The Road To Geneva*

In the early hours of July 21, 1954, Pierre Mendes-France won his initial gamble with fate. A month and a few hours earlier, he had been chosen as Premier of France on the vow to secure peace in Indochina within thirty days or resign. “Peace with honor,” he had said.

The armistice, which he had secured, yielded over half of Viet Nam to the Red- controlled Viet Minh. For the first time since America announced a policy of containment, the Communists had been able to add new territory. We know that it is their fixed purpose to conquer the world. They are now 77,000 square miles and 12,500,000 people nearer that goal. They have achieved a permanent base from which pressure can be exerted on Laos and Cambodia, and later on Thailand, Burma, and Malaya. They have again succeeded in expanding the perimeter of Communism.

An intangible but important gain in prestige has accrued to the Red Chinese both in Korea and in Indochina. “Face” is important in the East. When the Chinese entered the fray in Korea, the Allies stood on the Yalu. The armistice was signed at the 38th parallel. In Viet Nam, a year after Chinese “volunteers” started aiding the Communist rebels, Tonkin and North Annam were surrendered to them. It means a significant gain in face for the Red Chinese, a significant loss in prestige for the forces of freedom. It has encouraged our Asian enemies; it has discouraged our friends. It has caused some “fence-sitters” to take sides against us.

The problems of Indochina and the discussion concerning them will be much clearer if we know something about the geography and climate.

Like much of southeast Asia, the climate of Indochina, particularly the south, is dominated by the summer monsoons. April 15 until October 15 is a period of torrential rains; a seasonal range in temperature from 80° to 90° Fahrenheit takes place, but there is no daily variation. During the rest of the year the climate is dry, healthful, and invigorating. The seasonal temperature does not vary, but there is a diurnal range from 68 at night to 80 during the hottest part of the day.

Viet Nam, which occupies the whole eastern portion of the Indochinese peninsula, consists of three provinces. Tonkin,, the northernmost, is mountainous and covers 44,672 square miles. It contains the extremely rich delta of the Red River, an area having one of the densest populations in the world; the entire population of Tonkin is about 10½ million, with most of them living in the delta region. The long narrow central province, Annam, has a thousand miles of coastal plain backed by mountainous hinterland. Its area is 56,989 square miles. The seven million inhabitants dwell mostly in the coastal plain. The southern province, Cochin China, contains the valley and delta of the Mekong. The entire province is a low, rich farmland area of some 24,981 square miles. The population is estimated at 5½ million.

Mountainous Laos covers 89,343 square miles and is sparsely inhabited, the entire population being only 1½ million. Cambodia has 69,884 square miles of mountains and plains and approximately 3½ million inhabitants.

The deltas of the Red River and the Mekong are both exceedingly fertile and well adapted to growing rice. Indeed, climate and soil combine to permit the raising of two crops a year in the northern delta. However, the small area of usable farm land and the large population render Tonkin a food deficit territory which must import or face famine. Hitherto the Mekong valley, with its single annual crop, has produced enough surplus not only to supply the deficit of North Viet Nam, but also to make Indochina the world’s leading exporter of rice.

Viet Nam is culturally Chinese. From 111 B.C. until 939 A.D., it was part of China; indeed, Annam in Chinese, means “Pacified South.” In the centuries that followed their expulsion, the Chinese made many attempts to reconquer the land, but were successful in gaining control of only a part of Tonkin and for a comparatively short period, from 1407 to 1428. During that latter year they were driven out.

After 1550, Catholic missionaries came to Viet Nam; by 1659 the majority of these were French.

By this latter date, the Le family, who had taken the lead in expelling the Chinese in 1428 and who had established an imperial dynasty, had fallen victims to that deterioration which appears to be the lot of dynasties. More and more the actions of the emperor were controlled by two rival families, the Trinh of Tonkin and Nguyen from the south. By 1786, the former decided they were strong enough to attempt a coup d’état. The Nguyen representatives were forced to flee, and the emperor was dethroned.

Nguyen phua Anh, known to history as Gia Long, was among those who fled. He went to his friend Pigneau de Behaine, Bishop of Adran. The bishop assisted him to raise troops and, apparently, arranged a treaty whereby the French Government supplied him with munitions. Gia Long not only recaptured his native southland but established himself as emperor of all of Annam as well.

Until his death, in 1833, Gia Long displayed extreme friendliness toward Frenchmen and always employed them as advisers. However, he firmly refused to grant any concessions which infringed the sovereign rights of his country.

Unfortunately, Gia Long’s successors did not follow his moderate policies toward foreigners. During the forty years following his death, eight bishops and many other priests were murdered, at least twenty were tortured, and many, who fled to the mountains to escape the terror, are known to have died of hardship.

France first looked down the road that led to Geneva in 1858, when she joined Spain in an attack delivered in reprisal for atrocities committed on French and Spanish missionaries. Without much difficulty, they captured Tourane, the port of the Emperor’s capital city, Hue; however, after extracting a promise of good behavior, they withdrew. Two years later a fresh outbreak of outrages occurred, and France trod firmly down the road to glory, to empire, and to Geneva. In late 1861, they landed in Cochin China; by February, they had captured Saigon; and on June 5, 1862, the Emperor ceded the three eastern provinces of Cochin China to France. In 1867, following some border incidents, the French absorbed the three western provinces. In 1873, renewed persecution of French priests in Annam caused war; and, in 1874, the Emperor became a ward of France. Tonkin, a semi-autonomous part of the Emperor’s domain, thus became a sub-protectorate.

The Chinese Emperors, claiming to be the natural rulers of the earth, maintained the fiction that Viet Nam was a vassal state. Ambassadors were received at Peking as tributaries, and indeed, Viet Nam did pay a token tribute. Although there was no shadow of substance to their claim, the Chinese considered Annam to be under their protection. They resented the French “impertinence,” and in 1884 and 1885, war flamed along the border. However, a few encounters with French troops and a naval blockade convinced the Chinese that the French position in Viet Nam was not impertinent. Nevertheless, border incidents continued and, as a result, in 1897, France constructed a series of fortifications along the Chinese-Tonkinese border to prevent future incursions; at this time, Tonkin was declared to be a direct colony of France.

The protectorate over Cambodia was established in 1864, at the request of its king. In 1200 the kingdom had been the largest and most powerful in the region. Since then, however, the Cham had been under constant pressure from the Thai (Siamese). A fresh invasion, in 1863, caused the appeal for help which led to the protectorate.

In Laos also, Thai invasions were the proximate cause of the establishment of a protectorate. In 1893, the King of Luang- Prabang requested such action of the French and, at the same time, the rest of Laos was declared to be a direct colony.

Difficulties with Thailand continued until 1907, when the territorial disputes were settled by a treaty. In considering the ethics involved in border disputes in southeast Asia, it is well to remember that each nation, at some time in the past, held hegemony over all or part of the territory of every other nation in the area. There is no question that French military power, rather than equity, dictated the terms of the treaty. The Thai, dissatisfied, awaited an opportunity to effect a readjustment.

Briefly, that is the history of the establishment of the French Empire in Indochina. But the same gentry who were so concerned over the poor, misunderstood, agrarian reformers of China, and who have such profound sympathy for the nationalistic aspirations of the Viet Minh, paint the picture in quite different colors—all reds and pinks. These Communist-influenced writers tell us that the conquest of Indochina by France was a coldly calculated operation planned by the bourgeois government for the sole purpose of exploiting and enslaving the natives.

Categorically, this is not true. Aggression, in modern nations, is a phenomenon of dictatorships. The political leaders of republics are apt to be motivated by reasons which will be satisfactory to the public conscience. The adventure in Indochina started under Louis Napoleon, a dictator; it is therefore possible that the French soldiers who landed to protect missionaries were intended, in reality, to further a planned colonial policy. However, the moderate Republican “Third Force,” which ruled France during the period when most of Indochina was being occupied, was beset by monarchists on the one hand and socialists on the other. The business of keeping the Republic alive absorbed the attention of the French political leaders, and the personnel employed in colonial administration were left with comparatively little guidance. One day France awoke to find that her overseas personnel, following their noses in the course of day-to-day affairs, had gained large colonial territories; and France possessed the prerogatives and headaches of empire.

Indeed, it is inconceivable that anything planned could be so irrational as the French colonial system. Certain of the older colonies were departments of France. Others, including Cochin China, were responsibilities of the Minister of the Interior. The rest of Indochina was under the Colonial Ministry. Still other colonies were directed by the Foreign Minister. To further complicate this situation, there was an advisory Conseil Superieur des Colonies in which all French possessions had representation. Does that sound like an organization planned by an aggressor nation for the administration of conquered territory?

The Red-inspired writers accuse the French of instituting one penal code for Frenchmen and another for natives, so that, for the same offense, a native would be more severely punished than a Frenchman. They say that special courts were set up for trying Frenchmen, in which more liberal procedures were used, than were employed in courts where the trials of natives were conducted. Another charge is that the French attempted to impose their culture upon unwilling natives. They also, according to these writers, jailed so many Vietnamese that the number of jails had to be increased many fold. The French, they allege, built more jails than schools.

The facts stated cannot be attacked; the allegations are literally true. But let us restate them, adding perhaps a fact or two more. The practice of a strong state insisting upon the right to try its own citizens, by its own courts, and under its own laws for crimes committed in a foreign land is called “extraterritorial jurisdiction.” All occidental nations, including the United States, having the power to do so, enforced this right in lands where native courts meted out cruel and inhuman punishment for trivial offenses. France enforced this right in Indochina; therefore her citizens were tried in different courts, using different procedures, and under different laws from those employed in administering justice to the natives. France endeavored to substitute her more humane judicial system for the native code, and to some extent succeeded in doing this, although the communes and the mandarinate opposed the substitution. Hence, it can truthfully be said that the French did impose their culture upon unwilling natives. Instead of chopping off a hand or putting out an eye, as might be prescribed by the native penal code, French law provides for a term of confinement; hence, to the extent that France succeeded in changing the penal laws it was necessary to build prisons. Also, it should be remembered • that a substantial portion of such confinement as was adjudged during the pre-French period was served in torture cages. Jails which satisfied the white man’s sense of propriety were practically non-existent, hence the percentage increase in the number of jails required by the operation of the French Criminal Code was enormous. Probably more jails were built than schools; but, anomalous though it may sound, in this particular case jails were the result of humanity and symbols of progress.

Some of the Communist-slanted writers say that nothing was done to benefit the land. The truth is that the French invested over two billion dollars in Indochina from 1862 until 1939. This is an amazing sum if considered in the light of French economic potential. By the end of the period, 2,088 miles of railway and 22,000 miles of roads had been constructed. Thousands of acres of swamp had been drained and more thousands had been reclaimed by irrigation. An elaborate system of reservoirs, dykes, and canals had been constructed to protect this reclaimed land. Erosion control, crop rotation, and scientific fertilization had been introduced to protect and improve previously existing farm land. Under the influence of this program the annual rice crop had increased from 300,000 tons in 1865 to 3,180,- 000 tons in 1940. New farm products had been introduced, and the production of old crops greatly increased; cotton, coffee, tea, sugar, and pepper had become items of commercial export, and the production of rubber, unknown as a crop before the coming of the French, had reached 76,000 tons by 1941.

Certain Kremlin-inspired “reporters” admit that physical improvements were made, but advance the proposition that this was done solely to benefit the French and resulted, so far as the natives were concerned, in a lowering of the standard of living. Nothing, they say, was done with the idea of helping the Indochinese.

It is the habit of businessmen to make investments from which they expect to realize a profit. We can therefore assume that the physical improvements made in Indochina were intended primarily to benefit French business. However, it is also a general truth that the development of natural resources leads to an improved standard of living, and Indochina was no exception. The improvements made by the French not only enabled the same country, which supported a population of only eleven million in 1862, to support 28 million today, but also improved the lot of the individual. In lands where famine is endemic, an increase in the per capita consumption of food represents a marked rise in the standard of living. The basic food of the Far East is rice, and its annual per capita consumption is a rough but fairly indicative index of the living standard. In 1862, Indochina produced 300,000 tons of rice, all of which was consumed at home. This establishes the annual per capita consumption at about 55 pounds. In 1940, 3,180,000 tons were produced, 1½ million tons were exported. Thus 1.68 million tons must have been consumed at home. This indicates a per capita consumption of about 115 pounds per year. According to our rough index this represents a substantial improvement in the standard of living.

Frequently the measures taken by the French colonial administration to benefit the natives were thwarted by being grotesquely misapplied by other natives. An example of this is furnished by the case of the French efforts to get the peasants out of the clutches of usurers. These latter are an obnoxious feature of oriental culture. Interest rates are so high that the peasant, who probably was just getting by before making the loan, has no chance of paying the interest, let alone the loan. He thus sinks deeper and deeper into debt, and the loan shark ultimately takes over his land, and thereafter holds him in bondage. France attempted to break up this racket in Indochina by making an appropriation available for low interest loans to land holders. The usurers, who in the normal course of their business had become land owners, simply, in their guise as land owners, borrowed the entire appropriation, which thus became available for extending their operations as usurers, at the same old rates.

Remembering that nineteenth century Asiatics were not nationalistic—the common man had always been oppressed, expected to be oppressed, and was indifferent as to who oppressed him—we are not surprised that the great majority of the people were contented with French rule. Indochina showed its loyalty in World War I by sending 92,000 soldiers and workers to France, and by making gifts and loans greater than those of all other colonies combined.

The mandarinate did not share this general state of contentment. Starting with Emperor Ham Nghi, who signed the treaty establishing the protectorate, emperors and individual mandarins took to the hills with their personal following to become bandits in the name of freedom. These insurrections had nothing to do with patriotism; the mandarins were simply trying to restore the good old days of their absolute lordship—to drive out the foreign devils so the domestic devils could perpetrate their extortions upon the peasants without fear of retribution from the white man’s law.

However, as time passed, these recurrent rebellions began more and more to assume a nationalistic character. The proximate cause of the development of a new spirit of nationalism was the victory of the Japanese over the Russians in 1905. For the first time the people of East Asia realized that occidental ascendancy was not intrinsic but resulted from superior weapons and techniques. The event aroused the admiration and envy of the Indochinese. Just a year after the peace was signed, Prince Cuong De, a cousin of the Emperor, was forced to flee the country as a result of his participation in the formation of the Phuc Quoc, a pro-Japanese but truly nationalistic society.

Vietnamese were also impressed by the success of Dr. Sun Yat Sen’s Kuomintang. Its pamphlets were avidly read, and a number of nationalistic societies developed a Kuomintang slant. However, the principal pro-Chinese party, the Viet Nam Revolutionary League (Dong Minh Hoi), did not come into being until 1941.

The most important of the nationalist societies, the Viet Nam Nationalist Party (Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dong—VNQDD), which was formed in 1927, had no foreign bias, but in later years was considered slightly pro-Japanese, possibly by contrast with the heavily Chinese-biased Dong Minh Hoi.

There was definitely a rising tide of nationalism which made it the principal issue in Southeast Asia. The Communists were astute enough to recognize that this cause would attract public support and could be used to create discontent with the existing government. They therefore seized upon it as an issue.

World domination is the fixed objective of Communist leadership. In pursuing this purpose, they follow a general pattern. First, they seek to attract a group of malcontents whom they can indoctrinate in the philosophy of the Communist world state. These converts are formed into a Communist Party. After that, any issue, real or imaginary, which can be used to breed discontent with the existing government, is exploited. If the Communist Party attains any sizable percentage of the population, and the rest of the public becomes apathetic regarding the fate of their government, conditions are present under which resistance to aggression becomes negligible.

While it makes no difference to the Communist whether the grievances which he uses to foment discontent be real or imaginary, in the Far East many legitimate grievances do exist. The usurer, the absentee landlord, the necessity for land reform, all these are real issues. The Viet Minh advocated redistribution of the land to the peasants who worked it and the abolition of usury. The land for redistribution was to be taken from the absentee landlord. Usury was to be abolished by law. But, as the agent-provocateur knew, the real goal of Communism for the peasant is the collectivized farm. If, as an intermediate step, the Communist in power seems to redeem his pre-revolutionary campaign promise by seizing the property of all large land holders and distributing it among the landless farm workers, it is only to ruin them by increasingly high taxes, until, in desperation, they are willing to accept collectivization. In Russia 95 per cent of the land is collectivized. In China, they have only reached the stage where the peasants are being ruined by losing 70 or 80 per cent of their produce to the tax collector. For the landless peasant, the absentee landlord has been replaced by the “Peoples’ Commissar,” and the usurer by the tax collector. The land-owning peasant, prosperous under native or colonial government, has been reduced to the same sad state as the landless.

The story of the Communist operation in Viet Nam is the story of that remarkable man who has variously called himself “Nguyen the Patriot” (ai Quoc) and “Ho the Enlightened” (Chi Minh). He was born in Vinh, a province in northern Tonkin. At the age of twelve he was a courier carrying messages between revolutionary leaders. Before World War I he had journeyed to France and was working as a photograph retoucher. In 1920 he assisted Marcel Cachin in founding the French Communist Party.

In 1924, “the Patriot” went to Moscow. While there, he was chosen as the first Vietnamese to study at the Stalin School of Revolution. Upon graduation, in 1925, he was sent to Canton as an interpreter on the staff of the Communist representative to Chiang Kai-shek. He circulated among the Vietnamese there, preaching Marxian theories. Selecting, with great care, the more promising of his Vietnamese acquaintances, he founded the Viet Nam Revolutionary Youth. Members of the organization who returned home recruited likely prospects and sent them to Canton to study with the master.

In 1927, when Chiang Kai-shek broke with Communism, Ho Chi Minh fled to Hong Kong. In 1929 he was in Thailand preaching Communism when he received an appeal from the leaders of his “Revolutionary Youth” to save Communism in Viet Nam from disintegrating due to factional quarrels. He called a meeting of the leaders of the various Vietnamese Communist factions. It was held in Hong Kong in early 1930, the party line was laid down, and all factions were united into the Communist Party of Indochina. In 1933, “the Enlightened” landed in a British jail. He was released after two years and appears to have worked in the underground until 1940, when he emerged to organize the Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Ming Hoi (Viet Minh).

Before the formation of the Viet Minh, a number of non-Communist Vietnamese nationalist parties were working independently. Ostensibly the Viet Minh was a league to coordinate their activities. Although it announced no Communist sympathies, actually it was a “front” organization, founded by Communists for Communist purposes. Ho Chi Minh was its leader.

In 1930, encouraged by the distress resulting from a serious crop shortage, Ho Chi Minh’s newly organized Communist party launched an uprising. There was murder, pillage, and for some peculiar reason, widespread destruction of village documents and records; but the countryside failed to respond. Frenchmen remember 1930 as the “year of the Red terror.” Early in the following year the French reacted to this wanton destruction by a campaign of suppression against the Communists; the latter named 1931 the “year of the White terror.”

In France, these incidents created no impression of a rising tide of nationalism; not that reports of them were censured, but they were regarded as the work of a few intellectual crackpots and professional revolutionaries. Furthermore, Frenchmen saw no reason why the Indochinese should desire independence. To them, colonialism embodied no exploitation; they considered it a mutually beneficial arrangement. On the eve of World War II, Frenchmen confidently expected the same loyally and support from Indochina that they had received during World War I.

By the time the French Republic fell, in June, 1940, the Japanese were at the Indochinese border. The plan for the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere embraced Burma and Malaya. This necessitated the conquest or neutralization of Indochina and Thailand. Using as an excuse the fact that the Haiphong-Yunnan railway had been used to ship supplies from the free world to Chiang Kai-shek’s forces in south China, the Japanese demanded and obtained concessions of military bases, free passage for troops, and economic agreements.

Gradually Japan took over the substance of power in Indochina, leaving to France the shadow. Her troops occupied all of the strategic areas. The economic arrangements took the raw materials and surplus food of Indochina in exchange for promises to deliver manufactured goods, which somehow never arrived. The machinery of Indochina began to deteriorate from the lack of maintenance materials and parts.

After the liberation of France in 1944, the Japanese feared that the American build-up in the Philippines presaged an amphibious assault on Indochina and on March 9, 1945, handed the French a two-hour ultimatum demanding complete Japanese control. When the French asked for more time, the Japanese ordered their military machine into action. Some garrisons were surprised and surrendered without a struggle. Other French and Vietnamese troops, warned in time, put up such a bitter battle and took such a large toll of the attackers that the infuriated Japanese massacred them to a man after their surrender. The independence of the Empire of Viet Nam, under Japanese protection, was then proclaimed.

Astutely, the Communists recognized this as an opportunity to advance the interests of the Viet Minh by exploiting the popular anti-Japanese feeling. They denounced Bao Dai, the Emperor, as a Japanese puppet, and revolted in the name of independence. In Tonkin, where Japan had few troops, with the aid of the truly nationalist groups the Viet Minh took over. The “Democratic Republic of Viet Nam” was proclaimed.

After Japan surrendered, Bao Dai was persuaded, probably by Communist sympathizers who had infiltrated into his group of advisers, that he had no popular support but that he would be highly honored by the people if he would abdicate in favor of the “Republic.” On August 25, 1945, he did so, and Ho Chi Minh lost no time in claiming him as a supporter of the “Republic,” and in conferring upon him the title of “Supreme Political Advisor.” Ho thus appropriated a certain aura of legitimacy for his government.

Pursuant to the Potsdam Agreement, Indochina was occupied by Allied troops, to disarm and supervise the Japanese. China furnished the force which entered Tonkin, where Ho Chi Minh was entrenched. The Chinese recognized the “Democratic Republic” as the legal government, but attempted to gain control over it by arming the Dong Minh Hoi and the VNQDD and encouraging them to revolt against the Viet Minh.

Ho Chi Minh was too clever to permit the Chinese to obtain an excuse for direct intervention, so he made a deal with the Dong Minh Hoi and the VNQDD. Long before this, Ho had decided to legitimize his regime by the election of a national assembly. His deal contemplated high offices in the “Republic” for the leaders of the other parties, and fifty seats in the assembly for the VNQDD, and twenty for the Dong Minh Hoi. This is a rather phenomenal procedure considering that it was to be a “free election,” but amazing as it may be in an election held under Communist supervision, the results accorded exactly with the terms of the agreement.

Meanwhile, the Chinese disclosed the objective of this anti-French move. The purpose was to condition the French to making concessions to the Chinese in exchange for their departure. The French paid. All special French treaty rights in China were abolished, and instead, the Chinese received concessions in tariffs, freight rates, and in preferential treatment of Chinese in Indochina. The agreement called for the Chinese to evacuate in March, but actually it was midyear before they were gone.

On March 6, 1946, shortly after the evacuation agreement was concluded with the Chinese, French Commissioner Sainteny met with Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi. This was the first of three conferences which attempted lo settle the questions of Vietnamese autonomy, the future relationships between France and Viet Nam, and the latter’s place in the French Union. The second conference was held at Dalat in April, the third at Fontainebleau starting July 6. The first conference settled only that French troops would return to Tonkin without Vietnamese opposition. On the principal questions, this and each subsequent conference arrived at near agreements, agreements in principle, and agreements on minor details. The final result, after the conferences, was a modus vivendi to govern relationships until a final conference which was to be held after the French elections, and not later than January, 1947.

During the period of the conferences, France was still disorganized and her economy disrupted by the effects of the Nazi depredations and the war destruction. She was militarily and economically weak. At the time of the first conference, Ho Chi Minh had been in power for nearly a year. He had acted with decision and ability to alleviate a threatened famine and had even attacked the problem of education, mainly by issuing a fiat declaring that illiteracy would be illegal after one year. His position, both militarily and in terms of public support, was strong. The question has been raised as to why he did not take advantage of French weaknesses to press for a favorable decision at once.

The answer is a little complex. Actually Ho Chi Minh had made no concessions. Each conference arrived at the verge of a settlement but never quite achieved one. In each instance, after agreement on general principles, actual decisions were postponed until a later conference. A curious document dated September 25,1945, which came to the attention of an American newsman in Saigon, probably contains the real reason. This paper, according to the story, . . advised the Annamite Communists to be sure, before they acted too rashly, that their struggle ‘meets the requirements of Soviet policy.’ It warned that any ‘premature adventures’ in Annamite independence might ‘not be in line with Soviet perspectives.’ These perspectives might well include France as a firm ally of the USSR in Europe, in which case the Annamite independence movement would be an embarrassment.”

Since both the Viet Minh and the Communist Party of France were creatures of Moscow, it is probable that the orders to Ho Chi Minh were to avoid any action which might prejudice the chances of the French Communist Party. In the first election after the war they had received five million votes, and it did not appear at all impossible that France might vote itself into the Soviet bloc. Yet, to retain its prestige at home, the Viet Minh was forced to stand for nationalism and independence—an independence which Moscow would not wish for Viet Nam if France were to go Communist. Hence the Communist nature of the Viet Minh was kept secret so that it could ask for independence without prejudicing the Communist Party of France in the eyes of French voters; yet it avoided forcing an issue on the subject so long as any chance remained that France might go Communistic by ballot.

By October, 1946, it was established that France would not vote itself into Communism. During that month when the constitution of the Fourth Republic was adopted, the unfortunate provisions relating to the French Union gave the Viet Minh an opportunity to apparently champion the cause of nationalism.

The provisions offered a very limited internal autonomy, with foreign relations, the army, and effective economic control through the banking and monetary systems left in the hands of the French. They enraged not only the nationalist factions in Viet Nam, but also those of Cambodia and Laos.

With their tightened grip upon the Viet Minh, the strong support of the nationalist parties, and with the hope for the communization of France gone with the election, International Communists apparently considered that the time was ripe to start the revolution in Viet Nam. A series of incidents designed to provoke retaliation were initiated. Among other things, a war crimes commission in Lang Son investigating Japanese atrocities was attacked and ten of its members murdered; later, a patrol boat in Haiphong harbor was fired upon by Viet Minh troops.

Immediately following this latter incident, the French ordered the Viet Minh to pull their troops out of the French section of the city. When the terms of the ultimatum were not met, the French attacked. The Viet Minh claims that 6,000 civilians were killed in the ensuing action.

Commissioner Sainteny protested to Ho Chi Minh about the violations of the modus vivendi agreement; later it was suggested that the Viet Minh militia, who had been responsible for most of the aggravating incidents, be disarmed. Instead of complying and in spite of, or possibly because of, the apparently excellent chances of achieving an understanding at the next conference which was scheduled to open in less than a month, Ho Chi Minh struck.

On the night of December 19, 1946, in Hanoi, amidst the confusion induced by sabotaged electric and water systems, Viet Minh machine guns, mortars, and even artillery were turned on French homes and buildings in a nightmare of destruction, pillage, rape, and carnage. By December 23, French tanks rolled through the streets, and loudspeakers proclaimed military law. But by this time fighting was general throughout northern Viet Nam, and France had passed another milestone on the road to Geneva.

During the early years of the war, the tactics employed by the Viet Minh were cleverly devised to exploit their own elements of strength and to neutralize French superiorities. French troops would have annihilated the Viet Minh army had they been able to bring it to action. So Ho Chi Minh avoided formal battle; whenever his guerrillas were faced with an enemy who had a chance, they hid their arms and masqueraded as peasants. Oxcart loads of farm produce might hide Viet Minh soldiers or their equipment. Banana wood sticks might be hollowed out and filled with grenades. Ho’s men, disguised as peasants, would walk through French lines. At a predetermined time they would assemble, take arms from a cache established weeks before or from an oxcart which had newly arrived at the rendezvous point, and then attack in overwhelming force a small detachment or an isolated outpost. Long before an avenging column could approach the locality, the Viet Minh would hide their arms, and either be miles away or have resumed their guise as peasants.

It was necessary for France to commit larger and larger forces in order to maintain even nominal control of the country. Greater and greater became the strain on the national economy. At length, partially as a war measure, partially as a result of evolution in the French philosophy of colonial administration, it was decided to create truly national Indochinese states. From this point, the objection of the French to Ho Chi Minh was not that he was a nationalist but that he was not a nationalist. Being a Communist, his goal for his people was slavery in a satellite state rather than freedom in the French Union.

An appeal was made to Bao Dai to return as Chief of State of a new free Viet Nam. Bao Dai hesitated, unconvinced of French sincerity, but finally gave his approval to the formation of a provisional government by General Nguyen Van Xuan.

On June 5, 1948, a meeting between Xuan, Bao Dai, and the French High Commissioner was held at Ha Long Bay. Their agreement, shortly reached, provided independence for Viet Nam, and for a series of accords on cultural, diplomatic, military, economic, financial, and technical questions.

Bao Dai signed but refused to assume office until the agreement was formally ratified. In France to complete the arrangements, he waited months while parliament debated, but at last on March 8, 1949, Bao Dai and Vincent Auriol, President of France, signed the Elysee Agreements incorporating the items proposed at Ha Long Bay. The kings of Laos and Cambodia immediately demanded the signing of similar agreements which, they stated, would fulfill their national aspirations.

With the issue of nationalism taken from the Viet Minh, there can be little doubt that the movement would have soon collapsed except for one circumstance, tragic alike for Viet Nam and for the world. By November, 1949, the Communist Chinese had reached the Vietnamese border. The Viet Minh, threw off its cloak of nationalism and announced to the world just where it stood. In January, 1950, both Red China and the USSR recognized the Viet Minh as the legal government of Viet Nam. Arms, ammunition, and “volunteers” became available to Ho Chi Minh. However, before the Viet Minh guerrillas could be organized for open battle, the master minds of the Kremlin decided that the Korean situation offered more immediate prospects of gain, and Ho Chi Minh was forced to wait.

During the Korean War, the legal Vietnamese government, with the help of France, met the Communist enemy on even terms. But after the armistice, in 1953, Chinese “volunteers,” battle-trained against the U. S. forces in Korea, poured southward. With comparatively unlimited equipment and manpower available, the Viet Minh began to roll back the armies of the French Union.

After Georges Bidault, the French Foreign Minister, announced that he was unable to achieve a peace, the government fell. On June 20, 1954, Pierre Mendes-France, of the Radical Socialist Party, was chosen Premier of France on his promise to achieve “peace with honor” within one month or resign. On July 21, 1954, an armistice was signed at Geneva. France had reached the end of the road.

The terms of the armistice provide that the border between Communist and free Viet Nam shall be along the Ben Hai River, which is roughly at the 17th parallel. Civilians who desired to evacuate north Viet Nam were given 80 days to leave Hanoi, 300 days to leave Haiphong. In the south, five areas were set aside for 200 days to accommodate Red sympathizers who wish to go north.

In July, 1956, elections are to be held in both the north and the south to decide the future political complexion of the whole nation, which is then to be reunited. A commission, consisting of representatives from Canada, India, and Poland, has been designated to oversee the elections; this same group also will enforce the customary armistice prohibitions against building up military strength and other similar provisions.

The Cambodian delegate to Geneva alone refused to agree to any Communists remaining in his country or to any prohibitions against foreign military or economic aid. The Reds gave way on these points, hence Cambodia is free to seek assistance.

Despite the consolation that we may take from the fact that better terms were achieved for Cambodia, it is still true that freedom took a licking in Indochina. It is difficult to define “honor” in international negotiations; it may, indeed, be that “peace with honor” was achieved at Geneva, but it certainly was not victory. We know that the war lords of Moscow and Peking have advanced another step toward their goal of world domination; but what of the Vietnamese foot soldier who was fighting under the Communist banner for what he believed was independence?

It makes little difference from what aspect we view the problem, the only true gainers are Moscow and Peking. France must bear the responsibility for the loss to the Free World, but before we further disrupt, by harsh criticism, the relationships with a nation which historically has been one of our principal allies, it might be well to take a quick view of the really magnificent effort which France made in this cause.

French motives changed during the course of the struggle. Plans for the postwar French Union were drawn in North Africa, before the liberation of the metropole. Acting under the belief that the colonies, on the whole, were satisfied and loyal, the planners envisioned a degree of autonomy for them which far exceeded that existing under the Third Republic. When nationalistic troubles became evident after the liberation, most Frenchmen assumed that a comparatively few intellectuals and professional malcontents were involved. As the war progressed it gradually seeped into the national consciousness that there was actually a widespread popular demand for independence. France is a republic as are we; its citizens follow the same paths of reasoning as do ours. Some favor one side of any issue; others oppose it. Politicians reflect the views of their constituents. When it became evident to the majority of Frenchmen that the Vietnamese actually wanted autonomy—and would fight for it—the Elysee agreements were ratified. That these agreements fulfilled reasonable national aspirations is clearly shown by the actions of the free governments-in-exile of Laos and Cambodia. From that point on, France fought, not for empire, but for civilization.

The actual losses in killed and missing were some 19,000 Frenchmen, 30,000 foreign legionnaires and troops from other colonies, and 43,000 Vietnamese. The best estimate for the numbers repatriated for wounds or illness is 160,000. In addition to this, 93,000 of the native allies were likewise incapacitated. In terms of the population of our nation this would correspond to 76,000 Americans killed or missing, and 640,000 wounded or disabled by war attributable causes. This figure does not include colonials. The people of France are entitled to our deepest sympathy in their bereavement of their sons and to our respect and admiration for the extent of the sacrifice which they made in behalf of freedom, our common cause.

It has not been all gain for the Communists. Red China, and indeed the whole Communist world, suffers from a food shortage aggravated by the basic inefficiency of their bureaucratic system of production control. Some commentators seem to feel that the acquisition of the Red River “rice bowl” will serve to alleviate this situation so far as Red China is concerned. This is not true. North Viet Nam is a food deficit area, not one with an exportable surplus. Also, it should not be forgotten that the Communists are getting a people who have fought for national independence. Those people have arms, they know how to fight, and they will soon find that they do not have independence, that it is denied by the Reds.

Yet the gain is substantial, and the principal advantage which the Free World can obtain is another lesson in Communist duplicity, if we will but use our eyes to see, and force our minds to face the awful facts instead of listening to the wishful thinking of our hearts. The Communists created discontent among the peasants by a campaign of invective against absentee landlordism; they promised to rectify this by land redistribution, well-knowing that the system which they advocate has, as an announced objective, the abolition of all ownership by all people who work the land. The Marxists sympathized with the peasant because of the unfair share of his produce which went to the state and because of the failure of the government to protect him against the avarice of usurers. They promised relief from taxes and laws against usurers, well-knowing that under Communism the state would confiscate a far larger share of produce than tax collectors and usurers combined, and would deliberately and with forethought pauperize the peasant as an intermediate step in conditioning him to the acceptance of collectivization. From the day of the inception of the Viet Minh in 1941, its history has been illustrative of the duplicity of Communists.

It appears that justice, dedication, and sacrifice are not enough in this world of Communist aggression. Force must be met by superior force. No free nation should ever again be asked to shoulder alone the defense of a cause which is common to all of us. Costly as was the journey, the road to Geneva will not have been travelled in vain if the free world learns from it the lesson that a Communist attack upon one free nation is a Communist attack upon all.