These were partial truths at best, Isaacs acknowledged, but tens of millions of Asians, many of them possessing scant knowledge of the outside world, believed them. For them, the United States could be “both altruistic and wise: altruistic enough to side with the cause of freedom for its own sake, wise enough to see that continued imperialism in the British, Dutch, French, and Japanese style would bring no peace anywhere.” For self-interested reasons, Washington leaders ought to be on the side of change in Asia. The recent war, after all, had exposed the crippling weaknesses of the old system. During Japan’s wave of attacks in the first half of 1942, the British, Dutch, and American colonies had collapsed one by one, like so many houses of cards. In Indochina, military action had proved unnecessary, as coercive diplomacy had been enough to beat down the French. In each of these places, the indigenous populations, with rare exceptions, had either welcomed the invaders, or stood by passively, or cleverly sought to exploit for their own gain the rupture between the colonialists. Everywhere Tokyo officials had proved unable to consolidate whatever initial support they received, thereby underscoring—in the minds of nationalists all over Asia—the degree to which colonial or colonial-type control would thenceforth be unsustainable.28
Surely the United States would see all this, nationalists in the region told themselves and one another. Surely she would see that her postwar aims dovetailed perfectly with theirs. The United States, after all, was not like the other great powers, or at least it differed from them in key respects; whereas the British, the French, and the Dutch were wholly to be mistrusted, Americans could be believed, if not completely, then at least substantially. Ho Chi Minh, being more farsighted than most, had his suspicions on this score, as he revealed in his August letter to Charles Fenn, but even Ho held to what he thought was a well-founded hope that the Atlantic Charter’s principles would animate the postwar world. Archimedes Patti seemed to think they would; didn’t that mean something?
Not really, no. With his assurances to de Gaulle in Washington, Truman had indicated the course his administration would follow on Indochina, at least in the short term. Washington would not act to prevent a French return to Indochina. There were voices in the State Department who objected to this policy, who believed firmly that the United States had to stand for change, for a new order of things, a decolonization of the international system, but they had lost out to those in Washington who stood, in effect, for the old order of things, and who moreover had their eyes firmly fixed on Soviet moves in postwar Europe. French pleas would get their due attention and would be answered; Viet Minh pleas would not.
In historical terms, it was a monumental decision by Truman, and like so many that U.S. presidents would make in the decades to come, it had little to do with Vietnam herself—it was all about American priorities on the world stage. France had made her intentions clear, and the administration did not dare defy a European ally that it deemed crucial to world order, for the mere sake of honoring the principles of the Atlantic Charter.
But even on its own terms there are reasons to question the logic of the administration’s policy. Was it in fact logical, given the unquestioned importance of ensuring a strong France in Europe, to support her hard-line posture against a formidable nationalist movement in the far reaches of Southeast Asia? The looming conflict in Vietnam was sure to drain French strength away from Europe, to consume resources that all Paris officials knew were scarce to begin with, perhaps ultimately compelling Washington to in effect pay twice—once to bolster France in Europe, once to strengthen her in Indochina.29
How things might have gone had Truman chosen differently is a tantalizing “What if?” question. There is scarce evidence that Ho Chi Minh would have allied himself with the United States in the emerging East-West divide, or that a reunified Vietnam under his leadership would have chosen a non-Communist path in the future. But neither should we assume that Ho necessarily would have aligned his nation closely with the Soviet Union in the Cold War; he might well have opted for an independent Communist course of the type Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito would follow. And certainly this much seems clear: A decision by the Truman administration to support Vietnamese independence in the late summer and fall of 1945 would have gone a long way toward averting the mass bloodshed and destruction that was to follow.
IV
ONE CAN IMAGINE THE SENSE OF RELIEF WITH WHICH INDOCHINA planners in Paris greeted the news of Truman’s assurances during the Washington meetings. But these same officials knew that serious obstacles remained to the goal of achieving a swift assumption of control in the colony. Jean Sainteny, having arrived in Hanoi on board Patti’s plane, had found himself a virtual prisoner of Japanese forces and snubbed by Viet Minh officials. “Political situation in Hanoi worse than we could have foreseen,” Sainteny cabled Paris not long after arriving, acknowledging that Ho Chi Minh was the most popular figure in all the land. “Have found Hanoi solely decked out with [Viet Minh] flags.” In another missive he warned of a “concerted Allied maneuver aimed at eliminating the French from Indochina,” and in a third he spoke of a “total loss of face for France.”30
Sainteny’s frustration built as his team’s isolation continued, but he took comfort from the boisterous greeting he received whenever he came into contact with French civilians, who at this point numbered about twenty thousand in Hanoi. Though his relationship with Patti was marked by mutual suspicion, the two got on reasonably well and dined together on several occasions in those early days. They had, it turned out, a good deal in common. Both were in their thirties; both were veterans of their country’s intelligence services. Patti had fought in Europe alongside agents of the Deuxième Bureau (French military intelligence) as well as Britain’s MI5 and still felt, he later remarked, “a certain amount of allegiance.”31
On one occasion, Patti and Sainteny had just completed lunch at the Governor-General’s Palace when they saw three young French women walking by on the street, one dressed in blue, the middle one in white, and the other one in red. Tears welled up in Sainteny’s eyes at this imaginative act of patriotism, so similar in spirit to what he recalled from the German occupation in France. Patti commented that this was probably the first French flag they had seen since arriving in Hanoi, to which the Frenchman shot back, “Yes, but I give you my word that it is not the last.”32
The problem for France was how to get sizable numbers of French forces to Indochina in short order. The Pacific War had in effect ended too quickly, before Paris could dispatch forces to the region. A mere 979 men and seventeen vehicles were available in Ceylon (where the Fifth Colonial Regiment was stationed) for inclusion with the British and Indian contingents that would take charge of disarming the Japanese south of the sixteenth parallel. Another 2,300 in Madagascar could be ready to board ships within two weeks, while the 17,000-strong Ninth Colonial Division in France could embark by the middle of September. General Leclerc, newly arrived in Ceylon, requested an increase in the number of American-made C-47 Dakota transport aircraft allocated to Indochina. Without them, he said, or without shallow-draft landing craft, there would be no way to get French troops into Indochina north of the sixteenth parallel. The request was granted, and Paris also got permission from Washington to use Lend-Lease supplies, originally earmarked for operations against Germany and Japan, to equip the troops bound for Indochina.33
The fact remained, though, that France would not be able to exert meaningful influence on the ground in Indochina for several more weeks, during which time she would be at the mercy of the arriving Chinese and British forces. In the final days of August, the first advance units of a 150,000-strong Chinese army under Lu Han, a warlord of Yunnan province, crossed the frontier into Indochina. With them were an American military advisory team, under the command of Brigadier General Philip E. Gallagher. On September 9, the main force entered Hanoi. They looked haggard and malnourished, their yellow uniforms tattered—a marked contrast to the spit and polish of the Japanese troops. One Vietn
amese observer of the scene that day recalled: “The Chinese looked as if they would steal anything not tied down. Almost immediately, they began to live up to the worst suspicions of them. They settled into the country like a swarm of locusts, grabbing up everything in sight.” Said Archimedes Patti: “Sidewalks, doorways, and side streets were cluttered with [Chinese] soldiers and camp followers hovering over bundles of personal belongings, with household furnishings and military gear strewn everywhere. Many had staked claims in private gardens and courtyards and settled down to brew tea, do household chores and start the laundry.”34
A detachment of about fifty Chinese soldiers marched into the home of Duong Van Mai Elliott’s family. “They herded us upstairs and took over the ground floor,” she remembered. “The peasant soldiers were not used to urban amenities and at first [her brother] Giu had to teach them how to turn on the electric lights and ceiling fans. They were so pleased that they would stand by the switches, turning them off and on and staring in wonder at the effect.”35
For Ho Chi Minh, the ragged appearance of the Chinese troops was less important than their ultimate aims. Officially they were there, as per the Potsdam agreement, to oversee the surrender of Japanese troops and preserve law and order north of the sixteenth parallel until a new administration could assume control. But what kind of government did Chongqing want? Over the years, Chiang Kai-shek had voiced periodic support for Roosevelt’s trusteeship idea and had offered assurances that China had no desire to seize Indochina for herself. Ho and other Viet Minh leaders, however, had little doubt that Chongqing would try to manipulate events to its own advantage, which could involve seeking a compromise with Paris. Viet Minh concerns on this score increased when Chinese foreign minister T. V. Soong told French authorities in August and again in September that his government did not oppose a French return to the peninsula.36
To complicate matters further for Ho and his allies, the Chinese troops were accompanied by sizable numbers of Vietnamese nationalists who had spent the war years in China and now were returning home intent on playing key political roles. None posed an immediate threat to the Viet Minh’s position in Tonkin—except in a few provincial towns in the north—but their mere presence added to Ho’s conviction that he had to move gingerly vis-à-vis the Chinese occupation authorities. He accordingly told Lu Han’s political adviser, as well as General Gallagher, that his government would cooperate with the Chinese, and he instructed Giap to place his small band of armed troops in such a way as to avoid a confrontation with the occupying force. He also dropped the emotive title of Liberation Army in favor of the blander National Guard (Ve Quoc Doan).37
Nor did Ho raise objections when Lu Han, upon arriving in Hanoi on September 14, unceremoniously took over the Governor-General’s Palace from the Sainteny team. (The Frenchmen, embarrassed and angry in equal measure, were forced to relocate to a much smaller villa downtown.) Lu Han responded by acting cordially, for the most part, toward Viet Minh officials and instructing the Vietnamese nationalists in his entourage to do the same. As the weeks passed, his occupation policy revealed a strong anti-French bias. French colons in Hanoi were stripped of their weapons while Vietnamese were allowed to keep theirs, and government buildings, communications, and almost the whole of the civil administration were kept in Viet Minh hands. The Chinese rejected repeated French requests to bring in French troops and administrators.38
V
HAD THIS SITUATION PREVAILED IN THE WHOLE OF VIETNAM, THE long and bloody struggle for Vietnam, so injurious to all who took part, might have been over before it began. In the southern part of the country, however, which the Chinese soldiers did not enter, the situation was more fluid and much more favorable to French prospects. At the moment of Ho’s proclamation of independence in Hanoi, Cochin China was fractious, divided. A multiplicity of rival political and religious groups, some of which had collaborated with the Japanese or the French, competed with the Viet Minh for supremacy. In the aftermath of the abortive revolt in 1940, the French had decimated the Communists in the south, who were still in the process of rebuilding at the time of Japan’s surrender. They faced stiff challenges from the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao religious sects (the former an exotic mixture of spiritualism, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Catholicism; the latter a fundamentalist Buddhist splinter group) that had achieved popularity in various parts of Cochin China since the prewar period. And they had to confront several Trotskyite groups, who had a sizable presence in the south. As well, the Viet Minh found few supporters among those southerners who had profiteered in the period of colonial rule and who planned for a return of the French.39
Saigon, as always, was the locus of the agitation. Under the French it had become a metropolis, much bigger than Hanoi, with a population in mid-1945 of well over a million, including the twin ethnic Chinese city of Cholon. Most Western visitors, however, saw only the tightly confined center of Saigon, which seemed to many a piece of France transplanted into a tropical and Far Eastern setting, complete with handsome boulevards and squares, cream-colored rococo administration buildings, gracious villas, and intimate sidewalk cafés and pâtisseries. Here many of the tree-lined streets were named for Frenchmen who had helped conquer Cochin China (Bonard, Charner, de la Grandière) or for famous World War I battles (La Marne, Verdun, De La Somme). And here stood Notre Dame Cathedral, built by the French in 1883 in neo-Romanesque style and featuring modest twin steeples. A statue of the Virgin Mary graced the entrance to the church, looking down rue Catinat (now Dong Khoi), Saigon’s legendary thoroughfare bearing the name of the French battleship that had steamed into Tourane (Da Nang) harbor in 1856 and opened fire on the harbor forts. The commercial stretch of rue Catinat ran no more than three hundred yards and was bounded by two hotels: on one end the Continental and on the other, overlooking the left bank of the dark and sullen Saigon River, the Majestic. In between them were shops displaying perfumes, cheeses, and frogs’ legs from Paris, and innumerable restaurants and bars, many of them packed deep into the night and offering every French dish from crêpes suzette to escargot. In daytime, there was the aroma of freshly baked baguettes and the maisons de coiffeur, where French women went to have their hair styled and set—a vain hope in this humid climate.40
Rue Catinat’s reputation had taken hold early. Visiting in 1893, the Frenchman Pierre Barrelon would write of walking down a street “famous for its splendid boutiques, decorated pubs, and unending movement of carriages.… The rue Catinat is remarkably animated.… Here the liveliness is entirely European, and I was going to say Parisian; long before me it has been said Saigon is the ‘Paris of the East.’ ”41
Now, though, fifty-two years later, Saigon and rue Catinat were becoming animated for a different reason. Although an ICP-dominated “Committee of the South,” led by Tran Van Giau, had seized control of the city and other parts of Cochin China, its control was precarious. Until early September, order was maintained, despite grumbling from the Cao Dai, the Hoa Hao, and the Trotskyites over Tran Van Giau’s decision to negotiate with French representative Jean Cédile (the latter having parachuted into Cochin China on August 22). As the futility of the talks became widely known—the Viet Minh would discuss the country’s future ties to France only on condition that the French first recognize Vietnam’s independence, which Cédile refused to do—the frustration boiled over. French residents, afraid of losing their colonial privileges, braced for a struggle, while political skirmishing among the rival Vietnamese groups increased. In short order, Giau and the committee lost control of events.42
Even worse, they did so precisely at the moment when Allied troops were about to arrive in Saigon. The first contingent of British troops, largely comprising Nepalese Gurkhas and Muslims from the Punjab and Hyderabad in the Twentieth Indian Division, entered the city on September 12. On every street hung large banners: “Vive les Alliés,” “Down with French Imperialism,” “Long Live Liberty and Independence.” The troops’ orders were to disarm the Japanese and to maintain law and
order. More broadly, though, British officials, in London as well as in Saigon, saw their task as facilitating a French return. Unlike in the Middle East, where France was a rival to British interests, in Southeast Asia she was a de facto ally, a partner in preserving European colonial control in the region.43
As ever, London strategists had to tread carefully, so as not to offend anticolonial sentiment in the United States or complicate relations with China. “We should avoid at all costs laying ourselves open to the accusation that we are assisting the West to suppress the East,” one junior official observed. “Such an accusation will rise readily to the lips of the Americans and Chinese and would be likely to create an unfavorable impression throughout Asia.” Other British analysts expressed similar concerns. But the course to be traveled was never in doubt. A failure to bolster the French in Vietnam could cause chaos in the country and also spur dissidence in Britain’s possessions—two very frightening prospects indeed. Hence the fundamental British objective: to get French troops into Indochina as quickly as possible, and then withdraw British forces with dispatch.44
Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam Page 14