Vietnam Documents: American and Vietnamese Views

American and Vietnamese Views

George Katsiaficas

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317452621
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Fifty documents, including Vietnam's declaration of independence in 1945, the final declaration of the 1954 Geneva Conference, CIA reports, US presidential addresses, anti-war leaflets, thoughts by Vietnamese and American intellectuals, and statements by the Vietnamese government and NLF. Paper edit

Chapter I
The First Indochina War—France

September 2, 1945, was a beautiful day in Hanoi, and a festive crowd of hundreds of thousands of people assembled outdoors to hear Ho Chi Minh declare Vietnam's independence. During this auspicious event an airplane flew overhead, causing some people to panic out of fear the plane might bomb them. When the plane flew lower and people could see that it was from the United States of America, the crowd cheered spontaneously. They believed its presence meant that the United States would help protect their country's new independence from French, Japanese, and Chinese threats.

In his speech that day (Document 1), Ho Chi Minh quoted from the American Declaration of Independence. Although he was a dedicated Communist, according to nearly everyone who knew him, Ho was a Vietnamese patriot first and a Communist second, and he knew the value of the American idea of national independence. He had lived briefly in the United States, studied our history, and when the time came for his own country to attain sovereign status, the American example was a powerful inspiration.

On August 30, a few days before his speech, Ho had met with the head of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency) in Vietnam. While they were having tea, Ho reported that he was preparing a speech that he would like the American "to have a look at." The typewritten document had many words crossed out and replaced in ink and numerous marginal notes in Vietnamese, and the text contained the following sentence: "This immortal statement was made in the declaration of independence of the United States of America in 1776." What happened next was described by Archimedes Patti, the American OSS chief: "I stopped and turned to Ho Chi Minh in amazement and asked if he really intended to use it in his own declaration. I do not know why it nettled me—perhaps a feeling of proprietary right or something equally inane. Nonetheless, I asked. Ho sat back in his chair, his palms together with fingertips touching his lips ever so lightly, as though meditating. Then with a gentle smile, he asked softly, 'should I not use it?' I felt sheepish and embarrassed. Of course, I answered, Why should he not?"

Recovering from his initial shock, Patti asked the translator to continue. He read, "All men are created equal. They are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; among these are liberty, life and the pursuit of happiness." Although Patti was not certain, he thought he detected the transposition of the words liberty and life. When he pointed it out, Ho replied: "Why, of course, there is no liberty without life and no happiness without liberty." Ho entered the correction himself.

This was not the first time that U.S. officials had helped Ho and the Vietminh (Vietnam Nationalists), although it would be one of the last. During the Second World War, the Vietminh had fought on the side of the United States, rescuing downed American flyers and providing valuable intelligence on Japanese troop and naval deployments in Indochina, information that our French allies had been unable, or unwilling, to give us. On our side, an American doctor named Paul Hoagland was credited with saving Ho Chi Minh's life by giving him antimalaria medicine, and the United States provided the Vietminh with some arms.

Although the Vietminh were part of the Allied forces in Asia, less than a week after the Japanese formally surrendered to Gen. Douglas MacArthur aboard the battleship Missouri, British and Chinese troops arrived in Vietnam and began the process of reinstituting French colonial rule. The situation at the end of the World War II was complicated, particularly in Vietnam, where the Japanese were still in control even after they had surrendered. Furthermore, even though they had verbally admitted defeat on August 15, it was not until September 2 that Japan formally surrendered.

During this two-week interim period, a tremendous amount happened in Vietnam. On August 19, there was a general uprising led by the Vietminh. Throughout the country, people seized rice stores and called for a new government led by Ho Chi Minh. Insurrections in Hanoi, Saigon, and Hue, the country's three largest cities, created new Vietnamese administrations which ruled despite the presence of Japanese (and later British, French, and Chinese) troops.

The uprising that occurred was truly extraordinary. As one indication of its popularity, the Catholic Church, itself a product of French colonialism, endorsed the new government. Vietnam's Bishop Tang publicly asked the Pope to bless Vietnam's national independence and called on the country's two million Catholics to support the Vietminh government. On August 23, when the new government was finally announced, there were tremendous celebrations, and on August 30, Emperor Bao Dai abdicated, asserting that the new government was the only rightful one.

Not coincidentally, the day that Japan signed its surrender was also Vietnam's day of independence, but on that very day, renewed attacks by the French were mounted against Vietnamese in Saigon. Many people were hurt, some were killed, and in the ensuing days and weeks, Vietnamese groups retaliated, thereby setting off an escalating spiral of attacks and counterattacks which would not end until nine years and over one million deaths later.

Faced with a deteriorating situation and with few available options only three weeks after declaring his country's independence, Ho Chi Minh sent a message to President Harry Truman asking for U.S. help. Although it may come as a surprise that Ho Chi Minh asked the United States to intervene, even earlier he had proposed making Vietnam an American protectorate, like Puerto Rico, in order to protect his country from foreigners.

It cannot be denied that French rule in Vietnam was highly unpopular. During their more than half a century of running Vietnam, the French had built 5,650 schools, but more than 20,850 jails. As one indication of the harshness of colonial rule, in 1944 a million and a half to two million peasants died of starvation in northern Vietnam (out of a population of fourteen million) at the same time as the French were exporting rice.

The French could not stage a comeback in Vietnam by themselves but needed help to drive the nationalist forces out of Saigon. Unbelievable as it may seem, it was the British Royal Air Force and the Japanese Air Force that together bombed and strafed Vietnamese positions on October 16, 1945. The next day, Gen. Douglas MacArthur commented, "If there is anything that makes my blood boil, it is to see our allies in Indochina deploy Japanese troops to reconquer those little people we promised to liberate."

That there was a betrayal of the Vietminh by their allies would be an understatement. During the war, Ho Chi Minh had been persuaded that the Allies would stand by their guarantee to all nations of the right to self-determination. Although Franklin Roosevelt had made Charles de Gaulle promise that no French colonies, especially those in Indochina, would be retained after the war, once Roosevelt died, de Gaulle was free to change his policy. By his own admission, Harry Truman knew next to nothing about Asia, but it was up to him to make a crucial decision about the future of Vietnam. At this time, U.S. foreign policy was concerned above all with strengthening the Western European nations against the perceived Communist threat from the Soviet Union. France did not want to allow Vietnam to become independent, and the United States did not want to pressure France. So Truman chose to give his ear to the Europeanists in the State Department, nearly all of whom maintained that the line against Communism must be drawn in Asia as well. Since Ho Chi Minh was a Communist, Truman simply refused to deal with him, and the United States assured France that Britain, China, and the rest of the Allies would have no part in stopping whatever France had to do to reinstate its control of Indochina. (Indeed, as time passed, the United States would go on to finance 80 percent of the French recolonization effort.) The British did not protest since they had their own hands full trying to maintain their colony in India, and the Chinese, for their part, before they withdrew received French assurances that all French concessions in China would be transferred to the Chinese government.

As the great powers sacrificed Vietnam's national independence on the altar of global geopolitical deal making, the Vietminh regrouped. Only after years of bloodshed, on May 7, 1954, did they finally defeat the French at the epic battle of Dien Bien Phu. As described by Bernard Fall in Document 2, Dien Bien Phu marked the end of French military influence in Asia. The Vietnamese version of what is today remembered as one of the great moments in their history is presented by General Hoang Van Thai (Document 3). The French completely underestimated the Vietnamese, mistakenly assuming, for example, that it would be impossible for them to bring artillery to such a rugged and isolated place as Dien Bien Phu. The Vietminh analyzed the campaign in meticulous detail. Thai's description of the battle, particularly his understanding of the French, is one facet of the superior effort mounted by the Vietminh.

1
Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam (September 2, 1945)

Ho Chi Minh

Source: Ho Chi Minh, Selected Works (Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1977).

"All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights; among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

This immortal statement was made in the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in 1776. In a broader sense, this means: All the peoples on the earth are equal from birth, all the peoples have a right to live, to be happy and free.

The Declaration of the French Revolution made in 1791 on the Rights of Man and the Citizen also states: "All men are born free and with equal rights, and must always remain free and have equal rights."

Those are undeniable truths.

Nevertheless, for more than eighty years, the French imperialists, abusing the standard of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, have violated our Fatherland and oppressed our fellow citizens. They have acted contrary to the ideals of humanity and justice.

In the field of politics, they have deprived our people of every democratic liberty.

They have enforced inhuman laws; they have set up three distinct political regimes in the North, the Center, and the South of Viet-Nam in order to wreck our national unity and prevent our people from being united.

They have built more prisons than schools. They have mercilessly slain our patriots; they have drowned our uprisings in rivers of blood.

They have fettered public opinion; they have practiced obscurantism against our people.

To weaken our race they have forced us to use opium and alcohol.

In the field of economics, they have fleeced us to the backbone, impoverished our people and devastated our land.

They have robbed us of our rice fields, our mines, our forests, and our raw materials. They have monopolized the issuing of bank notes and the export trade.

They have invented numerous unjustifiable taxes and reduced our people, especially our peasantry, to a state of extreme poverty.

They have hampered the prospering of our national bourgeoisie; they have mercilessly exploited our workers.

In the autumn of 1940, when the Japanese fascists violated Indochina's territory to establish new bases in their fight against the Allies, the French imperialists went down on their bended knees and handed over our country to them.

Thus, from that date, our people were subjected to the double yoke of the French and the Japanese. Their sufferings and miseries increased. The result was that, from the end of last year to the beginning of this year, from Quang Tri Province to the North of Viet-Nam, more than two million of our fellow citizens died from starvation. On March 9 [1945], the French troops were disarmed by the Japanese. The French colonialists either fled or surrendered, showing that not only were they incapable of "protecting" us, but that, in the span of five years, they had twice sold our country to the Japanese.

On several occasions before March 9, the Viet Minh League urged the French to ally themselves with it against the Japanese. Instead of agreeing to this proposal, the French colonialists so intensified their terrorist activities against the Viet Minh members that before fleeing they massacred a great number of our political prisoners detained at Yen Bay and Cao Bang.

Notwithstanding all this, our fellow citizens have always manifested toward the French a tolerant and humane attitude. Even after the Japanese Putsch of March, 1945, the Viet Minh League helped many Frenchmen to cross the frontier, rescued some of them from Japanese jails, and protected French lives and property.

From the autumn of 1940, our country had in fact ceased to be a French colony and had become a Japanese possession.

After the Japanese had surrendered to the Allies, our whole people rose to regain our national sovereignty and to found the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam.

The truth is that we have wrested our independence from the Japanese and not from the French.

The French have fled, the Japanese have capitulated, Emperor Bao Dai has abdicated. Our people have broken the chains which for nearly a century have fettered them and have won independence for the Fatherland. Our people at the same time have overthrown the monarchic regime that has reigned supreme for dozens of centuries. In its place has been established the present Democratic Republic.

For these reasons, we, members of the Provisional Government, representing the whole Vietnamese people, declare that from now on we break off all relations of a colonial character with France; we repeal all the international obligation that France has so far subscribed to on behalf of Viet-Nam, and we abolish all the special rights the French have unlawfully acquired in our Fatherland.

The whole Vietnamese people, animated by a common purpose, are determined to fight to the bitter end against any attempt by the French colonialists to reconquer their country.

We are convinced that the Allied nations, which at Teheran and San Francisco have acknowledged the principles of self-determination and equality of nations, will not refuse to acknowledge the independence of Viet-Nam.

A people who have courageously opposed French domination for more than eighty years, a people who have fought side by side with the Allies against the fascists during these last years, such a people must be free and independent.

For these reasons, we, members of the Provisional Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam, solemnly declare to the world that Viet-Nam has the right to be a free and independent country—and in fact it is so already. The entire Vietnamese people are determined to mobilize all their physical and mental strength, to sacrifice their lives and property in order to safeguard their independence and liberty.

2
Dienbienphu: A Battle to Remember

Bernard B. Fall

Source: The New York Times Magazine (May 3, 1964). Copyright © 1964 by The New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission.

On May 7, 1954, the end of the battle for the jungle fortress of Dienbienphu marked the end of French military influence in Asia, just as the sieges of Port Arthur, Corregidor, and Singapore had, to a certain extent, broken the spell of Russian, American, and British hegemony in Asia. The Asians, after centuries of subjugation, had beaten the white man at his own game. And today, ten years after Dienbienphu, Vietcong guerrillas in South Vietnam again challenge the West's ability to withstand a potent combination of political and military pressure in a totally alien environment.

On that day in May 1954 it had become apparent by 10 a.m. that Dienbienphu's position was hopeless. French artillery and mortars had been progressively silenced by murderously accurate Communist Vietminh artillery fire; and the monsoon rains had slowed down supply drops to a trickle and transformed the French trenches and dugouts into bottomless quagmires. The surviving officers and men, many of whom had lived for 54 days on a steady diet of instant coffee and cigarettes, were in a catatonic state of exhaustion.

As their commander, Brig. Gen. Christian de la Croix de Castries, reported the situation over the radiotelephone to General Rene Cogny, his theater commander 220 miles away in Hanoi in a high-pitched but curiously impersonal voice, the end obviously had come for the fortress. De Castries ticked off a long list of 800-man battalions which had been reduced to companies of eighty men and of companies that were reduced to the size of weak platoons. All he could hope for was to hold out until nightfall in order to give the surviving members of his command a chance to break out into the jungle under the cover of darkness, while he himself would stay with the more than 5,000 severely wounded (out of a total of 15,094 men inside the valley) and face the enemy.

By 3 P.M., however, it had become obvious that the fortress would not last until nightfall. Communist forces, in human-wave attacks, were swarming over the last remaining defenses. De Castries polled the surviving unit commanders within reach, and the consensus was that a breakout would only lead to a senseless piecemeal ma...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Contents
• Chapter I The First Indochina War—France
• Chapter II The Geneva Conference of 1954 and Its Aftermath
• Chapter III The Gulf of Tonkin Incident
• Chapter IV The American Buildup
• Chapter V The 1968 Tet Offensive
• Chapter VI The Antiwar Movement
• Chapter VII Vietnamization, the Paris Peace Treaty, and the Fall of Saigon
• Chapter VIII Rationales and Retrospectives
• Index