamese version, see Toan Tap I, vol. 7, p. 427.
47. For the poem, see Hoang Van Chi, “Collectivization and Rice Production,” The China Quarterly (January–March 1962), p. 96. For Ho’s letter, see Toan Tap I, vol. 7, pp. 453–57. The letter is given in English in Fall, On Revolution, pp. 272–74. The quote about “simple thoughts” is from a Nhan Dan editorial on July 22, 1956.
48. Toan Tap I, vol. 7, pp. 462–64; William S. Turley, The Second Indochina War: A Short Political and Military History, 1954–1975 (New York: New American Library/Mentor, 1986), p. 22.
49. The pamphlet appears in its original Vietnamese form, as Duon loi Cach mang mien Nam, in the Race documents, a collection of materials deposited by Jeffrey Race with the Center for Research Libraries, Chicago, Illinois. Also see Turley, Second Indochina War, p. 22.
50. For an inside comment, see Vu Thu Hien, Dem giua ban ngay, p. 107. For a more detailed analysis of the Zhou visit, see Thayer, War by Other Means, pp. 98–100, and Ang Cheng Guan, Vietnamese Communists’ Relations, pp. 43–45. Thayer has pointed out that the final communiqué contained a reference to the five principles of peaceful coexistence and the dangers of chauvinism (an obvious slap at the USSR), but the words “great nation” were not included.
51. It should be noted that not all members of the southern leadership wished to adopt a more aggressive approach in using violence to oppose the Diem regime. For a discussion of varying views, see Duiker, Communist Road, pp. 190–92. Ho’s National Assembly speech can be found in English in Fall, On Revolution, pp. 277–81.
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