Then came March 9, the auspicious moment. The removal of the French secret police after the coup, together with Japan concentrating her presence in the urban areas of Vietnam in preparation for a possible Allied invasion, gave the Viet Minh considerable advantages in their underground work and propaganda efforts. The Japanese, having chased French troops out of Vietnam, did not think it vital to keep a troop presence in the northern provinces of Tonkin in light of more pressing concerns, and thus the Viet Minh had the region largely to themselves. Slowly, in the late spring and summer months, the Viet Minh began to spread southward toward the Red River Delta.27
For Ho and other members of the ICP Central Committee, the much-anticipated revolutionary conditions were now fast approaching. Shortly after the coup, the Central Committee convened under the direction of acting general secretary Truong Chinh to make preparations for a general uprising leading to a seizure of power at the end of the Pacific War. As reflected in the directive issued at the meeting’s end, the committee agreed on the danger of moving too fast: Though the Japanese action would not produce a truly independent Vietnam, it would take time for the public to come down from its postcoup euphoria. Hence the party should bide its time and work to expand its base of support and introduce the Viet Minh flag and doctrine to the people. Eventually these efforts would culminate in a general uprising, “for example, when the Japanese Army surrenders to the Allies or when the Allies are decisively engaged in Indochina.” The Viet Minh should be the main force working with the Allies, the directive said, and Viet Minh representatives should greet Allied units as they entered each village. These instructions would stay in place right up to the time of Japan’s surrender.28
One other factor assisted the Viet Minh cause: the terrible famine that ravaged parts of Vietnam, and especially Tonkin and northern Annam, in 1944–45. These areas, less agriculturally blessed than Cochin China, had long depended on rice shipped from the south to survive. In the 1920s and 1930s, output in Tonkin declined due to reductions in acreage, even as the population expanded by more than 30 percent. Starting in 1941, bad weather and the requisition policies of the French and Japanese caused supplies to decline, and drought and insects caused the spring 1944 rice crop to decline by 19 percent compared to the previous year. That autumn, major flooding destroyed a large part of the October crop in the north, but the colonial government nevertheless increased the quantity of rice the peasants had to deliver. At the same time, Allied bombing of roads and railways dramatically reduced shipments from the Mekong Delta, as did colonial policies that made it unprofitable to ship grain to the north.29
By February 1945, a catastrophe loomed. Still, the French and the Japanese continued to stockpile rice for their own future use, and after the March 9 takeover the Japanese seized control of the French stocks. Meanwhile poor villagers in the north were succumbing by the thousands. In many areas, streets were littered with dying peasants, and oxcarts filled with corpses were a common sight. Families roamed from village to village, hoping to find grain. Or they retreated to their homes, shared the few remaining morsels, and died quietly, one by one. Some people, having consumed everything that could be eaten—bark, roots, leaves, dogs, and rats—resorted to cannibalism, causing parents to fear that their children would be stolen and eaten. Some parents sold their children for a few cups of rice. Duong Thieu Chi, a provincial official in Nam Dinh, made sure to avoid eating in restaurants or stalls when he traveled during these months, for fear that the meat served might be rat or human flesh.30
A French observer, perhaps aware of his country’s failure over the previous decades to develop an effective system for the prevention and relief of famine, despite pleas for them after each crisis, had this to say: “From looking at these bodies, which are shriveled up on roadsides with only a handful of straw for clothes as well as for the burial garment, one feels ashamed of being human.”31
It is impossible to know how many people perished in the famine, but the scale is clear enough. In May 1945, as the crisis eased, officials used statistics from various provinces in Tonkin to declare that to that point, precisely 380,969 people had died by starvation. A year later, using more complete figures, analysts estimated that one million people had died in Tonkin, and another 300,000 in Annam. In later years, the estimates would climb higher still, to two million deaths in a five-month period in 1945. Even if one adopts the lower figure of one million for Tonkin, the implications are appalling: 10 percent of the population in the affected region died of starvation in less than half a year. Particularly hard-hit were the provinces of Nam Dinh, Thai Binh, Hai Duong, and Kien An. In these provinces, and indeed throughout Tonkin and Annam, the perception became widespread that the Japanese and especially the French were to blame for the disaster with their inhumane policies, and that Bao Dai and his ministers had been feckless in responding to the crisis.32
VICTIMS OF THE MASS FAMINE IN NORTHERN VIETNAM IN 1944–45. (photo credit 3.2)
The Viet Minh, however, benefited from the widespread popular perception that they alone had tried hard to reduce the suffering. As desperate peasants stormed granaries to take rice, Viet Minh operatives often assumed leadership of the revolt, directing “rice struggles” to break open warehouses and distribute food to the hungry. These efforts, though growing out of grassroots popular protest more than Viet Minh initiative per se, left a lasting impression on many peasants and undoubtedly aided the efforts of Viet Minh forces operating in the mountain regions around the Red River Delta to seize control over rural areas and recruit followers from villages under their control. The tiny elite forces under Vo Nguyen Giap were now combined with other units in the country into a new Vietnamese Liberation Army (Viet Nam Giai Phong Quan). By May, the VLA’s trained forces had reached five thousand, although many lacked weapons.33
The Kim government in Hue, meanwhile, was completely ineffectual. Widely perceived to be a vassal of the Japanese, its leading members were competent professionals—doctors, lawyers, professors—who faced near-impossible odds. Not only did they have to heed the wishes of the army of occupation; they also had to deal with the sorry state of the country’s infrastructure after years of war. Allied bombing had caused major damage to the railroads and halted most shipping. Even the basic task of getting governmental messages out from Hue to the provincial towns proved difficult and largely dependent on the goodwill of the Japanese, who controlled many of the roads. As for money, the government had no finances to speak of, and whatever revenues it managed to bring in, it had to turn over to the Japanese. As spring turned into summer and the certainty of Japan’s defeat in the war became more and more apparent, many members of Kim’s cabinet grasped the essential futility of their situation: The government was irrevocably linked to a hated occupier whose days were numbered.
IV
THE GROWING PRESENCE OF THE VIET MINH IN TONKIN WAS NOT lost on American officials in the Pacific theater, who saw important implications for the war effort. The Japanese takeover had eradicated the French intelligence network in Indochina, these analysts knew, and also disrupted the activities of the Americans’ so-called GBT espionage unit (named after the last names of its three leaders), which during 1944 had produced a wealth of useful intelligence information.34 Hence the potential utility of using the Viet Minh to assist Allied actions. New directives from Washington gave these U.S. units more flexibility, allowing them to seek cooperation with any and all resistance groups provided that such actions did not interfere with planned operations.35
Thus it was that Captain Charles Fenn of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the principal U.S. wartime intelligence agency, sought out meetings with Ho Chi Minh in Kunming in southern China. Fenn, a London-born former Marine Corps officer who would go on to write plays and novels as well as a respected biography of Ho, headed OSS operations for Indochina from headquarters in Kunming. There he heard about Ho’s organization and about Ho’s role in helping locate downed American pilots and providing intelligence on Ja
panese troop movements. Moreover, Fenn knew, Ho sometimes dropped by the Office of War Information facility in the city to read the Encyclopedia Americana and Time magazine. A face-to-face encounter seemed in order, Fenn determined.
Ho was eager to oblige. He had indeed come to Kunming expressly for the purpose of making contact with American officials. No Allied power loomed larger in his mind than the United States. Much as he had pinned his nationalist hopes at the end of the First World War on the Americans, pressing his case for Vietnamese independence on Woodrow Wilson at the Versailles Peace Conference, so he now looked to Washington for help as the Second World War drew to a close. He continued to believe that, by the circumstances of her birth, the United States was uniquely able among the great powers to grasp the nature of the “colonial problem.” The British might have cosigned the Atlantic Charter with its embrace of self-determination, but the document was wholly an American creation. Even the Soviet Union’s leadership did not possess this understanding. With everything in the Pacific War going the Americans’ way, and with Washington certain to dominate world politics in the years to come, Ho saw every reason to see what this Fenn fellow wanted.36
They met on March 17 at the Dragon’s Gate Café. Ho Chi Minh was accompanied by a close Viet Minh associate, Pham Van Dong. “His silvery wisp of beard suggests age,” Fenn wrote of Ho in his diary that day, “but his face is vigorous and his eyes bright and gleaming.” The three conversed in French. Fenn asked what Ho wanted from the United States. Only recognition for the Viet Minh, came the reply. But what about the rumors that it was a Communist organization? Fenn asked. The French label Communist all Annamites who want independence, Ho said, neatly evading a direct answer. When Fenn suggested the possibility of mutual assistance, Ho readily agreed.
“I already felt sure he was our man,” Fenn recalled, noting the “clear-cut talk [and] Buddha-like composure” of his correspondent. “Baudelaire felt the wings of insanity touch his mind; but that morning I felt the wings of genius touch mine.”37
Fenn, who had studied graphology, also provided an analysis of Ho’s handwriting, from which he concluded:
The essential features are simplicity, desire to make everything clear, remarkable self-control. Knows how to keep a secret. Neat, orderly, unassuming, no interest in dress or outward show. Self-confident and dignified. Gentle but firm. Loyal, sincere, and generous, would make a good friend. Outgoing, gets along with anyone. Keen analytical mind, difficult to deceive. Shows readiness to ask questions. Good judge of character. Full of enthusiasm, energy, initiative. Conscientious; painstaking attention to detail. Imaginative, interested in aesthetics, particularly literature. Good sense of humor.
Faults: diplomatic to the point of contriving. Could be moody and obstinate.38
At a second meeting three days later—this one at the Indochina Café, where they sipped strong coffee filtered in the French style—the two men made a deal whereby the OSS would provide radio equipment and a limited amount of arms and ammunition in exchange for Viet Minh assistance in intelligence gathering, sabotaging Japanese installations, and rescuing American pilots. But Ho Chi Minh also had something else on his mind that day: He asked if he could meet Claire Chennault, adviser to Chiang Kai-shek, founder of the famed “Flying Tigers,” and commander of the Fourteenth Air Force. Fenn said he’d do his best, and ten days later the two men presented themselves at Chennault’s outer office for a late-morning meeting, Fenn in a gabardine bush jacket and Ho in a simple cotton tunic and sandals. Chennault, for his part, cut an imposing figure in his perfectly pressed uniform. (He had that effect on people: Winston Churchill, upon seeing Chennault make his entrance at a conference earlier in the war and learning of his identity, whispered to an aide, “Well, thank God he’s on our side.”)39
Chennault thanked Ho for his efforts to save U.S. pilots, and Ho responded by expressing his admiration for Chennault and the Flying Tigers. Neither man spoke about the French, or about politics, but as the meeting ended, Ho asked for a favor: Could he have the general’s photograph? In an instant, a young female assistant appeared with a folder of eight-by-ten glossies. “Take your pick,” Chennault said. Ho selected one and asked the general to sign it. The assistant produced a Parker 51, and Chennault scrawled across the bottom: “Yours Sincerely, Claire L. Chennault.”40
Ho Chi Minh had his prized possession. In the weeks and months thereafter, he waved the photograph like a magic wand on his travels throughout the region, the better to prove that his movement had official recognition from the Allies and in particular from the United States. And he had some justification for making that claim. In April, the OSS provided Ho Chi Minh with air transportation to Jiangxi, not far from the Vietnam border, and later OSS personnel joined the Viet Minh at Ho’s headquarters at Pac Bo. One of them, radio operator Mac Shinn, an Asian-American, established radio contact with Kunming, and the OSS began to air-drop supplies, including medicine, a radio set, and a few weapons for training. In return, the Viet Minh provided the United States with intelligence reports and rescued several U.S. airmen.41
The OSS called its Vietnam operation the Deer Mission. On July 16, a Deer Team led by Colonel Allison Thomas parachuted into Ho’s new forward base, a tiny village in the jungle called Tan Trao, not far from the Thai Nguyen provincial capital. After disentangling himself from the banyan tree into which his parachute had slammed him, Thomas spoke a “few flowery sentences” to two hundred Viet Minh soldiers assembled near a banner proclaiming “Welcome to Our American Friends.” Ho Chi Minh, speaking in good idiomatic English, cordially greeted the OSS team and offered supper, but it was clear to the Americans that he was ill, “shaking like a leaf and obviously running a high fever.” The next day Ho denounced the French but remarked that “we welcome 10 million Americans.” Thomas was impressed by what he heard. “Forget the Communist Bogy,” he radioed OSS headquarters in Kunming. “Viet Minh League is not Communist. Stands for freedom and reforms against French harshness.”42
Thomas’s analysis was wrong, or at least incomplete. If the Viet Minh stood for independence and against French repression, their core leadership that summer also remained staunchly Communist. But Ho in particular among top strategists wore the ideology lightly, so much so that even Soviet officials questioned his Communist credentials. In Mao Zedong’s Chinese Communist Party too, analysts wondered where the Viet Minh, should they win the right to rule a free Vietnam, would take the country.
Other OSS personnel soon parachuted into Pac Bo, including a medic who diagnosed Ho Chi Minh’s ailments as malaria and dysentery. Quinine and sulfa drugs restored his health, but Ho remained frail. To a remarkable degree, he made a winning impression on these Americans, who invariably described him as warm, intelligent, and keen to cooperate with the United States.43 As a sign of friendship, they named him “OSS Agent 19.” Everywhere the Americans went, impoverished villagers thanked them with gifts of food and clothing, no doubt especially welcome after the devastating famine of that spring. The villagers interpreted the foreigners’ presence as a sign of U.S. anticolonial and anti-Japanese sentiments.
HO CHI MINH WITH MEMBERS OF THE U.S. DEER TEAM IN PAC BO. ON HO’S IMMEDIATE RIGHT IS ALLISON THOMAS, AND THEN RENÉ DÉFOURNEAUX, ANOTHER MEMBER OF THE U.S. TEAM. NEXT TO DÉFOURNEAUX IS VO NGUYEN GIAP. (photo credit 3.3)
In early August the Deer Team began to give Viet Minh soldiers weapons training. During many conversations with the OSS members, Ho said that he hoped young Vietnamese could study in the United States and that American technicians could help build an independent Vietnam. Citing history, Ho remarked that “your statesmen make eloquent speeches about … self-determination. We are self-determined. Why not help us? Am I any different from … your George Washington?”44
V
ONE CAN IMAGINE HOW MUCH HO RELISHED THESE CONTACTS WITH the mighty Americans. His Viet Minh had endured years of isolation, receiving no aid from his ideological allies in the Soviet Union; now the world’s most powerful natio
n seemed to be throwing her support behind his nation’s long quest for liberation. Surely he understood that the road ahead would be a difficult one for him, even treacherous, but with the Japanese facing total defeat and the Americans making welcome noises, he had reason to feel a measure of confidence.
“You’ve got to judge someone on the basis of what he wants,” wrote one American who was with Ho at his jungle headquarters during this time. “Ho couldn’t be French, and he knew he could fight the French on his terms. He was afraid of the Chinese, and he couldn’t deal with them because they’d always demand their pound of flesh. Moscow, so far away, was good at blowing up bridges, but not much good at building them up again. If it weren’t for the war, of course, Ho wouldn’t have had a chance against the long background of French colonialism. But now he was in the saddle, although it wasn’t clear what horse he was riding. For the moment, surely, he was helping us, on the ground. We and the French were in a position to help him in the future. I think he was ready to remain pro-West.”45
Away from Tonkin, however, and away from the freewheeling atmosphere in Kunming, American policy was moving in a very different direction. Roosevelt’s death on April 12 had brought to power a new administration, one with a markedly different assessment of what ought to happen in Indochina and in the colonial world generally. Harry S. Truman, thrust into the presidency at a time of global war, had almost no international experience. An unsuccessful haberdasher and former U.S. senator from Missouri, Truman had been selected as FDR’s running mate in 1944 because he was the second choice of each faction of the Democratic Party, and the only candidate all of them could accept. Whereas Roosevelt seldom made a decision until forced to do so, Truman often acted on impulse; while FDR could be described by associates as “sphinxlike,” Truman tended to tell people precisely what he thought; whereas Roosevelt saw the world in various shades of gray, for his successor it was often black-and-white.
Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam Page 11