Embers of War (18 page)

“The Vietnamese people do not want, and cannot abide foreign domination or administration any longer,” Bao Dai wrote in a letter to Charles de Gaulle in Paris. “I implore you to understand that the only way to safeguard French interests and the spiritual influence of France in Indochina is to openly recognize Vietnam’s independence and to disavow any idea of reestablishing sovereignty or a French administration here in any form. We could understand each other so well and become friends if you would stop pretending that you are still our masters.”
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One can imagine Ho’s feelings of anticipation as he and Truong Chinh entered the city that first day, passing through streets festooned with Viet Minh flags and banners. Here he was, in the city that had so long fired his imagination, and his revolutionary forces were already in control! Yet Ho knew that dangers lurked around every corner. To associates he quoted Lenin’s famous warning: “Seizing power is difficult, but keeping it is even harder.” The food problem would require immediate attention, as widespread starvation remained a major threat. (Farmers had taken to eating the seed rice earmarked for the next season’s planting.) Rival nationalist groups such as the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (Vietnamese Nationalist Party, or VNQDD) and the formerly pro-Japanese Dai Viet were reeling from the Viet Minh’s bold assertion of strength and superior organization but might yet rise again. Most serious of all, Ho knew, the French were determined to restore colonial control, and it was not yet clear how the other victorious Allies would react. Hence the importance, in the minds of all party leaders, of announcing the formation of a provisional government, and of doing so before the arrival of Allied occupation forces. On August 29, Ho Chi Minh quietly formed his first government.
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A WOMEN’S DETACHMENT OF THE LIBERATION ARMY, CARRYING WEAPONS AND THE VIET MINH FLAG, IN HANOI, LATE AUGUST 1945.
(photo credit 4.1)

Then on September 2—the same day that Japan signed the instruments of surrender on the deck of the U.S. battleship
Missouri
in Tokyo Bay—he presented the government to the country and, at a rally before hundreds of thousands, proclaimed Vietnamese independence. Thus came into being the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV). The rally took place in Ba Dinh Square, a spacious grassy field not far from the Governor-General’s Palace in Hanoi. A sense of anticipation permeated the city that morning. Young Vietnamese had worked through the night bedecking nearby buildings with flowers, banners, and, notably, the Viet Minh flag—a lone gold star on a field of red. On some banners were nationalist slogans proclaiming in English, Vietnamese, French, Chinese, and Russian: “Vietnam for the Vietnamese”; “Long Live Vietnamese Independence”; “Independence or Death”; “Welcome to the Allies”; “Death to French Imperialism.” Peasants made the trek from nearby villages and now mingled with merchants and mandarins. Schools were closed for the occasion, and teachers armed with whistles walked at the head of bands of children singing revolutionary songs. Scouts who had been mobilized by the French and the Japanese now enthusiastically supported the new national government. Ethnic minority groups from the hills were present as well, clothed in their distinctively colored headgear, skirts, and sashes. One contingent that could not be present was allowed to participate vicariously: Inmates at the Central Prison were given three pigs to slaughter, cook, and eat “in celebration of Vietnam’s independence day.”
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Ho Chi Minh arrived in a prewar American automobile with outriders on bicycles. He strode to a hastily built platform decked out with white and red cloth; with him were members of the new government’s cabinet. More than strode, he bounded, to the surprise of onlookers who expected rulers to walk in a careful, stately manner. While almost everyone on the stage wore Western suits and ties, Ho chose a high-collared faded khaki jacket and white rubber sandals—his standard uniform as head of state for the next twenty-four years—and an old hat. His address, hammered out on his old portable typewriter over the previous days, was preceded by loud, prearranged chants of “Independence! Independence!”

He began slowly, spoke a few sentences, then stopped and asked his listeners, “Compatriots, can you hear me?” The crowd roared back, “Yes, we hear you!” At that moment, some who were present later said, a special bond was struck. Tran Trung Thanh, a young self-defense cadre, recalled that, although he didn’t yet know who Ho Chi Minh was exactly, this exchange of words moved him to tears, and led him to take one particular slogan on a banner as his personal motto: “Independence or death!” Said another observer, Dr. Tran Duy Hung: “We did not just shout with our mouths but with all our hearts, the hearts of over 400,000 people standing in the square then.”
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To the few Americans in the audience, Ho’s next words were stunning. “All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.… All the peoples on the earth are equal from birth, all the peoples have a right to live and to be happy and free.” These were “undeniable truths,” Ho continued, and had been accepted as such by the French people themselves since the time of the French Revolution. Yet for eighty years, France had abused these truths in her treatment of the Vietnamese people—Ho singled out the division of Vietnam into three administrative units, the killing or imprisonment of patriots, the expropriation of raw materials and land, and the levying of “hundreds of unfair taxes.” France referred to herself as the “protector” of Vietnam, yet twice in the past five years she had sold the territory to Japan. Well, no more: “Today we are determined to oppose the wicked schemes of the French imperialists, and we call upon the victorious Allies to recognize our freedom and independence.”
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The reference to the American Declaration of Independence and the “victorious Allies” was deliberate and was echoed by Vo Nguyen Giap, the former history teacher who now commanded the Viet Minh “Liberation Army,” who took the podium after Ho finished. Giap appealed specifically to the United States and China for support (interestingly, neither he nor Ho mentioned the socialist Soviet Union), claiming that the “Vietnamese masses had eagerly risen to fight Japan,” whereas the French colonialists had joined forces with the fascist Japanese for the duration of the war. Now the French readied to return, and the world community should work to stop them; if it didn’t, Vietnam would struggle alone. “Following in the steps of our forefathers,” Giap exclaimed, “the present generation will fight a final battle, so that generations to follow will forever be able to live in independence, freedom, and happiness.”
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In between the two speeches, Tran Duy Hung recalled, “an airplane, a small plane, circled over us. We did not know whose plane it was. We thought that it was a Vietnamese plane. But when it swooped down over us, we recognized the American flag. The crowd cheered enthusiastically.”
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II

IT IS A STARTLING ASPECT OF VIET MINH THINKING IN THESE CRITICAL
weeks, the degree to which Ho Chi Minh and his colleagues looked to Washington for support in their struggle. They understood what every other observer of the international scene understood: that the United States was emerging from the war as by far the strongest nation in the world, as the only real superpower, and therefore uniquely able to affect the course of events in the developing world. In the Asia-Pacific, in particular, America stood supreme. At Tan Trao, Ho had pressed members of the OSS Deer Team on the question of whether Washington would intercede in Indochina or leave matters to the French and perhaps Chinese. The question suggested uncertainty, and the evidence is considerable that he held in this period a dual vision of the United States. On the one hand, as a bastion of capitalism, America could be an opponent of the future world revolution; on the other hand, her leader for most of World War II had been Franklin Roosevelt, a major world voice for the liberation of colonial peoples in Asia and Africa and the principal figure behind the Atlantic Charter. As a foe of European colonialism, the United States could thus be of enormous help to the Viet Minh cause, but not if serious tensions arose between the capitalist powers and the USSR; in such an eventuality, Washington could choose to, in effect, strike a bargain with France, supporting her efforts in Indochina in exchange for help in countering Moscow.
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At times, the uncertainty regarding U.S. plans slid into pessimism. Not long before his arrival in Hanoi, Ho wrote his friend Charles Fenn a plaintive letter, expressing his satisfaction that the war had ended but disappointment that “our American friends” would be leaving him soon. “And their leaving,” he wrote, “means that relations between you and us will be more difficult.” At other times, hopes must have soared. When on August 15 word reached Tan Trao (on an OSS-supplied radio) that Japan’s Emperor Hirohito had instructed his subjects to capitulate, Americans and Vietnamese broke out in raucous celebration. Flares were launched into the sky, songs were sung, and liquor flowed. The Vietnamese shouted joyously that independence was at hand, and the Americans responded with cheers of “Hip-hip-hooray!”
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In other parts of Vietnam too, nationalists of all stripes hoped for American support. To a degree difficult to appreciate today, with our knowledge of the bloodshed and animosity that was to follow, admiration for the United States was intense and near universal that summer. It was a Rooseveltian moment. The United States, recalled Bui Diem, later a top official in the South Vietnamese government, was the “shining giant” whose commitment to freedom was real, who would end forever colonial control. These nationalists viewed with apprehension the impending arrival of the Chinese and the British (who were given the task at Potsdam, it will be recalled, of disarming the Japanese in northern and southern Vietnam, respectively, at the conclusion of hostilities), which made them all the more attached to the image of America as savior. Bui Diem again: “We could not understand why they had agreed to let the British and Chinese in, but the Americans themselves had representatives in Vietnam, and their presence sparked a wild hope that the United States was interested. And if they were interested, they might yet be prevailed upon to act.”
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The most important of those representatives was Archimedes L. Patti, an intelligence veteran who had led covert operations in North Africa, Sicily, and Salerno. Born in New York to poor Italian immigrants, Patti had been appointed after Tokyo’s surrender to head a team to fly to Hanoi in order to secure the release of Allied POWs held in Japanese camps, and also to provide intelligence on conditions in Indochina. He arrived on August 22, accompanied by twelve other OSS members and a smaller French delegation headed by Jean Sainteny, the head of French intelligence operations in China, whose ostensible mission was to administer to the needs of French POWs. Sainteny was a former banker in Hanoi and the son-in-law of Albert Sarraut, the former governor of Indochina and a leading French colonial thinker.

Both groups took up residence at the stylish (then and now) Metropole Hotel in the city’s center. From there, Patti opened negotiations with Japanese occupation authorities and established contact with local Viet Minh leaders. On Sunday, September 26, these Viet Minh officials held a quasi-parade in Patti’s honor (complete with a band playing “The Star-Spangled Banner”) and that same day the newly arrived Ho Chi Minh invited him to lunch—sure signs of the importance they attached to courting the young American. After a meal of fish soup, braised chicken, and pork, the two men appraised the fluid situation. Ho expressed displeasure that Sainteny was now in Hanoi through the good offices of the Americans, and he warned Patti that the French team’s aims went well beyond looking after prisoners of war. France sought to reclaim control and would get support in this goal from Great Britain, Ho told him. The Chinese, meanwhile, would sell out Vietnamese interests to achieve objectives of their own.
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Patti listened intently. He had met with Ho Chi Minh once before, in April 1945, in southern China, on the subject of potential OSS–Viet Minh cooperation in the struggle against Japan. The two had talked then late into the night, smoking Patti’s Chesterfields and sipping tea. Patti came away “indelibly” impressed with Ho’s patriotism and social acumen. Now they were face-to-face again, and Patti couldn’t help but reflect on the Viet Minh leader’s appearance, so emaciated in comparison with the earlier encounter. But Patti again found himself charmed by Ho’s political sophistication, by his grace, and by his grasp of current world developments. And as in April, Ho left no doubt that he desperately wanted Allied, and especially American, backing. At a subsequent meeting, Ho solicited Patti’s input in the drafting of the proclamation of independence. “Ho called for me to see him urgently,” Patti recalled. “He presented me with these sheets of paper. I looked at them and I said, ‘What do I do with them? I can’t read them.’ He started to translate. So I just listened carefully and I was shocked. I was shocked to hear the first words of our own Declaration of Independence, especially in making reference to the Creator. He had the words life and liberty kind of transposed and I worked it out for him a little bit and said ‘I think this is the way it should be.’ ”
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