The First Indochina War

history doesn't repeat itself but historians repeat each other and I'm going to do precisely that with with what I'm picking up on this morning for Americans Wars usually begin when they get involved on a large scale and end when they leave as was pointed out earlier this morning in the case of Vietnam in trying to understand the war that simply does not work you cannot begin to understand that war without understanding what happened between 1945 and 1954 nothing looks the same in the fall of 1945 I took my first teaching job in Ohio University in Athens Ohio I had just finished a PhD with the specialty in u.s. foreign policy and had taken a number of courses in East Asian and South Asia India and Pakistan we had no Southeast Asia program at UVA at that time which says something - I expect reasonably well-informed and knew what the press was reporting and what I could find out about the Vietnam War from American sources at that time the beginning of my education came interestingly enough from a student paper who in the fall of 65 in a graduate seminar who using the few sources that were available went back beginning about here in September 1945 and trace the first part of the war up into the mid-50s and once you had seen that nothing ever looked quite the same again it was simply a very very different war your understanding was completely changed the other point this morning that I think is is vital to start with is that the first war in so many different ways defines the contours of to a considerable degree determines the outcome of what the Vietnamese called the American War which followed after in short this is not a war that lasted 65 to 73 but a 30-year war that spans three decades between and you could date it back further I suppose if you want to quibble September 2nd 1945 and an April 30th of 1975 the main result of the French War of course is that it does not settle the principal issues over which it was fought which I hope to get to this morning and one of those issues is the political unity of Vietnam Vietnam as a single political entity the other is Viet Nam's in independence from foreign influence and by virtue of the fact that it doesn't solve these issues then it creates the basis for the second war which you can date from 1959 or 61 or 65 or a number of different places it also dictated the way the war would be fought the Viet Minh concluded that the strategy they had used against the French might also work against another Western power even one as powerful as the United States the Americans on the other hand in assessing this war as much as they assess it which was precious little conveniently and casually blamed the French easy way out they hadn't want to battle our war since Napoleon or whatever the cliche was blame the French they had not been smart they had not been aggressive you'll see that later in in film that war in their view had been an anomaly it was not worth studying I did a survey of military journals and from 55 to 65 63 or for one article I found dealing with the first Indochina war only after the United States was bogged down in its own war in Vietnam in the 1960s would Americans then begin to look at the classic works of Barnard fall hell in a very small place especially Street without joy and try to understand what had happened during the during the first war now we're going to begin here September 2nd 1945 Biden Square Biden district of Hannah light and I think in this case I think maybe a hundred words or so can tell a better story than a single picture to sort of reverse the old aphorism and I'm quoting here from both winds op hos chief lieutenant and the mastermind of dn bein food Hanoi he recalled was bedecked with red bunting a world of flags lanterns and flowers fluttering red flags adorn the roofs the trees and the lakes streamers were hung across streets and roads bearing slogans in Vietnamese French English Chinese and Russian Vietnam for the Vietnamese down with French colonialism independence or death support the provisional government Ho Chi Minh's government support President Ho Chi Minh welcome to the Allied missions shops and factories big and small were closed down markets were deserted the whole city old and young men and women took to the streets multicolored streams of people flowed to body and square from all directions workers and white shirts and blue trousers came in ranks full of strength and confidence hundreds of thousands of PEs came from the city suburbs people's militiamen carried quarterstaff swords or scimitars some even carried old-style bronze clubs and long handle swords taken from the armor ace of temples among the women peasants in their festive dresses some were clad in old-fashioned robes yellow turbans and bright green sashes most lively jump records where the children they marched in step with the whistle blow of their leader singing revolutionary songs because of the crowds hope couldn't get to the stand until late and interestingly ironically he arrived in an American automobile he was introduced by Jop his opening words will sound vaguely familiar all men are created equal they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights among these life liberty and the pursuit of happiness this immortal statement ho goes on to say appeared in the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in 1776 in a broader sense it means all the peoples on the earth are equal from birth all the peoples have a right to live and to be happy and to be free the Declaration of Rights and Man and the citizen made at the time of the French Revolution in 1791 also states all men are born free and with equal rights and must always remain free and have equal rights whole followed a la Thomas Jefferson mr. Jefferson as we used to call him in Charlottesville with a long list of French saw sins comparable to the list Jefferson did of George the third sin and concluded Vietnam has the right to enjoy freedom and independence and in fact has become a free and independent country 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 freedom and independence at this point according to the stories he asked if the people understood and a million voices replied as one yes appropriately and again ironically at this point p38 lucky lightning fighter planes my favorite World War two aircraft flew over the square and kind of celebration so the first question obviously and I'm going to answer it in the in the short fashion because there's a lot to do in a very short time here is why given this scene within a little over a year where Vietnam and the Viet Minh and France at war and the answer is simply that Vietnamese as this picture indicates and hos words suggest wanted independence and France sort of not totally in character among the European powers decided that such independence was unacceptable to it to France now another point to be suggested here early is that what is happening here in bud in square is happening all over the world from 1945 into the 1970s it's a process called decolonization it's a process by which peoples in Asia and Africa and the Middle East who had been under colonial rule for anywhere from fifty to a hundred more years decide that the time has come to in this it's an international phenomenon probably the most important phenomenon in world history after after 1945 the British made reluctantly Churchill of course it said I have not become the King's first minister to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire and luckily he didn't have to because he was elected out of office in August of 1945 ah maybe God was looking after him in that particular case the French did not go along with with it because of a lot of different reasons they saw the Empire as important to their economic well-being they saw it as important to the integrity of what they call the French Union France of course suffered maybe the greatest blow to its prestige of any allied nations during the early stages of the war and may be regained trying to regain the Empire was a way of sort of building itself back up and restoring national pride as I've tried to record in America's longest war the situation in Vietnam is hopelessly confused from the moment of the Japanese surrender on the bottom line is that there are these two opposites conflicting they try to negotiate because neither one of them really is strong enough - the French aren't strong enough to put down the rebellion the rebellion isn't strong enough to throw the French out of Vietnam and so they try to negotiate a settlement in 1946 they do negotiate an agreement the short tale is that it simply doesn't work it breaks down hostilities develop and come easily and in November 1946 fighting breaks out in Hanoi thus begins a war that's going to last until the July 21st 1954 now this war breaks down we historians have to break things down that that obscures all sorts of the complexities that that were talked about in the first hour but it helps to understand roughly into two phases one from 1946 to 1948 1949 early 1950 the other from 1954 to 54 and basically the first part of the war 46 to 49 or 50 is a is a war between the Viet Minh hos revolutionary organization and France a war of independence a war against French colonialism both sides fight pretty much in line with their national traditions here the Viet Minh of Vietnam has a long history a thousand years is sort of the boast of of repelling foreign intruders most notably China and in any number of cases one of the main ways that they combated China was through what would later become called guerrilla warfare sort of passive resistance and in fact a 13th century vietnamese general set forth very briefly the basic concept in a war that was soon to be fought against the fearsome Mongols Kublai Khan and all of that the enemy must fight his battles far from home for a long time we must weaken him by drawing him into protracted campaigns once his initial dash is broken it will be easier to destroy him so the Viet Minh then retreat in back into the countryside in 1946 concentrate on building a powerful political organization on on building resistance as widespread as possible developing a guerrilla army getting that army weapons and training with the idea of not exposing themselves to French arms and French firepower one of the wonderful slogans each citizen is a combatant each village a fortress those who have rifles will use their rifles those who have swords will use their swords those who have no swords would use spades hoes and sticks it's even down to the basics even more than Churchill in in 1940 hos ho put it another way if the tiger pauses the elephant will impale him on his mighty tusks the elephant being France but the tiger will not pause he said and the elephant will die of exhaustion and loss of blood now the French had fought guerrilla Wars before in North Africa and they followed what is sort of the classic strategy which is called the oil slick and if I'm not mistaken what General Petraeus introduced in Iraq in nineteen in 2000 I'm having a hard time with the new century you can tell General Petraeus introduced is a variation of this sort of thing you build a strong point in critical locations and then you try to spread out as oil spreads out if you put it down on the ground you try to spread out and extend your control they tried to use their firepower to best advantage their hope was to lure the viet men into battle where they could use their firepower to best advantage the problem for france was simply among other things was that they didn't have enough troops to make it work the war and there was growing political opposition at home so round one or phase one ended in a bloody stalemate one that was increasingly costly to france who could less afford the the price given its political dynamics than the viet minh phase two up first question i guess that why what was the position of the united states in this first part of this war and why given its anti colonial tradition did the united states maintain neutrality in essentially a sort of reactionary conflict and this neutrality was very much weighted towards France FDR after all had talked about the French he he had his real stereotypes of people the Germans were tight-fisted the French were horrible colonialist you know his Dutch ancestry the Dutch were much worse but somehow that escaped his notice FDR spoke scathingly of the fact that the French had exploited Vietnam for a hundred years and at the time for the Empire to go was now and early on he talked about the possibility of a trustee ship under the United Nations the idea would be that instead of the French coming back in after the war ended an independent group would be created to help operate to help govern Vietnam until the natives as they were called in were ready for independence now this this tells you something that FDR was on top of things in terms of what was happening with decolonization he was way behind the power curve in terms of his estimation of the Vietnamese had very little knowledge of them did not have any idea in fact one time he mentions 50 to 75 years before they would be ready to govern themselves this was not what Howe had in mind in September 1945 by the time he died his idea had been watered down but partly because of British opposition partly because opposition on the part of the US military who wanted bases and Pacific and feared that trusty ship might get in the way of that he had backed off all the way to the point of a of a trusty ship under French control and that didn't really fool too many people so the stage was sort of set the United States did nothing to block Frances returned to Vietnam and once Frances there US neutrality under the Truman administration is tilted very distinctly towards France the United States does not protest the French getting back into Vietnam even makes available ships for them to bring troops to Vietnam it provides Marshall Plan Aid later on which obviously provides funds which frees other funds to be used in fighting war nobody in the US government liked that they had no idea the French could win had no trust in their ability to manage this but they would not do anything to stop it and the reason here interestingly the one reason and a one letter word is Europe this is true pretty much all the way through to 1950 the United States was mainly concerned with Europe France was a key player in Europe the Cold War was was taking form if the United States push France too hard on the war in Vietnam the fear was that the French government might collapse or it might shift to the left there was even possibility the Communists could take control of the government through elections so we handle them very very gently and provided limited aid while protesting only quietly in behind the scenes and effectively saying please please move in the direction of granting them independence which the French were not disposed to do until they absolutely had to now the war changes dramatically in in 1949 and 50 it becomes internationalized and it escalates dramatically fall of China to the Communists August 1949 a critical factor the Communists Mao and his group have some ties with the Viet Minh they provide sanctuary which means that Vietnamese troops that are under threat from China can retreat across the border forces can be trained across the border where they're safe from French fire they begin to provide advisors which are the enemies you know is a tough call you have to be really careful Chinese spent a lot of time in Vietnam and you don't want them back for any length of time the other impact that the fall of China has is politically in the United States some of you will remember the furor that occurred we had seen China as a friend and Ally under junka shek maybe even a democracy that would be closely tied with the United States and when Mao and his forces take all over in August 1949 it has a huge huge impact who lost China is sort of the political rallying cry as if a country that large and distance of a from from us had ever been ours to lose but so important is the political upheaval that the Truman administration is under great pressure not to lose any more Asian territory to communism second major thing is the Korean War beginning of the Korean War June 1950 a whole lot of reasons for that we don't have time to go into it's fascinating revelations in documents these days but suffice it to say that this war sort of brings the Cold War to Asia full-scale and integrates Vietnam into America's cold war strategies it is seen as firm evidence that Stalin and the Kremlin are now set on world conquest and will use any means including military means to accomplish this it is also seen in the light of the fall of China as a point where something has to be done so in the aftermath of Korea the United States as you know since troops there as you may not recall place the 7th fleet between Taiwan and mainland China to keep the Chinese from attacking Taiwan or Zhang Kai shek from attacking China had worked both ways at this time and finally a vast expansion of military aid to France vast expansion of military aid to France at this point the assumptions that would guide US policy in Vietnam for the next 20 years are fixed Southeast Asia is crucial to us cold war strategy because of its ceilings its raw materials Southeast Asia is threatened Vietnam is crucial to Southeast Asia you begin to find in 1949 and 50 the origins of the domino theory that Eisenhower publicly articulated in 1954 if Vietnam Falls then then the next thing will be the next will be insular Southeast Asia Indonesia and all those areas and we will have a major crisis on our hands gaya switch where's my tech person yeah so 1949 250 I think are the crucial periods in a major reorientation of US policy this is a cartoon by Fred Cybele of the Richmond times-dispatch whoops I still you can see why I don't use this stuff much yeah thanks yeah that's what your that's what I hired you for you can see this is the sort of mentality that led to a major commitment in Vietnam in 1950 the first major commitment and of course the the bottom line is that by by 1953-54 the United States was paying virtually seventy five to eighty percent of the cost of that war that is a 1950 cartoon it would have been I could probably give you a closer dough to that dose than that it would be in laughs the fall of 1950 summer fall of 1950 Cybele was a cartoonist for those of you who've been in Richmond was a cartoonist going way way back on the times of scratch what time where is front okay all right I'm gonna I'm going to do some a few words about the franco-american partnership Churchill is supposed to have said if there's only one thing fighting without one thing worse than fighting with allies and that's fighting against them that's pretty much reveal here although I think by the 53:54 both the French and Americans might have said we'd rather be in here without the other one the Alliance was very difficult culturally it was difficult France a declining power who had suffered great humiliation the United States a rising power full of vitality full of confidence full of energy full of self-esteem and all of those things the American had contempt for france's old-fashioned colonial attitudes the French of course we're trying to hang in there fundamental clash of aims the French wanted to hold on to their empire in some form preserve at least a measure of their control from Frances Stanton and actually wanted France to continue to fight so that it would make Vietnam independent now if you're a Frenchman you know that I didn't going to make much sense to you it simply doesn't follow they differed over the way the war should be fought the Americans wanted the French tip do to take the aid they were given and get aggressive and go after the Vietminh and round them up and find them and do the sort of meat grinder thing that we were doing in the latter stages of the Korean War they complained repeatedly about the bobbed wire Maginot Line mentality of the French the Beau Geste for those of you who remember the Gary Cooper movie of years ago a languid War fought on bankers hours was the way the Americans regarded the the way they were French were fighting the French insisted that they were not refighting World War two this was a new kind of war --any they didn't in any event they didn't have enough troops to fight the sort of war the Americans wanted they disagreed over aid French thought the United States didn't provide enough the United States said well hell you're not using what we're giving you right anyway so this went on and on and on a very difficult difficult situation I was going to do a little clip from a wonderful movie that I highly recommend to you this is a case where Hollywood doesn't trivialize I think it's it's the quiet American from 2003 I think it was with Michael Caine and Brendan Fraser and there wonderful scene in there where where the cynical British journalist Michael Caine is is is dismissing all the enthusiasm and hoop love the Americans and how they're going to bring freedom to Vietnam and all of that and Fraser does a wonderful spin which said well the French can't do this they don't have they don't have the brains and they don't have the guts and we're going to get it we're going to do it we're going to get it right I recommend the movie what I'm going to do is cut on straight to dien bien phu and let's look at film there for a few minutes and sort of the background of that because it's a it's a wonderful there's there's fantastic film footage in here what happens of course is that even with American aid and more American advice and a much escalated war in 1951 52 53 you still have a stalemate at another level give me just a just a minute and then let's start it you still have a stalemate at another level and it's at this point that the French launched a daring and what turns out to be a disastrous move either to try to end the war or put themselves in a favorable negotiating position at when negotiations that are set to begin the spring dig so now let's go ahead with it so this picks it up with the NBN food and carries it through to the end you're in charge yes that you may recognize might have recognized him stated strategy you know Valley said among the western mountains 170 miles from Hanoi yeah beautiful the Viet Minh had passed through the valley during a major attack on Laos the French expected another attack I thought the NBN food would be the place to engage them in November 1953 12,000 French troops began dropping into the valley under the command of Colonel Christian the gospel the top French command in Saigon be sure the job would never be able to amass enough troops are at the area crew never get heavy artillery of the hills never keep supply lines over the command the DMM who was equally confident the artillery officer insisted that no Fiat and gun would be able to fire more than three rounds on a pdp-10 vehicle I saw all sorts of civilian and military authorities for a B&B unless my memory is completely miscible I don't remember a single one absolutely not a single one of these authorities we didn't find that the NBN who was a formidable base it was the great plan than airbase it was uncapable at what not the Viet Minh saw the MDM crew was a great opportunity but a great gamble to Ho Chi Minh's forces had lost heavily and attacks on other fine strong points but they decided to take the risk taking the decoy contained Amanda it took us about 45 days but if we have met people we marched at night but in Western during the day one day sometimes we just slept on the roadsides there are no shelters around how many times we had to dig our individual ox holes first people will you go to sleep in case of enemy bomber our onion no then they top it the French were physically large so they had many with ordered Wow guilt but we Vietnamese had something Manami night big tunnel which we can use as a whether the histor good eye huh that was our morale encouraged to Colin knew my tooth boy we were determined to fight for friendly until the end maybe one day because the French came here to steal our land in the present that was our the French Camaro was inviting a battle because they thought that he had men would never be able to get enough troops and guns to be edgy and cool but they did 51,000 P 18 so there's four times the number of French troops crossed the mountains carrying bicycle is huge in this bicycle is huge Chinese and Soviet trucks also very cramped over roads built by thousands of peasants and there were Chinese advisers at the battlefront who try to direct shocks planning then I put me ashore on the first day we designed an operations against the imprint of a quick general attack with which to annihilate the cab in three nights and today during the staff briefing I've written that analysis the latest information I realized that such an attack was not 100% sure success one of the fundamental not the most fundamental rule of Vietnamese military science I said in war you must win both sides had a special reason for wanting to win Italian food at this same time January 1954 the great powers were meeting in Berlin they set a date and place April 26 in Geneva to meet and discuss Asian issues including the Indochina crisis on march 13th job launched his attack on deity of rule 11 began as the Chinese advisors had insisted with massive human wave assaults the heroism of these shock troops had become bad legendia fool later as in the story of the Viet Minh soldier who stopped a French machine gun they don't know that for how the comrade used ten minutes dynamite and his guns to try to destroy that machine gun finally comrade Mandinka used his body to cover the boxer the enemy sent up a lot of players and it was a room at night we all saw how fun didn't come through his body over the walk so then the company commander you're charged young men with guns blank French artillery positions so well done and camouflage the first post go within eight hours by the next day March 14th the Vietminh showing how to score the main airstrip the French command staff was shot Colonel DeCoster became withdrawn uncommunicative on the second night the artillery commander committed suicide saying I am completely designed four days into the battle that the other men controlled the entire perimeter the cost was high overruling his Chinese advisors job decided to change strategy said that a cesium the shaman for this decision on the Indian food from constitutes for me one of the biggest most difficult decisions in my fighting life is all backed above his eyes commander general holtoner job decided to end his attack based on the human wave tactics did little but it hadn't worked the entire plan was changed the attack was stopped and all the heavy artillery pieces go back to a destination DG will echo Delta Delta then trenches and tunnels were data and the morale of the troops was rebuilt - based on the slogan packed into advance solidly fine solidly shovels became extremely weapons all the cadres and soldiers put most of their time and energy into digging trenches and Tom Heights we slowly surrounded the Indiana home with trenches cutting into the airstrip so we could talk to use to carefully slowly tightening the noose around the neck so the track with the ear strip out the French garrison was dependent on parachute drops let's let's stop it here fire for five minutes to fly too high time is running out so I'll stop it there you know the end of the story as Paul Harvey would say on May 7th 1954 the NBN Phu Falls it it's a great shock in the West it's the first victory of colonial people's over colonial powers of this magnitude it's a victory of course that is still celebrated in Vietnam this spring was the 55th anniversary and even Jacques trudged up flew out obviously it's a relatively short flight from Hanoi to be a part of the celebration he seen his well into his 90s now but still still hanging in there the final question and it's a question that's answered as fully as I can do it in the book is why did a victory of this magnitude a Yorktown or an Appomattox it would seem did not that translate into a political victory for the Viet Minh and I think we can narrow it down in a couple of minutes to two things one despite the magnitude of this victory the stalemate continues with the Viet Minh having perhaps a slight edge in other words it did not produce the sort of military victory that Appomattox did the Viet Minh as you might imagine from watching this film suffered horrendous losses France suffered heavy losses but France steer had a lot of military power left in Vietnam and the United States backing them and the second thing is that nasty matter of those allies Churchill talked about at Geneva Allies play a key role the United States is still pushing for intervention this is another thing we can talk about in the ten minutes if you wish I the United States is still talking about possibly intervening with air and naval power not troops the United States puts a lot of pressure on France not to give in and not to withdraw completely from Vietnam on the other side interestingly as we have learned when Chinese and Soviet documents have become available the Chinese and the Soviets for their own reasons put brotherly comradely solidarity aside for their own reason force the Viet Minh to accept concessions that they desperately did not want to accept and those concessions involved one where the dividing line was going to be pending elections and to win those elections were going to be and each of those turned out to be very crucial such an to the the Viet Minh then the North Vietnamese to such an extent felt that they had been sold down the river by their allies at Geneva that when the second Vietnam War comes along they play it very very carefully they're able to use what is then a very strained relation between China and the Soviet Union to exploit it to get maximum aid with the old you know Soviets did this from yesterday what are you going to do for me today China and that sort of thing and they always made sure that they never went to a conference where the Soviets and Chinese were participants and where they would have been vulnerable to the sort of pressure they got back in 1954 DnB and foo and Geneva were memorable to them in a couple of ways okay I'm going to stop there and let's do questions I'm a minute over but that's not too bad I guess yes yeah it's just a remarkable story and if you see we drove up we could not make it up to that point in a car in 2003 because the roads at some point we had a little die whoa in the road there were pothole stuntmen pits that deep in the road yeah yeah yeah that's true yeah yeah they learned they learned enough from from the Indochina war to basically succeed in Algeria except you know they succeeded militarily but then had to turn it over to him anyway oh yeah oh yeah yeah yeah well from all over the Foreign Legion was a major major part of what they had there yeah yeah interesting comment chance coming one you missed in your book refer to the French is sitting on that champagne yeah yeah yeah yes it was drugs in para drugs the the road very close to there was a major route for drugs coming from Laos into Vietnam and those drugs were a major part of the funding from the Viet Minh side from the for the funding of the war that's that's a big part of it that's not generally known and not generally stress yeah and the other was that job had had sent some units out in that area before and so it was sort of a follow on to that they thought well they've got some units out there maybe we can draw those units into into conflict our media or yeah I would say in the United States it was negligible they although what it did was bring what it did was bring to the attention of Americans for the first time a part of the world they knew absolutely nothing about I can't I can I vividly recall this because I was 18 years old and a freshman in college in the spring of 1954 and there was talk of US intervention Richard Nixon in particular made a speech on April 16th 1954 in which he advocated not only air and and naval power but the use of American troops there and you can bet as full-bodied as I am now we full bodied eighteen year olds were excited and you know not in my case at least in a positive way particularly not excited about going to fight or on behalf of someone who's whose goals were to say the least suspect the media in France I'm I can't really answer that question I don't know the war of course the and I will get to the media I don't want to get I don't want to spend the next the last five minutes on that yeah yeah well let me let me finish what I was going to say which I've probably forgotten now so go ahead you know how it is when also does not get stressed and historical accounts of this period this war how the French Communist Party the PCF do its voice okay the Communist Maresa the res and others were actually adamant during this time that the tricolour would not be taken down in any French colonial possession around the world so you had you had even the French Communist Party organs that the newspapers Pro pro-prosecution award they wanted the French government to win an invention which put whole and the Vietminh and it's even more ticklish situation their fellow communists in France put nationalism above the international problems what the media does of course is to report what's happening and in that effect it is the bearer of bad news that weighs heavily on the French populace I mean the war obviously the studies very careful studies that have been done here and I'll talk about these more we'll talk about it more during the week say that the the key factor in shaping war weariness not necessarily opposition to the war but war weariness in the United States or casualties you can track this in Korea you can track it in Vietnam you can track it in Iraq popular discontent rises as casualties rise now that happens in Korea where the Media is generally very positive it happens in Iraq where the media is embedded it's it's a factor and I'm sure in France that was a factor too it's a war that becomes more and more popular because it isn't going anywhere and because of the cost in blood and treasure the dirty war it's called yes party transfer placement time we all went over together it all came back it was unusual and vanilla and folio because of Vietnam in those days it was all loud 6061 yeah yeah that's what we were going yeah well there was serious talk in 54 and that's a whole nother issue that I really wanted to get across the essence of the war from 1959 to 61 absolutely and Eisenhower in fact told Kennedy when they met January I think was January 19th the day before Kennedy takes office they met in Eisenhower says the Laos is the cork in the bottle allows this where you may have to make a commitment much higher at that point but it's not before really and it's not after I mean it's sort of sort of diffused it's important in a sense because the neutralization agreement that Kennedy works out Kennedy's people work out in 62 doesn't work out real well and because it doesn't work out real well then Kennedy is very edgy about trying something similar in Vietnam there is talk and the Vietnamese we talk with in in Hanoi 97 seem to indicate that if there was ever a missed opportunity or a lost opportunity it might have been in 62 63 along the lines of the Lao settlement yes nineteen nineteen forty's putting link residents are had a very strong connection wiki CIA summer of 1945 yeah yep that's why the see the US people or it's OSS really befits before CIA yeah three personal letters to Truman that are ignored the reasons are basically I pointed out earlier Vietnam is a small tiny blip on the radar screen France is huge and it's basically not wanting to do anything that's going to weaken France this position that's true of the letter and forty five is true of the light a couple of points hose must be interested in history he would frequently refer to compare his group to George Washington's group fighting the British in in the Revolutionary more the time Meister has spoken

Channel: Washington and Lee University

Views: 94,679

Rating: 4.6939039 out of 5

Keywords: The First Indochina War, W&L

Id: HqhGgMBgtV4

Length: 55min 36sec (3336 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 07 2009