An ambiguous American attitude

It is this state of mind that will soon allow me to start the Franco-Vietnamese talks which were to lead, on March 6, 1946, to the agreement which sanctioned an agreement in principle between the French and the Vietnamese, henceforth rendering the presence of Chinese units on Tonkinese soil pointless. It was on October 15, 1945 that I first met Ho Chi Minh, who was to become my interlocutor. From the start of our talks, I became convinced that he was a leading personality, who would soon rise to the forefront of the Asian scene.
At first glance, its appearance offered nothing exceptional. He was a man of average height, rather short, thin, slender, who still retained something awkward and furtive in his manner. His scholarly goatee gave him the appearance of one of those Annamese intellectuals one meets in the Latin Quarter. What was striking was the gaze, lively, mobile and burning with an extraordinary fire. All his energy seemed to be concentrated in his eyes. A resolute, skilful and passionate man, with whom I would need a lot of patience... and indeed I needed it during the six months that our negotiations lasted.
Meanwhile , despite the loyal cooperation of our British allies, the French authorities in the South were having great difficulty in getting the situation under control. The return of France had not failed to move the nationalist movements and to cause disturbances which culminated, on September 25, with the horrible massacre of the city of Hérault, where several hundred French and Eurasians perished. But from the beginning of October, Leclerc, having arrived in Saigon, undertook to break the blockade which surrounded the city. With the most glorious elements of its 2nd D.B., the men of the 5th R.I.C., which were soon joined by the first elements of the 9th D.I.C. of General Jean Valluy and the landing corps of
Richelieu, Leclerc carried out dazzling search operations and, at the end of January, the noose around Saigon was broken.
The majority of the territories of the South reconquered, the regular units of the Vict-Minh were dissolved and the pacification undertaken, but it very quickly appeared that the 35,000 men at Leclerc's disposal would not be sufficient to ensure peace throughout a country that threatened to fall prey to the guerrillas.
As soon as he arrived in Indochina, Leclerc understood that weapons could not provide a lasting solution to the problems in front of which we were. He encouraged me to negotiate, and he was later the first to recommend that the government "go so far as to utter the word independence".
For his part, the Governor Cedille, commissioner of the French Republic for Cochinchina, was looking for a solution in the loyal application of the "declaration of March 24", but the Vietnamese did not intend to call into question the principle of an independence that they considered acquired . In fact, the real problem. was located in Hanoi. where the authority of the revolutionary provisional government had been effective since August.
Besides, unlike our British allies in the South, the Americans and the Chinese, in Tonkin, considered the provisional government of Ho Chi Minh to be the only power; as to the rights of France. they systematically ignored them. The Commissioner of the French Republic, a title I had held since the beginning of October, had none in their eyes, except perhaps that of being the responsible spokesman for some 30,000 disarmed French people, and also for considerable interests, since the great majority of the economic infrastructure was French. A vague role of consular agent was reserved for me in a way.
Soon, the Viet-Minh, having the greatest difficulty in thwarting the maneuvers of the nationalist parties through which the Chinese were trying to t extend their authority over North Vietnam, realized that the Sino-American game to eliminate France was not only motivated by the desire to help Vietnam gain independence. He understood that the Chinese considered Tonkin as a conquered country and were trying to reestablish the guardianship there that they had imposed there for nearly nine centuries.
As for American intentions, they became for the less equivocal and did not go without arousing the mistrust of the team in power.
Ho Chi Minh therefore considered that he would do better to seek a compromise with France.