On August 10, 1945, Japan collapsed and declared their intention to surrender to Allied Forces after the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945. The war in the Asia-Pacific region had ended.
In Vietnam, on August 7, 1945, Prime Minister Tran Trong Kim of the Central Government resigned and his cabinet disbanded. Tran Trong Kim, a well-known scholar who had been appointed to the premiership by Emperor Bao-Dai on April 7, 1945, was an excellent architect of administrative regulations and educational formations. However, without a national army he could not accomplish his difficult job. After he resigned and after the Japanese forces in Vietnam surrendered on August 15, regional administrative authorities could not control their regions. At that critical juncture, the communists staged a brief uprising on August 17 and seized control of Hanoi on August 19, 1945. On August 26, Ho Chi Minh left Tan-Trao and came to Hanoi with Vo Nguyen Giap’s troops and the OSS Deer Team of Major Archimedes Patti. Ho declared independence for the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) on September 2, 1945 in a festive ceremony held at Ba-Dinh Square. The Americans were the only foreign guests given places of honor at the ceremony; Major Patti stood next to General Vo Nguyen Giap.
News of Ho’s declaration of independence spread to every corner of the country, even to remote places like Camau City that I described previously. People heard the news and tearfully celebrated this “fateful” independence. The enthusiasm and adulation of the crowd at Ba-Dinh Square in Hanoi that day may have surprised Major Patti. However, it did not last long, and the people of Vietnam began suffering the atrocity of the Vietnamese communists for decades to come. After the declaration of independence, Ho Chi Minh and the newly formed government would face the political chaos caused by the allied controlling forces in the country.
According to the terms of the Potsdam Agreements of July 1945, from August 18, 1945, the Chinese Nationalist forces of Chiang Kei-shek would occupy North Vietnam and a part of Central Vietnam north of the 16th parallel, while the British forces would control the southern half of the Indochinese peninsula below the 16th parallel. In Tonkin (North Vietnam), troops of Chiang Kai-shek, under the command of General Lu Han, came to Hanoi and became the burden of Ho Chi Minh. After a serious deal with Lu Han, Ho declared the dissolution of his Indochinese Communist Party and formed the new coalition government with the participation of leaders from other Vietnamese nationalist parties.1 In Cochinchina (South Vietnam) on September 12, the British Gurkha Division from Rangoon came to Saigon to disarm the Japanese. A French company of paratroopers accompanied it. The British forces’ commander, Brigadier General Douglas Gracy, ordered the liberation of all French prisoners of war held by the Japanese and rearmed them for the protection of their civilian compatriots. This caused serious problems for Tran van Giau, the leader of the communist “Administrative Committee” in South Vietnam (Uỷ-ban Hành-chánh Nam-bộ; this committee soon changed its name to Uỷ-ban Hành-chánh Kháng-chiến, or Committee for Resistance and Administration). Skirmishes occurred at several places in Saigon. The French appeared to take control over the city by the end of the month.
During this chaotic period of September 1945, an important event happened that disrupted Ho Chi Minh’s hope to lean on the support of the United States. On September 4, eight days prior to the arrival of the British forces, the American OSS Team 404 led by Major A. Peter Dewey was sent to the Saigon area to liberate more than two hundred American prisoners of war (POWs) held in Japanese camps. This intelligence team accomplished its mission. The POWs were flown out of Vietnam the next day.2 Unfortunately, three weeks later Major Dewey was mistaken for a French officer and was killed in an ambush by the communist guerrillas of Tran van Giau. Ho Chi Minh faced a dilemma; he had to convey his excuse to the American Command in Southeast Asia. U.S. Navy Captain James Withrow replaced Dewey. Withrow was ordered not to interfere with the French re-occupation plans in Vietnam. Later, in mid–December, all OSS teams—the OSS 202, or Deer Team, in Hanoi and the OSS 404 Team in Saigon—were ordered to leave Vietnam.3 This was the first sign of the American unwillingness to help Ho Chi Minh and his coalition government.
In reality, after the death of President Roosevelt in April 1945, the United States changed its policy toward the colonies of several Western powers in the Pacific and Asia, especially those of Great Britain and France. Roosevelt’s successor, President Harry S. Truman, after a couple of months of indecision, began to listen to the advice of several important leaders in the Department of State and the Department of War and Navy, who considered the cooperation of Great Britain and France in Europe more vital for the United States “to meet the growing Soviet threat” than anti-colonialism in Asia.4 However, the cooperation of these important allies should have materialized both on the Western front and on the Eastern front. On May 6, 1945, President Truman met with French foreign affairs minister Georges Bidault and let him know that the United States preferred the cooperation of French forces on the Oriental front. On June 2, U.S. secretary of state Edward Stettinius also informed French ambassador Henry Bonnet and Georges Bidault that the United States would not further touch French foreign policy toward their colonies.5 The problem of the “independence” of colonies in Asia was then ignored by the United States.
In October 1945, a bilateral British-French agreement recognized French administration in South Vietnam, which included the old Cochinchina and a portion of territory of the old Annam, or Central Vietnam. In addition, British admiral Sir Louis Mountbatten, supreme allied commander in Southeast Asia, promised French general Jacques Phillipe Leclerc—who was assigned by De Gaulle as commander in chief of the French Expeditionary Forces in Indochina—to arm his troops and provide transportation for them to return to Indochina.6 French forces returned to Saigon in mid–October 1945.
First, Leclerc’s forces had to face the communist guerrillas of the Nam-bo Committee for Resistance and Administration led by Tran van Giau and his deputy Nguyen Binh (Le Duan was then under the command of these men). Giau declared a “scorched-earth policy” (sách-lược tiêu-thổ kháng-chiến) and withdrew his guerrilla forces to fight against the French. However, within a few months, from mid–October to December 1945, the French re-occupied the majority of provinces in South Vietnam. Their march toward the lowlands of the Mekong Delta continued. Other French units invaded Cambodia and Laos and quickly pacified these two countries.
Being on the verge of losing all territories in South and Central Vietnam and lacking foreign support, Ho Chi Minh had to turn to the French. On March 6, 1946, Ho Chi Minh signed, with Jean Sainteny, the French official delegate in Vietnam, a “temporary agreement” which recognized Vietnam as a free state that formed part of the Indochinese Federation and the French Union and allowed the French forces to relieve Chinese troops in North Vietnam. The agreement stated that it would “enter into effect immediately upon exchange of signatures.”7 The term “free state” would later lead to more talks between Ho’s government and France, but French troops could move over the 16th parallel to North Vietnam immediately. However, to avoid confrontation with the Chinese Nationalist troops of Chiang Kai-shek in that part of Vietnam, a month before, in February 1946, France signed an agreement with China whereby all Chinese forces would withdrawal from North Vietnam and allow the French to return to Indochina in exchange for the restoration of various concessions, including the “renunciation of French extra-territorial claims in China.”8 Thus, with the temporary agreement signed, France immediately sent large elements to North Vietnam. In June, the French sent a Vietnamese-born officer in the French army, Brigadier General Nguyen van Xuan, to Saigon to form a government. They wanted to set a “self-governed state” in the South—the so-called “Nam-ký Quốc,” or Nam-ky State. Later that year, in November, after French General Jean-Etienne Valluy had established a series of garrisons and outposts on the border of China and Vietnam and along the Route Coloniale #4 (RC #4), from Cao Bang to Lang Son and Lao Kay in Viet Bac (northernmost region of North Vietnam) and also after the sudden bombardment, attack, and seizure of the Seaport Hai Phong (November 26; 6,000 innocents killed), the French dropped their “scheme” of a Nam-ky State.
The relation between Ho Chi Minh and the French promptly deteriorated. Consecutive negotiations in Vietnam between Ho’s delegations and French officials about the independent status of Vietnam (April–May 1946) as well as negations in France at Fontainebleau (June–August 1946) all failed. Ho Chi Minh himself was involved in the last phase of negotiations.
After the French raid in Hai Phong, the fighting spread to Hanoi by early December. Ho Chi Minh, after the failure of the political talks in France, returned to Hanoi and appealed to the United States to support his regime. He received no response. More excessive demands from the French made Ho Chi Minh and his lieutenants decide to go to war rather than satisfy them. On December 19, 1946, Vo Nguyen Giap ordered the Viet Minh to launch the first attack on the French in Hanoi that night. Ho Chi Minh returned to Pac Po, Tan Trao in Viet Bac to begin the “long resistance” against the French.
By late 1946, the world outside Vietnam had drastically changed. A new world order had been formed.
Soon after World War II, the political and military strategies of all nations were decisively influenced by the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. The two super powers surpassed the other nations of the world, and the most strategic fact of life for each was the existence and power of the other. The covert conflict between these super powers became the Cold War.
The Cold War was not only caused by the race to develop nuclear power and by the race for outer space, but also by the large-scale conflict between “International Communist Aggression” conducted by the Kremlin leaders and the “Deterrence Strategy” originating from the White House and the Pentagon. In reality, this “containment” strategy in Washington was rooted in a report from a young and aspiring American diplomat in Moscow—George F. Kennan.
Starting in February 1946, Joseph Stalin announced a five-year plan to secure his Soviet regime in Russia, but his plan was analyzed as a scheme to conquer the world, beginning with Europe and make it communist. This communist supreme leader would use force to invade and occupy neighboring countries or ideological propaganda to mesmerize people in far away and underdeveloped countries—mostly the colonies—to “wake up” and fight for their independence and the social-class struggle. George F. Kennan, as assistant to Averell Harriman, then U.S. ambassador in Moscow, “had watched Stalin at close hand, and sent Washington an analysis of Russia that became the most famous telegram in U.S. diplomatic history.”9 Kennan’s telegram, named the “Long Telegram”—of about 7,000 words—detailed Stalin’s actions and visions to conquer the world. Kennan also proposed measures to “contain” Stalin’s schemes. It became the “X” article in American Foreign Affairs—the anonymously written basis of the American policy of “containment” which was pursued by consecutive administrations for forty years with ultimate success around the world, except in South Vietnam.
Thus, the Cold War also saw former colonies call for independence and liberty. The rapid break-up of large colonial empires created many new countries that had to choose between the free-world democracy system and the communist socialist system. The geopolitical position of each new nation influenced its final fate. In some areas of the world, former colonies had to fight for their democratic independence or embrace the communist doctrine.
Starting in 1950, the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) took advantage of the unrest and disorder in key regions to set up a network of communist parties. They developed communist doctrine, concepts, and war strategies known as the “Revolutionary War.” From this the communists launched their international aggression. In the primary phase, the master communists, either the Soviet Union or Communist China, selected and indoctrinated fellow leaders of underdeveloped countries with communist ideology and “Revolutionary War” concepts to become their international disciples. Any underdeveloped country that embraced the “Revolutionary War” fought not only for the “nation’s liberation” but also for a “social class liberation,” which the communists called the “people’s liberation.” The communists used this so-called “liberation” slogan to attract underdeveloped countries for the purpose of establishing a “Communist Empire” throughout the world. Examples of this can be seen in Eastern European countries after World War II. In the East, Mao Tse-tung used this concept of liberation and revolutionary war as a tool to dislodge the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek to Formosa and gain power in mainland China in December 1949.
During this period, the United States successfully restored and maintained peace in some troubled parts of the world. Applying the “Domino Theory” developed from the Truman-Doctrine & Marshall Plan and the concept of “containment” from Kennan, the United States created the strategy of “Regional Political and Military Organizations.” In Europe, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) emerged; in the Middle-East the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) developed; and in the Asia-Pacific region the South-East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) also formed.
The new communist regime in China was a key issue for the United States in formulating its deterrence policy in the Asia-Pacific region. Although the Middle East was a very important zone because of its wealthy mineral oil resources, the enormous Chinese nation was crucial to the United States’ foreign policy in the East. After completely taking control over mainland China, Mao Tse-tung, the chairman of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and president of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), decided to change old China. He described China as a “semi-colonial and feudal” country. Mao’s social revolution was to deeply smash this four-thousand-year-old Confucian society.
In internal affairs, Mao Tse-tung acknowledged that the Chinese peasants would rebuild the country. Mao’s approach emphasized the primary communist doctrine of Marx and Lenin but added key ideological derivations. Many historians named these derivations Maoism. According to Mao, the revolution of Chinese society was to be based upon the 450 million peasants in their immense agricultural country who needed liberation from the oppressive landowners.
In external affairs, Mao Tse-Tung’s vision was not just limited to the border conflicts with India, but also targeted countries as far as the China Sea and Southeast Asia. The United States paid little attention to the first phase of the revolutionary wars, which started in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia, but could not ignore the direct involvement of Communist Chinese ground troops in the Korean War in 1950.
Mao Tse-tung’s speech before the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party revealed China’s true ambitions and the extent of its external policy: “We must by all means seize South-East Asia, including Vietnam, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, and Singapore…. This region is rich in raw materials, it is worth the costs involved. After seizing South-East Asia, we can increase our strength in the region. And we shall be strong enough to confront the Soviet and East Europe bloc; the East wind will prevail over the West wind.”10 Mao’s statement was very concise and his ambitions very clear. The United States, on the other hand, applied its containment policy to Southeast Asia by assisting allied “dominoes” to become strong enough to resist communist aggression, as it had done in Western Europe. Vietnam was one of these allies.
According to some American historians, this containment theory was applied in Southeast Asia during the height of the Cold War as the communist revolutionary war in China spread to Vietnam in the spring of 1947. The Truman Doctrine attempted to link the defense of Europe with collective security in Asia. In March 1947, President Truman explained his policy toward Indochina, saying: “It must be the policy of the United States to support the free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities.”11 Although Truman’s statement could be read both ways, the French interpreted it as meaning the U.S. supported them in Indochina. While Great Britain had peacefully withdrawn from its colonies in India, Burma and Pakistan, and the Netherlands had liberated the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), France still clung to its old colonies in Southeast Asia.
Unaware of the principles of revolutionary war that the Viet-Minh such as Ho Chi Minh, Truong Chinh, and Vo Nguyen Giap were using in Indochina, the French still envisioned using the old tactics of conquering land through pacification operations, but not truly winning the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people. This last vestige of colonialism was a major factor in the American reluctance to wholeheartedly help the French in their war against the communists of Vietnam despite the total “liberation” of mainland China by the communist forces of Mao Tse-tung in December 1949.
Meanwhile, Vo Nguyen Giap, the first Viet-Minh commander, combined the popular militia with the main force of the People’s Army and by 1947 claimed that his forces totaled one million men. Nobody believed him because this million-man army was not to be found. The French could not “catch or crush” its large units by superior firepower and large-scale operations, except once in the first year of the war. On October 7, 1947, the commander of the French forces, General Jean-Etienne Valluy, mounted a coup de main, Operation Lea, in Viet Bac (the northernmost region of North Vietnam), with a force of 20 battalions. French paratroopers almost captured Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap in Bac Kan or Cho Moi. This French operation was successful: the Viet Minh suffered 9,500 casualties and many supply depots were destroyed. On October 22, Operation Lea ended and French operational units moved back to the lowlands, but a string of French garrisons, base camps and outposts along the Sino-Vietnamese border were reinforced. The Viet Minh regrouped and strengthened again in the following years, especially after Mao Tse-tung established the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in mainland China, and offered the Viet Minh safe sanctuaries in several provinces bordering North Vietnam. There, Giap’s large units could be trained, armed, and supplied by the Chinese Red Army, or the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
According to Qiang Zhai, a Chinese-born professor of history at Auburn University Montgomery in Alabama and author of the history book, China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950–1975 (2000), after Ho Chi Minh paid a secret visit to Beijing and Moscow from mid–January to early March 1950 to meet Liu Shaoqi, Mao Tse-tung, and Stalin, most of his requests for political, diplomatic, economic, and military support were granted by these communist leaders. Particularly, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was in charge of these matters for Ho’s government or the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), as well as the Communist Party or the Vietnam Workers’ Party (VWP; Ho re-established it in November 1951), and the Viet Minh army or the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), which was commanded by General Vo Nguyen Giap.12
On January 18, 1950, the new PRC formally recognized the DRV with Ho Chi Minh as its leader. The USSR did the same on January 30, 1950. They were followed by communist countries in Eastern Europe and North Korea. Leaders of the CCP primarily organized two very important groups—the “Chinese Political Advisory Group” (CPAG) and the “Chinese Military Advisory Group” (CMAG)—that crucially helped the VWP and the PAVN to develop and be effective during their first phases of resistance against the French and to ultimately defeat them. Luo Guipo, the director of the General Office of the CCP Central Committee, came to Vietnam in mid–January as the CCP’s representative, and became the head of the CPAG in the DRV. The famous General Chen Geng, commander of the PLA forces in Yunnan and head of the administration of Yunnan, was assigned as senior military advisor and representative to the PAVN, even though the senior leader of the CMAG was General Wei Guoqing. General Chen came to Viet Bac in July 1950, but he had previously prepared an operational plan for the PAVN’s first and most important offensive phase against the French along the border and on Route Coloniale #4 (RC#4) in the northeastern region of North Vietnam.13 General Chen’s operational plan was based on the tactic of “encircling a small outpost and attacking the large rescue force,” which was translated as “công đôǹ đả viện” and became the PAVN’s main tactic during the two Vietnam Wars. In the first border offensive campaign along the RC#4, the outpost of Dong Khe was the target to be encircled and assaulted to lure large French units from their garrisons in Cao Bang and Lang Son to open fields whereby they would be attacked and destroyed. Chen’s plan was appreciated by Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap. It was also approved by the CCP Central Military Committee that ordered the deputy commander of the Guangxi Military Region, General Li Tianyou, to form a “Logistics committee” for providing logistical support for the PAVN in the campaign.
On August 12, the CMAG led by General Wei Guoqing, arrived at General Giap’s headquarters at Quang Nguyen on the border to meet General Chen Geng. Chinese advisors from this group were immediately dispatched to the PAVN’s 304th, 308th, and 312th Divisions: another infantry division, the 316th, and the large Engineering and Artillery 351st Division also had their Chinese advisors by the end of the year. On September 16, 1950, General Giap launched the assault on Dong Khe, as planned by General Chen, with 10,000 troops. Two days later, Giap’s troops captured this outpost of only 260 French defenders. The PAVN units suffered 500 casualties. The RC#4 was cut from the Cao Bang Garrison in the north and the Lang Son Garrison in the south. On their side, the French ordered Lieutenant Colonel Lepage of the Lang Son Garrison to lead his core units to recapture Dong Khe via outpost That Khe. On October 3, Lepage’s column was ambushed by Giap’s large force. In the north, French Lieutenant Colonel Charton left Cao Bang Garrison and moved his units southward on RC#4 to link up with those of Lepage. The rendezvous never happened. Both French columns moving on RC#4 to Dong Khe were encircled, assaulted, and cut to pieces; Lepage and Charton were captured. General Marcel Carpentier, Commander in Chief of French Expeditionary Forces in Indochina, ordered the abandonment of the string of French garrisons, base camps, and outposts along the Sino-Vietnamese border and along RC#4. Some 6,000 of 10,000 French troops were killed or captured on their retreat from the northeastern region to the Red River Delta, including those of Lepage and Charton’s units. Meanwhile, 3,000 French troops from Lao Kay Garrison in the northwest border completed the retreat to the lowlands with few casualties. The French also lost a great quantity of war materials, artillery guns, light rifles, and ammunition. But the biggest loss would be their ability to win the war due to the growing size and strength of General Vo Nguyen Giap’s PAVN that had the backing of the CCP leaders and the PLA generals. Otherwise, in reading the greater part of Chapter 1 of Qiang Zhai’s book, one might think that the previously mentioned Chinese communist leaders and generals led the PAVN fight against the French but not Ho Chi Minh or his commanders, including General Vo Nguyen Giap.14
It is necessary to mention that the CCP leaders not only exercised a leading role in the Vietnam War but also in the Korean War. Since October 1950, the war in Korea seriously intensified after the PLA committed a force of 400,000 Chinese People’s Volunteers for the “intervention” of the North Korean Army that invaded South Korea on January 25, 1950 and captured its capital and seized the peninsula in September. However, when this army was crushed by United Nations forces and pushed back to the 38th parallel, and then farther to the Yalu River in Manchuria, the Chinese Red armies led by Peng Dehuai met them on the northern bank of the Yalu River in October, 1950. Beijing threatened an “intervention” should the 38th parallel be crossed by General McArthur’s forces. Starting in November, this war was “handled” by the CCP leaders. The “scholar general” Chen Geng was made second to Peng, serving as his deputy commander of the People’s Volunteers forces. The Red Chinese threat appeared very real in East and Southeast Asia, both in Korea and in Vietnam.
In November 1950, as the Chinese People’s Volunteers armies prepared to cross the Yalu River to attack United Nations forces, the PAVN leaders and their CMAG advisors in Vietnam prepared a “general offensive” to follow their victorious offensive campaign on the border in September–October, 1950.
In December 1950, France sent General De Lattre de Tassigny to Saigon as commander in chief of French Forces and high commissioner in Indochina. Independence was granted to Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia six months before, but in “A Call to Vietnamese Youth,” De Lattre declared: “Certainly people pretend that Vietnam cannot be independent because it is part of the French Union. Not true! In our universe, and especially in our world of today, there can be no nations absolutely independent. There are only fruitful interdependencies and harmful dependencies. Young men of Vietnam … the moment has come for you to defend your country.”15 This middle part of De Lattre’s speech made sense; we later knew this when the Americans replaced the French in Vietnam.
At first, the United States was inclined to a “real independence” for Vietnam but was hesitant to endorse the “Bao Dai solution” until France granted autonomy and supported the creation of a genuinely independent and non-communist state for Vietnam. But after French President Vincent Auriol signed, with Vietnam’s former Emperor Bao Dai on March 8, 1949, the “Elysee Agreement” in which “France yielded control of neither Vietnam’s army nor its foreign relations,” the United States began to view the Bao Dai solution “with greater sense of urgency.”16 Bao Dai returned to Vietnam as chief of state and formed the “Government of Vietnam” in June, 1949. The Elysee Agreement was ratified by the French National Assembly on January 29, 1950. On February 7, 1950, the United States formally recognized Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. On February 16, 1950, France requested United States military and economic assistance to fight the communists in Indochina. On May 1, 1950, President Truman approved $10 million for urgently needed war materials for Indochina with the hope that French forces in Vietnam would fight the communists and win the war with United States advice and guidance.
Britain and Australia also recognized Vietnam as an associate state within the French Union. The political lines had finally been drawn within Vietnam: Ho Chi Minh with the government recognized by the communist bloc, and Bao Dai with a government recognized by the free world. The first hint of the Vietnam War, from the beginning, lay on these political lines.
The French had confidence in being able to defeat the Viet Minh in Vietnam in fifteen months as De Lattre himself expected to “save it from Peking and Moscow.”17 Nevertheless, Mao Tse-tung and Stalin had divided their roles in the East and West, and the French could not win the war in Indochina. Specifically, after General Marcel Carpentier had abandoned Viet Bac or the upper half of North Vietnam, this area then became the Viet Minh’s stronghold from which General Giap could launch other offensive campaigns to the west into Laos and to the south into the Red River Delta. Perhaps anticipating Giap’s intention, General De Lattre ordered the reinforcement of French outposts in the Thai-Highlands and Lai Chau, and the construction of a line of fortified defensive positions to protect the rich and populated Red River Delta; it was the “De Lattre Line.” (See Map 1.)
In early spring 1951, General Giap launched the so-called “general offensive” on French positions in the Red River Delta with three divisions. On January 13, the PAVN 308th, 312th, and 316th totaling 30,000 men attacked 8,000 French troops in Vinh Yen, 40 miles northwest of Hanoi. French air support played a major role in supporting ground troops. These communist divisions suffered heavy losses: 6,000 to 9,000 killed, a similar number wounded, and 600 captured. On March 23, Giap’s force attacked Mao Khe in the northeast of the De Lattre Line and suffered losses not less than at the first defeat. However, the campaign continued through May and June with more than four divisions attacking French positions along the Day River on the left flank of the De Lattre Line in Phu Ly, Ninh Binh, Nam Dinh, and Phat Diem. Another 10,000 were killed and captured. General De Lattre’s tactics were based on counter-attacks by his reserve paratroopers, who had been airlifted from Saigon, and the use of napalm bombs. Later, Viet Minh leaders blamed the disastrous failure of this premature “general offensive” on their Chinese advisor, Luo Guipo.18 Nevertheless, Giap’s force of several divisions could again stab into the vital area of the Red River Delta. Their attacks continued after the death of General De Lattre (from cancer) on November 20, 1951.
General Raoul Salan replaced De Lattre as commander in chief of the French Forces, and Jean Letourneau as high commissioner Indochina (he was also French cabinet minister for the Associated States). General Salan faced fierce attacks from General Giap’s divisions in the lowlands of the Red River Delta. This most significant was the encounter of Salan’s sixteen battalions composed of 15,000 troops and Giap’s more than three divisions of 35,000 men at Hoa Binh Province, 45 miles southwest of Hanoi, from December 9, 1951, to February 26, 1952. Both sides suffered heavy losses. In the following months, a dozen or more French counter-attacks into the Viet Minh’s controlled areas were in vain, including “Operation Lorraine” in the Phu Doan area and Thai Nguyen, respectively located 80 miles northwest and 40 miles northeast of Hanoi, from October 29 to November 14, 1952. The latter operation was a diversion to draw Giap’s forces back to their bases in Viet Bac, from where Giap had sent three of his divisions westward to attack French outposts Nghia Lo and Lai Chau in paving the way for his entry into Laos during the next offensive campaign against the French.
Perhaps due to the pressure by the CCP leaders through their generals in Viet Bac, Ho and the VWP ordered General Vo Nguyen Giap to attack Nghia Lo and several nearby outposts. On October 24, Giap concentrated eight regiments and overwhelmed French units in the area. After losing Nghia Lo, the French abandoned Son La. By mid–December, Giap’s divisions could move up to the Thai-Highlands, attack Lai Chau, or invade Laos.
In April 1953, in combination with several small units of the Pathet Lao, three PAVN infantry divisions—308th, 312th, and 316th—waged war in Laos by attacking French positions south of Luang Prabang, in Samnuea, and in the Plain of Jars. By this campaign, Ho and Giap would regularly test French abilities, movements, and air support. Politically, Ho and other leaders of the VWP would join forces with the Pathet Lao to transform them into an armed force struggling for the liberation of Laos in the communist design. Laos then became an important strategic arena receiving attention from both Beijing and Washington. Mao of Red China and President Eisenhower of the United States paid most attention to Laos and envisioned Laos as crucial for their respective strategies of “aggression” and “containment.” However, Vietnamese nationalist parties’ leaders in Hanoi and Saigon regarded this PAVN invasion in Laos differently. In the beginning of the war, they considered Ho’s communist party and his army as tools of the international communists to bring communism not only to Vietnam but also the rest of Indochina. This view resulted from cooperating for quite a while with Ho Chi Minh in the struggle to gain independence for Vietnam.
In retrospect, before the 1930s there were a dozen large anti-colonial movements in Vietnam against the French led by revolutionaries, both the communists and the nationalists. The most significant would be the armed revolution of the Việt Nam Quốc Dân Ðẚng, or the Nationalist Party of Vietnam (VNQDD, or NPVN). The VNQDD was organized by a group of intellects and writers, and led by Nguyen Thai Hoc. The organization was secret but developed largely in both urban areas and in the countryside, and as well as among the Vietnamese troops within French units in North Vietnam. For some reason, the “General Uprising” of the VNQDD prematurely started on February 12, 1930, in several cities in North Vietnam, but mainly in Yen Bai, 80 miles northwest of Hanoi. The attack failed. Hundreds of VNQDD members were arrested, including Nguyen Thai Hoc. Later, on June 16, he was executed with 12 other important VNQDD members. They became regarded as historical heroes. The French began to arrest and suppress Vietnamese revolutionaries, communists and nationalists. Thousands were arrested and sentenced. The majority went underground and most parties’ leaders fled to China. In China they were allowed exile and these leaders were supported by Chiang Kai-shek in reorganizing their parties. Chinese soil was the first medium where these communists and nationalists could meet and cooperate. But later, Ho Chi Minh betrayed the nationalists.
Truong Boi Cong, Nguyen Hai Than, Ho Hoc Lam, and other nationalist parties’ leaders, along with Ho Chi Minh, organized the key organization of this united front at Liwchow, in Kwang-si Province, in October 1943. It was the “Việt-Nam Cách-Mệnh Ðồng-Minh Hôi” (Vietnam Revolutionary United Association), which was composed of the “Việt-Nam Quốc Dân Ðẚng” (Nationalist Party of Vietnam) of Vu Hong Khanh, the “Việt-Nam Phục-Quốc Ðồng-Minh Hội” (United Association for Reconquering of Vietnam) of Bo Xuan Luat, and the “Việt-Nam Ðộc-Lập Ðồng-Minh Hội” (United Association for Independence of Việtnam), or “Việt-Minh,” of Ho Chi Minh. After forming the newly united front and sending Ho Chi Minh back to the frontiers for a new phase of action, the Viet-Minh secret organization drew many nationalist revolutionaries and students, rather than communists.
In reality, Ho Chi Minh exploited the prestige and patriotic goals of these great nationalist revolutionaries to develop the Viet-Minh and strengthen his control over the organization. The Viet-Minh took over Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh declared “independence” in 1945. The presence of American senior officers at the ceremony and the flying of the American flag beside the “one-red-star flag” made it easy to convince the Vietnamese population that the United States had established “official relations” with the Viet-Minh regime. Emperor Bao Dai and his nationalist supporters believed that the United States had backed Ho. With this belief, Bao Dai gave up the reins of government to the Viet-Minh in August 1945, without a struggle.
By June 1946, when it became obvious that American support was not forthcoming, Ho Chi Minh became troubled and began to show the violent nature of a communist leader. Before leaving Hanoi for the “independence talks” in Paris, he ordered his loyal collaborators in Hanoi, Hue and Saigon, such as Vo Nguyen Giap, Pham Van Bach, Tran Van Giau and Nguyen Binh, to liquidate all nationalist elements who had cooperated with the communists in the Democratic Government. Along with leaders of religious sects, intellectuals, Trotskyites, and leaders of other nationalist parties, these elements were considered to be “internal enemies.” The “purge” was extremely cruel and barbaric. In many areas, victims were tied together alive in bundles like logs and thrown into the river, to float to the sea while slowly drowning. This was called “Mò-Tôm” (“shrimp-catching,” or “crab-fishing,” as a French historian named it). Around the country nearly twenty thousand elite nationalists or unaffiliated innocents were killed. Among the deceased were well-known personalities such as Ngo-Dinh-Khoi, elder brother of the future first president of South Vietnam, Ngo-Dinh-Diem, scholar and politician Pham Quynh, and sect leader Huynh Phu So. The political and ideological purge by the communists continued for years even after Ho gained control of North Vietnam in 1955.
The communist path that Ho Chi Minh and his disciples followed was summarized in this slogan: “Chasing external enemies and crushing internal enemies for the liberation of the nation and the liberation of the working class” (the Viet-Minh’s slogan in the war: “Ðánh Thù Trong, Ðuổi Giặc Ngoài Ðể Giành Ðộc-lập Quôć-gia và Giẚi-phóng Giai-cấp Công Nông”). War with the French greatly simplified Ho’s political activities in Vietnam, uniting the Viet-Minh by their common hatred for the French (and later, the Americans), whom they called “white invaders,” and the nationalists, for them the “internal enemies” or “Việt gian” (traitors to the country), and “puppets.”
The more “white invaders” fighting in conjunction with the “puppets” that Vietnamese soil received, the more Ho Chi Minh united the Viet-Minh around him. As long as the Vietnamese believed that the source of “slavery and misery” was coming from abroad, Ho won Vietnamese hearts and minds. They would sacrifice their lives to fulfill his demands for national unity and freedom. His Marxist slogans were of little importance in comparison to his overwhelming appeal to national pride and the traditional xenophobia of the Vietnamese. Ho’s lifelong deceit was to conceal his true intentions and his real communist agenda, in order to control Vietnam and the masses.
This aspect of Ho’s success was too abstruse and complicated for the American policy-makers. They could not understand why the nationalist leaders of South Vietnam suggested that the United States not send combat troops to fight in Vietnam. Nationalist leaders sought only political, economic, and military support from the United States, just as the Vietnamese communists had been provided material support from the Soviet Union and Red China. The war then, according to this logic, would become a “Pure Vietnamese War of Ideologies.” Unfortunately, during the length of the two Vietnam wars, the nationalists had their own problems, because the French and (later) the Americans did not trust them.
Those who escaped from the communist purge in 1946 had very few options. Some collaborated with the French, but the majority reunited into a political front called “National United Front” in Saigon in May 1947. The front included leaders and members of several nationalist parties such as the Vietnamese Democratic-Socialist Party with Ðẚng Dân-Chủ Xã-Hội Vietnam, the Nationalist Youth Association with Liên-ÐoIn Thanh Niên Quốc-Gia, the Social Democratic Reconstruction Party with Ðẚng Dân-Chủ Xã-Hội Cấp-Tiến, and the Works’ Personal Spirit Party with Ðẚng Cần-Lao Nhân-Vi. The two strong political religious organizations in South Vietnam, the Cao-–ai and the Hoa-Hao sects, plus the independent intellectual class of professors, doctors, lawyers, and engineers joined in. This front was more anti–French than Ho Chi Minh’s forces. On May 17, 1947, the National Vietnamese Front issued a manifesto advocating the return of Bao Dai and the creation of a republican government for Vietnam. Bao Dai, the last emperor of the Nguyen Dynasty, had previously abdicated his throne in September 1945, and was honored by Ho Chi Minh as his “Supreme Advisor.” However, 6 months later, on March 18, 1946, while leading a delegation to discuss with Chiang Kai-shek the Chinese troops in North Vietnam, Bao Dai decided to stay in exile in Hong Kong until 1948. Finally, Bao Dai returned to power in 1949. A non-communist State of Vietnam was born slowly and painfully.
Big problems faced the founders, leaders, protectors and supporters of this regime. Vietnamese nationalists were unable to deal with challenging problems such as:
1. The national economy, since the wealth of the country had been completely drained by an exhaustive war.
2. France’s inconsistent policy toward Vietnam. The French argued they could not transfer all power to Bao Dai because of the perilous circumstances of war in the country. Those close to Bao Dai no longer felt that they could support him to repeatedly negotiate with the French for the full independence of Vietnam. Furthermore, the struggle at the conference table could not compete with the Viet-Minh in terms of patriotic appeal. Ho Chi Minh’s creed was very simple; he wanted total independence for Vietnam even at the price of a long and bloody war.
3. The dilemma of a republican political power based on small numbers from the urban intellectual class, the middle class, and the civil-servant class situated in large cities and districts. The masses of people in vast rural areas, especially peasants in small villages, were enticed or threatened by the Viet-Minh’s two-edged approach: patriotic appeal and the threat of death. Rural and remote areas became sites of both physical and psychological battles between the Viet-Minh and the French.
4. Lack of a republican government army to protect the regime and its people. When the French agreed to allow the build up of a national army, they also permitted the Cao-Dai and the Hoa-Hao sects to organize their own armies, each reaching the strength of 40,000 men. The National Army still numbered about 80,000 men. In contrast, more than 200,000 Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians served in the French Union Forces, by the end of 1950.
5. How to justify the struggle between these two Vietnamese forces, since both were fighting for the common cause of national independence. The presence of tens of thousands Vietnamese soldiers who fought besides the French Expeditionary Corps in the battlefield made it easy for the Viet-Minh to dub the nationalist government as “The Puppet” and the nationalists as “Việt-gian” for many years.
However, with the American recognition of the Republic State of Vietnam on February 7, 1950, Vietnam became a member of six United Nations specialized agencies and was recognized by 40 nations of the free world. These external gains granted and consolidated Bao Dai’s regime as the first legal foundation of a free nation. In June 1950, the Korean War broke out, as the North Korean army crossed the partition line of the 38th parallel to invade South Korea. The United States became immediately involved in the war, providing armed support to the South Korean army. In the meantime, fearing wider communist expansion, the United States announced a program of military aid for Indochina. The starting amount was a modest $10 million worth of equipment given in 1950, but the American military involvement had begun.
Nevertheless, with the initiation of the American aid-program in mid–1950, both the Vietnamese nationalists and the French held great hopes for a rapid delivery of funds and military equipment. The United States’ policy toward Indochina previously had been “tied to Europe.” Now the United States had a true commitment to the “communist” situation in Indochina. American secretary of state John Foster Dulles believed it to be the only way to hold the line and to contain China and the Soviet Union. The commitment to Vietnam quickly became part of the overall American policy toward the Asia-Pacific region. The fighting in Vietnam was seen in a new light, transforming it from a colonial war into an anti-communist war for freedom. The United States hoped the Vietnamese nationalists would eventually dismiss the French from their country and fight the communists by themselves, fulfilling the words of President Truman that the U.S. intent was “to support the free people, who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities.”
A United States Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) arrived in Saigon in July 1950, to coordinate aid to the French in Vietnam and to train the Vietnamese. Dulles himself called for the official formation of a Vietnamese National Army with the implication that the United States would then arm it. A Vietnamese Military Academy, which had opened in 1949, began to improve its training program and increase the graduation rate of new Vietnamese officers. Previously, all officers had been trained in French military schools. Many of them later played major political and military roles in South Vietnam, including generals Tran Van Don, Duong Van Minh, Nguyen Khanh, Tran Thien Khiem, and Nguyen Van Thieu. General Nguyen Cao Ky was among the first class of graduating officers to be trained by both the French and the Americans in their new combined training program.
In the meantime, the French hoped that with American military aid they would quickly win the war over the Viet-Minh. Notwithstanding this, in announcing military aid to the French, American secretary of state John F. Dulles conceived the fact that “Vietnamization” was a doorway to the region. At that time, the French did not know exactly what Dulles meant by using the term “Vietnamization.” In 1961, Dulles’ successor, Dean Rusk, tried to explain it: “On the one hand, we were giving France assistance for postwar reconstruction. On the other hand, we pressed them very hard to make a political settlement with Indochina to work out on the same basis on which the British were working out their relations with India and Burma. We did not press the French to the point where they would simply withdraw and say ‘alright it is yours, you worry about it.’ We didn’t want them that far because we didn’t want Indochina on our hands.”19
In short, according to Rusk, Vietnamization in the 1950s meant the French would withdraw from Vietnam and the Vietnamese would fight the war for themselves with the indirect backing of the United States, since the United States did not want Indochina in its grip. However, the United States became deeply committed to the war in Vietnam. Just five months after the first American Advisory Group came to Vietnam, American military aid to the French in Vietnam rose one-hundred-fold. The initial $10 million increased annually by hundreds of millions, and cumulatively exceeded $1 billion by 1954. French expenditures in Indochina roughly equaled what the Americans had given them through the Marshall Plan for aid and reconstruction.
Despite American political concern and military aid, it became clear that the French could not win the war in Vietnam because of their outmoded colonial policy in Indochina and their limited strategy in North Vietnam. This became particularly evident at the battle of Dien-Bien-Phu. General Henry Navarre, commander in chief of the French Expeditionary Corps in Indochina and the architect of the set-piece outpost Dien-Bien-Phu, had previously stated that there was no possibility of winning the war in Indochina. He knew the Viet-Minh had gained a considerable advantage over the French in mobile forces, and he intended to find an honorable exit from the war, creating a military situation that would allow an honorable solution.
A French historian, Jean Lacouture, had the same view but for a different reason: “the war was nearly impossible to win because the Viet-Minh, with China behind them, had a great enormous sanctuary. So the war became more and more unpopular from 1950 and very expensive, though of course the United States paid.”20 In addition to financial aid, the Americans provided military equipment to the French in Indochina in the amount of 1,400 tanks, 340 aircraft, 240,000 small arms, and 150 million bullets. The American military aid to the French reveals how deeply the United States had committed in Vietnam. Obviously, by the late 1960s its decisions to directly engage in the war in this country had become inevitable.
American assistance to Indochina continued even after the French completely withdrew in May 1955, and the United States was dragged deeper into the war. At the time, Dean Rusk explained how the United States rationalized aiding the French in Indochina to avoid directly involving itself in the war. Many strategists suspected otherwise. They further argued that the basic commitment of the Truman administration to the French was not only based on material military assistance to the French in Indochina but also based on the political commitment with its allied European governments as a solution for the Far East after World War II. American involvement in Vietnam was so deep it could not be stopped without a strong collective will of the whole nation.
Indeed, twenty-five years later American General Bruce Palmer revealed in his book The 25-Year War: America’s Roles in Vietnam that in October 1951, while a student at the Army War College, he was part of a group assigned to study American policy in Southeast Asia. The group found that the United States had “probably made a serious mistake in agreeing with its allies to allow French power to be restored in Indochina” and that “Indochina was of only secondary strategic importance to the United States.” The study concluded that the United States “should not become involved in the area beyond providing material aid.”21 The study was insightful. The war in Vietnam could not be won either by the French or Americans, because neither understood the nature of the war conducted by the communists and the endurance of the Vietnamese with their tradition of fighting against foreign invaders. Only American General Edward Lansdale, a foremost counter-insurgency expert, had very strong feelings that a colonial power—which the French were—couldn’t win the people’s war that was being waged. Only the Vietnamese themselves could win such a war.
The Vietnamese nationalists actually wished to fight the war for themselves. This did not please their rich and powerful fellow allies in Washington. Choosing their ways of fighting and trying to handle a war in which they knew their enemies better than anyone in the White House or the Pentagon would not be permitted. The men who ran that war were American politicians and bureaucrats, not even military professionals. American generals certainly knew how to fight to win a war, but the U.S. civilian leadership would not allow them to do that.
In summary, Truman’s political philosophy of “Strategic Containment of Communist Aggression” was rigidly applied by his successors in order not to provoke a new, enormous war directly with China or the Soviet Union. Thus, American military strategy consecutively became a defensive one for almost twenty years, until the war became “unwinnable.” The Truman policy of containment against communist expansion would remain the bedrock foundation of the United States’ national policy toward Vietnam for the next 25 years.