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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JF Quinnelly who wrote (12094)	8/24/1998 2:31:00 AM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71178

<<The Hanoi regime had been killing its opponents for years, it's one of the reasons a million northerners fled south at the partition.>> Ho Chi Minh occupied Hanoi in 1946, peacefully, without reprisals against French citizens and sympathizers. The French, with British and American assistance, took the city back, and initiated a reign of terror which Stalin would have been proud of. By the time of Dien Bien Phu, moderate elements among the North Vietnamese had either converted or departed. <<Americans, unlike the French, weren't seeking a colony>> Ho Chi Minh actually asked if the Americans would consider establishing a limited-term protectorate in Vietnam to prevent French reentry. No answer was ever given. French cooperation in Europe was considered a higher priority. Given the level of American support for the French, it would have been very difficult to convince the North Vietnamese that an American occupation was anything but a return of the French in different uniforms, especially if we proposed to turn over the government to Vietnamese who had collaborated with the French. <<It wasn't necessary to "conquer the countryside">> It was necessary to absolutely and convincingly crush the Japanese armed forces, and to demonstrate overwhelmingly superior force. This perception of victory could not have been established by occupying Hanoi and Haiphong. The French held both cities, but it did them very little good. <<Invading the North in 1965 and capturing Ho would have been every bit as effective as removing Hitler and Tojo had been.>> I doubt that Ho would have sat around waiting to be captured. I doubt an invasion would even have met more than superficial resistance. The occupation would have been another story altogether. It's important to remember that whatever we thought of Ho, he had an incredible level of support from his own people, especially from the rural populace, that he got from throwing out the detested French. I would still maintain that the vast majority of those who left the north when the French fell were in some way associated with the French regime. Many feared reprisals, in many cases for excellent reasons. <<He understood revolutionary terror as well as they did, and practiced it throughout his career.>> He learned more about terror from the French, who practiced it with more enthusiasm than efficiency, than from the Russians. Ho became a communist because the communists were the only political grouping in Europe (where he became politicized) which supported freedom for colonies. Americans who knew and dealt with him said he was a nationalist and a pragmatist first, and would deal with anyone necessary to prevent a French return. That could have been the US. We defaulted, and the Russians took our place. Americans tend to see that period in strict cold-war left/right terms. Many other nations saw things in master/slave terms, with the superpower conflict as a sideshow. Our reflexive siding with the masters has caused us a lot of grief, <<Ho spent his time turning in Vietnamese nationalists to the French and Japanese to remove any rivals.>> Is there a source on that? I have never heard that one, and I'm reasonably well read on the period. I really think you should read Patti's book. Not a gram of ideology anywhere in it, every comment backed up by impeccable citations. It sure opened my eyes. Steve