Embers of War (24 page)

The blackmail tactic worked. In the afternoon of March 6, the two sides, under intense Chinese pressure, signed a “Preliminary Convention,” wherein the French recognized the “Republic of Vietnam” as a “free state” (
état libre
) within the Indochinese Federation and French Union; the Vietnamese agreed to welcome twenty-five thousand French troops for five years to relieve departing Chinese forces; and France in turn agreed to accept the results of a future popular referendum on the issue of unifying the three regions.
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The new National Assembly in Hanoi, which had been elected in January, approved the deal, with the understanding that it was preliminary and that additional negotiations would follow in short order. Some Vietnamese militants condemned the accord as a sellout, but Ho reiterated his conviction that the first order of business was to be rid of the dread Chinese. “As for me,” he told aides, “I prefer to sniff French shit for five years than eat Chinese shit for the rest of my life.”
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Not an appealing notion either way. The Ho-Sainteny deal was hardly what Viet Minh leaders had anticipated in the glorious days of the August Revolution, or what any close Indochina observer could have predicted one year earlier, in March 1945, at the time of the Japanese
coup de force
. That action, after all, had formally ended French dominion over Indochina and had revealed just how hollow colonial control had become. French forces had put up embarrassingly little resistance. Yet now, twelve months later, France was back, well on the way to reclaiming control south of the sixteenth parallel and seemingly ready to do the same north of the line. Little wonder that when Sainteny, after the signing ceremony, raised a glass and exulted to Ho that they had ended the possibility of major war, the veteran revolutionary demurred. “We are not yet satisfied because we have not yet won complete independence.” He paused, then added, “But we will achieve it.”
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To Western visitors, Ho Chi Minh in this period offered both conciliation and determination. He told American intelligence officers Frank White and George Wickes of his fond memories of living in Boston and New York and of his admiration for American principles as enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, then asked the two men to convey to Washington his high hopes for U.S. support for his nation’s quest for independence. And to a senior British diplomat, Ho condemned what he saw as d’Argenlieu’s effort to create a separatist movement in Cochin China (80 percent of southerners wanted union with the north, he insisted, notwithstanding some age-old regional frictions) but admitted that his people were as yet unprepared to assume their full duties of citizenship. That was why Vietnam was eager to get advice and counsel from France, from Britain, from the United States—provided it was granted in a spirit of cooperation and not in the form of “master” to “slave.” The French seemed to want to retain their full sovereignty over Vietnam, and this, Ho vowed, nationalists in his country would never accept.

The visitors came away impressed. “When you talk to him he strikes you as quite above the ordinary run of mortals,” Wickes wrote in a letter home. “Perhaps it is the spirit that great patriots are supposed to have. Surely he has that—long struggling has left him mild and resigned, still sustaining some small idealism and hope [that war can be avoided]. But I think it is particularly his kindliness, his simplicity, his down-to-earthness. I think Abraham Lincoln must have been such a man, calm, sane, and humble.” To the Briton, meanwhile, Ho was an “outstanding character” with “excellent idiomatic English.” “I came away with the impression that I had been talking to a sincere patriot though obviously imbued with all the characteristics of a convinced revolutionary.… There is no doubt in my mind that he is prepared to go to any lengths to attain his object.”
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III

WHICH TELLS US SOMETHING ABOUT HOW THE MARCH 6
ACCORDS
should be interpreted in history: as a mere pause in a struggle that had already begun. The agreement raised hopes in some quarters that a peaceful resolution was at hand—notably in Washington, where numerous officials saw it as proof that France had come to embrace the need for far-reaching, fundamental changes in the Franco-Vietnamese relationship—but it may in fact have had the opposite effect, making large-scale fighting more likely. For while Paris recognized Vietnam’s “independence,” it also won entry for French troops into the north, which gave it the means to revoke what it had promised. The Viet Minh, meanwhile, secured precious time to build up their military strength. No less important, through her recognition of the “free state” of Vietnam, France in effect made the DRV the sole legitimate Vietnamese voice in the entire country.
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Sainteny, to be sure, was sincere—if perhaps naïve—in his toast on March 6. He hoped the deal might be the basis for a genuine settlement. Nor was he alone among French analysts in expressing this view. Indeed, one finds in the internal French record in early 1946 a fascinating fluidity in official thinking about the best course of action in Indochina—though fascinating in part because it remained circumscribed, with virtually all analysts holding to the view that Indochina ought to remain within the empire. The January resignation of Charles de Gaulle, it’s clear, gave a boost to those, like veteran colonial official Henri Laurentie, who believed that the old colonial order could not be restored in toto, that the world had changed, that it was now essential to give substance to the vague promises of liberalization made during the war. The decision made around this time to give the Colonial Ministry a new name—the Ministry of Overseas France (Ministère de l’Outre-mer)—is one sign of the changed atmosphere. In the military, meanwhile, it was no longer anathema to argue that negotiations involving mutual concessions had to be part of French strategy. A growing number of officers thought there were simply not enough boots on the ground to stake everything on a military solution, and little prospect that more could be found.
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The shakeup in French domestic politics following de Gaulle’s departure also gave a boost to the forces for reform and diplomacy, at least temporarily. Though the empire was a low priority for both the public and politicians in this period, all three political parties that dominated the scene voiced at least rhetorical backing for greater autonomy to Indochina and other parts of this reconstituted “Overseas France.” The Socialists (Section française de l’Internationale ouvrière, or SFIO) professed support for greater self-rule for imperial territories but were split internally on how quickly changes should occur. The Communist Party (Parti communiste français, or PCF), as we have seen, counseled moderation and generally sought to steer clear of colonial issues but claimed to stand for far-reaching reform in Indochina and elsewhere. Even the Mouvement républicain populaire (MRP), the centrist Catholic party that was destined to dominate Indochina policy during much of the decade that followed, and that would in short order adopt a hard-line stance, made noises in February seeking a revamped French Union that would allow more autonomy for the Indochinese and other colonial peoples.
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But whatever fluidity existed in Paris did not exist where it may have mattered most: in the high commissioner’s office in Saigon. Here, paradoxically, de Gaulle’s departure may have had the effect not of boosting the forces of reform, but of thwarting them. Admiral d’Argenlieu and his staff had considerable freedom to maneuver in implementing policy directives from Paris, and that freedom now increased, as political maneuvering preoccupied many officials in the metropole. What’s more, d’Argenlieu, ever the loyal Gaullist, very likely took the general’s departure as a license to clamp down harder in Indochina, in order to affirm the Gaullist line until such a time as de Gaulle could return to power. D’Argenlieu initially professed to support the March 6 convention, but privately he grumbled, with clear reference to Leclerc: “I marvel at France having such a fine expeditionary force in Indochina, and that her commanders prefer to talk rather than fight.”
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Little by little the admiral set about retracting the concessions France had made. In mid-April, in talks with Vo Nguyen Giap at Dalat—a mountain resort known for its elegant villas and its comparatively cool weather—he refused to discuss a provision in the March 6 Accords calling for joint Franco-Vietnamese efforts to end hostilities in the south (skirmishes there continued, despite an official cease-fire), or to act on the matter of the referendum regarding whether Cochin China would reunite with the north. D’Argenlieu and Giap also clashed on the future status of Vietnam as a “free state.” For Giap, the DRV’s position in the French Union would be as an essentially sovereign state, but the Frenchman countered that the French Union was a federation, which meant that each free state within it must relinquish part of its sovereignty to the central authority and specifically to the high commissioner appointed in Paris, that is, himself.
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It all set an ominous tone for the next round of negotiations, set to take place in France later in the spring. On June 1, a mere twenty-four hours after Ho left Vietnam bound for Paris, d’Argenlieu, in clear violation of the March 6 Accords and without informing Paris, “recognized” the autonomous “Republic of Cochin China” in the name of France. The idea was to present both Ho Chi Minh and the Paris government with a fait accompli, for if there was an autonomous republic in the south, there could be no question of holding a referendum on territorial unity. Never mind that d’Argenlieu had no authority to recognize a Cochin Chinese republic even if it had been legitimate; and never mind that the scheme had minimal support among the southern populace.
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Ho, upon receiving the news, said there must be a misunderstanding—surely the high commissioner would not do such a thing—but there was none.

Upon arriving in France, Ho spent two weeks at the beach resort of Biarritz, in the southwest, while some in his delegation went ahead to Paris. Sainteny was sent to keep him company. Ho fumed at d’Argenlieu’s antics and threatened to return to Hanoi at once, but the Frenchman convinced him to give the upcoming talks a chance—and to try to enjoy himself while he waited. The two men attended a bullfight and a pelota tournament across the border in Spain, went fishing, and visited the Catholic sanctuary at Lourdes. Ho asked people what it was like to live under German occupation and attended a commemoration of de Gaulle’s June 18, 1940, call to resistance, held at the memorial to the dead of the Biarritz resistance. After one festive meal at a restaurant in the small fishing village of Biriatou, Ho signed the guest book with the words, “Seas and oceans do not separate brothers who love each other.”
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HO CHI MINH AND JEAN SAINTENY WITH OTHER MEMBERS OF THE VIETNAMESE DELEGATION IN BIARRITZ, FRANCE, IN JUNE 1946
(photo credit 5.2)

Whenever he ventured out among people, whether in Biarritz or in Paris, Ho enjoyed a warm reception. He charmed most everyone, not least the press corps. Reporter after reporter found him engaging, witty, and winningly self-deprecating. To women journalists, he presented flowers. “As soon as one approaches this frail man,” commented one scribe, “one shares the admiration of all men around him, over whom he towers with his serenity acquired from wide experience.” Other observers compared him to Confucius, to Saint John the Baptist, to the Buddha. Everywhere people commented on his savoir faire, his open love of children, his asceticism—he refused to drink—and his attire: the simple, high-buttoned linen suit that he wore on all occasions, formal and informal. Ho won praise as well from the France-Vietnam Association, which included among its members Emmanuel Mounier, Pablo Picasso, Paul Rivet, and François Mauriac.
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No one was more smitten than Jacques Dumaine, director of protocol at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. When Ho was invited to sit at the official podium during a ceremony on July 14, Bastille Day, Georges Bidault, the newly invested president of the Provisional Government, instructed Dumaine to place Ho’s chair a little bit behind his own. Dumaine did as told, but grudgingly. “Ho is playing the role of Mahatma,” he noted admiringly, “and his simplicity is quite genuine.” Dumaine subsequently invited Ho to lunch and wrote of the encounter: “We had an intimate lunch with Ho Chi Minh. One has to admire the mastery of this self-taught man, his language skills, his ability to make his views accessible, to make his intentions seem moderate, and his politeness. His entourage is nervous, fanatical, and reckless, while he plays the wise and insightful one.”
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