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Nguyễn Ngọc Bích (1911–1966) was a French-educated engineer, a Vietnamese resistance fighter against the French colonists,[1]:850. NOTE N.psq1 a French-educated medical doctor, an intellectual and politician, who proposed an alternative viewpoint to avoid the high-casualty, high-cost war between North Vietnam and South Vietnam.[2]
The Nguyen-Ngoc-Bich street in the city of Cần Thơ, Vietnam, was named after him to honor and commemorate his feats (of sabotaging bridges to slow down the colonial French-army advances) and heroism (being on the French most-wanted list,[3]:122 imprisoned, subjected to an "intensive and unpleasant interrogation"[3]:122 that left a mark on his forehead,N.bi and exiled) during the First Indochina War.
Upon graduating from the École polytechnique (engineering military school under the French Ministry of Armed Forces) and then from the École nationale des ponts et chaussées (civil engineering) in France in 1935,[4] Dr. Bich returned to Vietnam to work for the French colonial government. After World War II, in 1945, he joined the Viet-Minh,N.bvm and became a senior commander in the Vietnamese resistance movement, and insisted on fighting for Vietnam's independence, not for communism.
SuspectingN.bs of being betrayed by the Communist factionN.bs of the Viet-Minh and apprehended by the French forces, he was saved from execution by a campaign for amnesty by his École polytechnique classmates based in Vietnam, mostly high-level officers of the French army,[5]: 299 and was subsequently exiled to France, where he founded with friends and managed the Vietnamese publishing house Minh Tan (in Paris), which published many important works for the Vietnamese literature.N.mbl In parallel, he studied medicine and became a medical doctor. He was highly regarded in Vietnamese politics, and was suggested by the French in 1954 as an alternative to Ngo Dinh Diem as the sixth prime minister of the State of Vietnam under the former Emperor Bao Dai as Head of State,[6]:84 who selected Ngo Dinh Diem as prime minister. While Bich's candidature for the 1961 presidential election in opposition to Diem was, however, declared invalid by the Saigon authorities at the last moment for "technical reasons",[7][4], he was "regarded by many as a possible successor to President Ngo Dinh Diem".[7] N.pi, N.tcq
A large majority of the information in this article came from the master document Nguyen Ngoc Bich (1911–1966): A Biography,[8] which contains even more information, including primary-source evidence and photos, than presented here. Most images in the present article were uploaded for the first time at the time of the writing by the original writer.N.vql
Important historical events that affected Bich's adult life, together with those mentioned in his 1962 paper (e.g., failed agrarian reform, napalm bombs, famine, conquest for rice, etc.) are summarized, in particular the atmosphere in which Bich had lived for ten years working for the French colonialists (from 1935 to 1945), and the historical conditions that drove this French-educated engineer to become a "Francophile anticolonialist"N.fa1, N.psq2 and to join the Viet Minh in 1945N.bvm (e.g., the French brutal repressions in 1940 and 1945, the power vacuum after the Japanese coup de force in 1945, Ho Chi Minh's call for a general uprising from Tân Trào, the 1945 August Revolution, the Black Sunday on 1945 Sep 2 in Saigon, etc.). The key principle is to summarize a historical event only when it was directly related to Bich's activities. Care is exercised in selecting references and quotations that complement, but not duplicate, other Wikipedia articles at the time of this writing. For example, the history and the general use of napalm bombs, which Bich mentioned in his 1962 article, are not summarized. Regarding the French using American-made napalm bombs in the First Indochina War, well-known battlesN.nb are also not summarized.
The broader historic events of World War II and the First Indochina War---specifically, the short interwar period between end of the former and the beginning of the later—led to the context in which Nguyen Ngoc Bich fought the French colonists until he was captured. The activities directly or indirectly affected Bich's life by four historic individuals are summarized. French General de Gaulle, by his desire to reconquer Indochina as a French colony, was a main force that led to the First Indochina War, in which Bich fought. Ho Chi Minh, founder and leader of the Viet Minh, called for the general uprising---against the French colonists and the Japanese occupiers---to which Bich responded. US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ardent anticolonialism could have prevented the two Indochina wars, and changed the course of history. US President Harry Truman was a reason that the First Indochina War is now called the "French-American" War in Vietnamese literature,[9] and through his support for the French war effort supplied napalm bombs, which Bich mentioned in his 1962 paper. The US funded more than 30% of the war cost in 1952 under US President Eisenhower, and "nearly 80%" in 1954 under Truman.N.fwc
At the beginning of World War II, in his historic four-minute call-to-arms broadcast from London on 1940 June 18, later known as L'Appel du 18 Juin in French history, the mostly then unknownN.cdg1 General de Gaulle counted on the French Empire, with Indochina as the "Pearl of the Empire", rich in rubber, tin, coal, and rice,[10]:28 to provide resources to fight the Axis, with the support of the British Empire and the powerful industry of the United States. Understanding that Indochina was under the menace of occupation by the Japanese, de Gaulle harbored the dream of wresting this colony back into the fold of the French Empire, writing in his memoirs "As I saw her move away into the mist, I swore to myself that I would one day bring her back."[10]:25 N.dgd
Since 1945 March, the month the Japanese toppled the French colonial government in Indochina, de Gaulle had been playing the cold-war card to threaten the Americans that France would fall into the sphere of influence of the USSR if the US did not support France to retake Indochina:[11]:243
De Gaulle to Caffery, 1945 March |
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❝ Do you [the US] want us [France] to become... one of the federated states under the Russian aegis? The Russians are advancing apace. . . When Germany falls they will be upon us. If the public here comes to realize that you are against us in Indochina there will be terrific disappointment and nobody knows to what that will lead. We do not want to become Communist; we do not want to fall into the Russian orbit; but I hope that you do not push us into it. ❞ |
--- De Gaulle to Jefferson Caffery, US Ambassador to France, 1945 March[12]:289 |
"Within two weeks" of the death of US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on 1945 Apr 12, de Gaulle pressured Harry Truman on the Indochina issue, and his government launched "an intensive propaganda effort to mold world opinion in favor of the status quo (French control) in Indochina",[13]:116 and this after having approved the Japanese occupation of Indochina since 1940 September 22.[13]:452 By the time General de GaulleN.cdg2 came to the US in 1945 Aug (inset photo) to campaign for US military aid from then US President Harry Truman, the "French had been forced to drown several Vietnamese uprisings in blood. They had seen the colonial economy completely disrupted. They had been humiliated by the Germans in Europe and incarcerated by the Japanese in Indochina. Even to begin to reassert sovereignty in Indochina, the French were forced to go hat in hand to the Americans (see inset photo, de Gaulle visited Truman), British, and Chinese."[14]:413
To restore French rule over Indochina, on 1945 Jun 7, as Chairman of the French Provisional Government (formed in 1944 Aug after the liberation of Paris), General de Gaulle appointed General Leclerc to establish and to command the French Expeditionary Corps.[15]:321-2 N.laa Even though Eisenhower headquarters recommended against Leclerc’s appointment in favor of General Carpentier, they did not follow up with this objection since the focus was on defeating Japan, but did inform the French that it would take several months to equip the French divisions.[15]:322 De Gaulle also appointed Admiral Thierry d’Argenlieu as High Commissioner of Indochina, the "French Rasputin"[13]:382 N.dar who later played a key role in sowing the seeds of the First Indochina War.
De Gaulle was a prime mover leading to the First Indochina War in which the French-educated Bich fought on the Viet Minh side against the French colonialists. On 1945 Aug 20, just ten days before he abdicated on 1945 Aug 30,N.bda Vietnam Emperor Bao Dai sent a moving plea to de Gaulle:N.bdq
Bao Dai to de Gaulle, 1945 Aug 20 |
---|
❝ I beg you to understand that the only means of safeguarding French interests and the spiritual influence of France in Indochina is to recognize the independence of Vietnam unreservedly and to renounce any idea of reestablishing French sovereignty or rule here in any form. . . . Even if you were to reestablish the French administration here, it would not be obeyed, and each village would be a nest of resistance. . . . We would be able to understand each other so easily and become friends if you would stop hoping to become our masters again. ❞ |
--- Bao Dai, message to de Gaulle on 1945 Aug 20[16]:xiii–xiv |
Just a few days later on 1945 Aug 26 (or very shortly thereafter), Ho Chi Minh put the resistance in much stronger terms to US OSS Major Archimedes Patti, who still remembered vividly after some 35 years:N.hcm1
Ho Chi Minh to Archimedes Patti, 1945 Aug 26 |
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❝ If the French intended to return to Viet Nam as imperialists to exploit, to maim and kill my people, [I] could assure them and the world that Viet Nam from north to south would be reduced to ashes, even if it meant the life of every man, woman, and child, and that [my] government's policy would be one of scorched earth to the end. ❞ |
--- Ho Chi Minh to OSS Maj. Archimedes Patti[13]:4 |
The Southeast Asia and Buddhism expert Paul Mus, who first met Ho Chi Minh in 1945, recounted that Ho Chi Minh said[17] then:N.ytp1
Ho Chi Minh to Paul Mus, 1945 |
---|
❝ I have no army, no diplomacy, no finances, no industry, no public works. All I have is hatred, and I will not disarm it until I feel I can trust you [the French]. ❞ |
--- Ho Chi Minh, according to Paul Mus, the New York Times 1969 obituary[17] |
Paul Mus added "For every time Ho Chi Minh has trusted us, we betrayed him."N.ytp2
For thirty years, from 1912 when Ho Chi Minh first visited Boston and New York City until about 1948-1949, Ho held out his hope that the US would provide military support for his anticolonialist resistance against the French.[10]:xxii Since that visit to the US in his early twenties, Ho---like Bich, a Francophile anticolonialist,N.fa2 N.psq3 who was both a communist and a nationalistN.hcn ---developed a "lifelong admiration for Americans".[6]:55 N.haa
Seizing on the opportunity of the Japanese entering Tonkin in 1940 September[13]:452 to begin occupy Indochina (with French agreement)[13]:452 to rid Vietnam of French colonial yoke,N.hir Ho (who was in Liuzhou, China) returned to the China-Vietnam border and began a "training program for cadres".[13]:452 Then on 1941 February 8,[13]:524 Ho crossed the border to enter Vietnam for the first time after 30 years away (from 1911 to 1941), and sheltered in cave Cốc Bó[18]:73 near the Pác Bó hamlet, in the Cao Bằng province, less than a mile from the Chinese border.[10]:34 N.dii There Ho convened a plenum in 1941 May, and founded the Viet Minh, an anticolonialist organization that Bich joined in 1945.N.bvm
On 1941 Sep 8, two months after the total integration of Indochina into the Japanese military system, Ho (still known as Nguyen Ai Quoc at that time) in his call to arm to the people of Tonkin, announced the formation of the Viet Minh to "fight the French and Japanese fascism until the total liberation of Vietnam."[19]:97 On 1941 Oct 25, the Viet Minh published its first manifesto:
Viet Minh first manifesto, 1941 Oct 25 |
---|
❝ Unification of all social strata, of all revolutionary organizations, of all ethnic minorities. Alliance with all other oppressed peoples of Indochina. Collaboration with all French anti-fascist groups. One goal: the destruction of colonialism and imperialist fascism. ❞ N.vmm |
In 1942 August, Ho (named "Nguyen Ai Quoc" at that time) crossed the border into China with the intention of attracting the interest of the Allies in Chungking[13]:7 (now Chongqing) for the Vietnamese resistance movement, arrested by the Chinese on 1942 August 28 for being "French spy",[13]:525 but the real reason was Ho's political activities, viewed as "Communistic", instead of "nationalistic", by the Chinese (Chiang Kai-shek) and the Allies at Chungking (now Chongqing).[19]:103 N.vnh Ho was detained for thirteen months, starting at the Tienpao prison,[13]:51 N.htp moving through eighteen different prisons,[10]:77 N.vnh2 and ending up at Liuchow[13]:46 (now Liuzhou), from where he was released on 1943 September 10, after changing his name from Nguyen Ai Quoc to Ho Chi Minh.[13]:453 At that time, the name "Nguyen Ai Quoc" was very popular, while hardly any one heard of the new name "Ho Chi Minh".N.naq
Ho Chi Minh returned to Vietnam in 1944 September, after obtaining the authorization from the Chinese authority, Gen. Chang Fa-Kwei (Zhang Fakui (German), Trương Phát Khuê (Vietnamese)) ---who was under "severe pressure from the Japanese Ichigo offensive" to obtain intelligence in Indochina---and after submitting the "Outline of the Plan for the Activities of Entering Vietnam".[15]:134 N.hvn All three protagonists---the French Vichy colonialists, the Japanese occupiers, and the Viet Minh---were deceived by US war plan,N.uwp and expected a US invasion of Indochina.N.uii Such expectation was the main reason[15]:209 that, in 1945 February-March, during an "unusually cold month of February,"[13]:56 N.cf45 Ho once again crossed back into China, and walked from the Pác Bó hamlet to Kunming to meetN.wtk (and to "make friends with"[15]:210) American OSS and OWI (Office of War Information) officers to exchange intelligence.N.hmo [15]:238 Ho's report to the OSS mentioned the Japanese coup de force on the evening of 1945 March 9.[15]:238
In Kunming, Ho requested OSS Lt. Charles FennN.fhh to arrange for a meeting with Gen. Claire Chennault, commander of the Flying Tigers.[13]:58 In the meeting that occurred on 1945 Mar 29, Ho requested a portrait of Chennault, who signed across the bottom "Yours sincerely, Claire L. Chennault".[13]:58 Ho displayed the portrait of Chennault, along with those of Lenin and Mao, in his lodging at Tân Trào as "tangible evidence to convince skeptical Vietnamese nationalists that he had American support".[13]:58 As additional evidence, Ho also possessed six brand-new US Colt .45 pistols in original wrappings that he requested and got from Charles Fenn.[20]:79 [21]:158 This "seemingly insignificant quantity" of arms,N.hgp together with "Chennault's autographed photograph" as evidence, convinced other factions of the primacy of the Viet Minh. Ho's American-backing ruse worked.[13]:58
In Cochin China (the south),N.tcc where Bich lived and worked, Tran Van Giau (Trần Văn Giàu in Vietnamese), a Viet Minh leader and "Ho Chi Minh's trusted friend",[13]:186 on 1945 Aug 22 used Ho's ruse of "American backing for the Viet Minh", to convince other pro-Japanese nationalist groups (Phuc Quoc, Dai Viet, United National Front[13]:524) and religious sects (Cao Dai, Hoa Hao) that they would be outlawed by the invading Allies, and thus should accept the leadership of the Viet Minh, which had strong support of "the Allies with arms, equipment and training".[13]:186
Fearing a US invasion with the French colonialists helping, the Japanese initiated operation Bright Moon (Meigo sakusen), leading to a coup de force on 1945 March 9 to neutralize the French forces and to remove the French colonial administration in Indochina[22]:65 (and thus the status of Bich's job in the French colonial government). The resulting power vacuum[22]:64 following this coup de force changed the political situation, and provided a favorable setting for the Viet Minh takeover of the government.[22]:73 In 1945 April, Ho walked a perilous journey from Pác Bó to Tân Trào, the Viet Minh headquarters in the Liberated Area. There, on 1945 August 16, Ho called for a general uprising to throw out the Japanese occupiers that ultimately led to the August Revolution.N.pvar
Even though being a son of a Cao Dai pope,[23] [4] [24] N.cd Bich joined the Viet Minh in 1945,N.bjvm instead of the Cao Dai force.
After the August Revolution in 1945, the French began to negotiate their return to Tonkin with both the Viet Minh and the Chinese army coming to disarm the defeated Japanese north of the 16th parallel. Ho Chi Minh was weary of the Chinese, who might stay in Vietnam permanently, signed the March 6 [1946] AccordsN.m6a1 N.m6a3 with Jean Sainteny to agree to let the French army under General Leclerc to enter Tonkin. "With French troops arriving in Hanoi on March 18 [1946], Leclerc quickly established cordial relations with Ho Chi Minh."[25]
CBS reporter David Schoenbrun interviewed Ho Chi Minh on 1946 Sep 11, the same day that a telegram was dispatched from the High Commissioner d'Argenlieu to the French Indochina Committee on the arrest of Bich on 1946 Aug 25.:N.bb
CBS Schoenbrun interviewed Ho Chi Minh, 1946 Sep 11 |
---|
❝ President Ho, how can you possibly fight a war against the modern French army? You have nothing. You've just told me, what a poor country you are. You don't even have a bank, let alone an army, and guns, and modern weapons, the French planes, tanks, napalm. How can you fight the French?
❝ And he [Ho] said: Oh we have a lot of things that can match the French weapons. Tanks are no good in swamps. And we have swamps in which the French tanks will sink. And we have another secret weapon, it's nationalism. And don't think that a small ragged band cannot fight against a modern army. It will be a war between an elephant and a tiger. If the tiger ever stands still the elephant will crush him and pierce him with his mighty tusks. But the tiger of Indochina is not going to stand still. We're going to hide in our jungles by day and steal out by night. And the tiger will jump on the back of the elephant and tear huge chunks out of his flesh and then jump back into the jungle. And after a while the mighty elephant will bleed to death. ❞ |
--- CBS reporter David Schoenbrun, Youtube video French involvement in Vietnam & Dien Bien Phu - 1962, time 3:10.[26] |
Bich wrote about the French use of American-made napalm bombs; see Section Napalm bombs.
I AM HERE Updated 2024.07.21 - Started before 2023.12.30. If Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) had lived beyond 1945 Apr 12, when he died, he "would have tried to keep France from forcibly reclaiming control of Indochina, and might well have succeeded, thereby changing the flow of history,"[10]:710 meaning the First Indochina War with more than half a million deaths,N.fwc I AM HERE 2024.07.21. and the Second Indochina War with more than three million deaths,N.awc would be avoided; then Bich would not join the Viet Minh to fight the French colonialists.
Well before World War II, FDR had evolved into a committed anti-colonialist, who wanted "complete independence for all or almost all European colonies",[10]:74 as evidenced by his speech in March 1941:
❝ There has never been, there isn't now, and there never will be, any race of people on earth fit to serve as masters over their fellow men.… We believe that any nationality, no matter how small, has the inherent right to its own nationhood. ❞ ---Franklin D. Roosevelt, address to White House Correspondents' Association, March 1941.[10]:72
Roosevelt's anti-colonialist speech was subsequently encoded in the third point of The Atlantic Charter,N.cac which Churchill was reluctant to agree to, worrying that it would affect the British colonies:N.chac
The Atlantic Charter, 1941 |
---|
❝ Third, theyN.tac respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them; ❞ |
---Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, The Atlantic Charter, August 14, 1941.[27] |
The Atlantic Charter inspired Third-World countries from Algeria to Vietnam in their fight for independence,[27] as Ho Chi Minh often referred to The Atlantic Charter in his letters to US government officials: “the carrying out of the Atlantic and San Francisco Charters implies the eradication of imperialism and all forms of colonial oppression,” wrote Ho Chi Minh to US Secretary of State James F. Byrnes in the Harry S. Truman administration on 1945 Oct 22.[28]:2 N.hac
I AM HERE 24.6.14.
NOTE: 24.5.1, to add that Virginia Thompson was the first British historian with a deep knowledge on French Indochina with her 1937 book French Indo-China (Internet Archive), George Allen & Unwin LTD, London. Also cite the reviews of this book. [https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/43/4/876/70968 French Indo-China. By Virginia Thompson. (New York: Macmillan Company. 1937. Pp. 516. $5.00.), reviewed by H.I. Priestley, The American Historical Review, Volume 43, Issue 4, July 1938, Pages 876–877, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/43.4.876 ] ENDNOTE.
Ellen J. Hammer was the first American-born historian with a deep knowledge of the French colonial rule in Indochina in the early 1950s during the First Indochina War. Dr. Hammer's[29][lower-alpha 1] highly influential book titled The Struggle for Indochina[31][lower-alpha 2]—published in 1954 well before the United States sent American troops to Vietnam in the 1960s—described the events, politics, and historic personalities leading to the First Indochina War. Her works were considered among the must-read books by respected historians on Vietnam history, as Osborne (1967)[33] wrote: "Indeed, any serious student of Viet-Nam will have either read Devillers[lower-alpha 3], Lacouture, Fall, Hammer and Lancaster[34][lower-alpha 4]'s studies already, or will be better served by reading them first hand." To give a historical context within which Nguyen Ngoc Bich fought the French colonists, there is no better English source to begin than Dr. Hammer's Vietnam-history book.
The American dilemma (1-To help the French to re-establish its colony in Vietnam or 2-To help free the Vietnamese from the yoke of French colonialism) was described by Hammer as follows:
The United States has entangled itself in a war in a distant corner of Asia in which it resolutely does not want to participate and from which it equally resolutely cannot abstain. It has committed itself to the cause of France [ French Indochina ] and of Bao Dai, but enough of the old spirit of anticolonialism is left to make this a somewhat unsavory commitment: it cannot bring itself wholly to ignore the fact that the free world looks less than free to a people whose country is being fought over by a foreign army. Aware that a lasting peace can be built only on satisfaction of the national aspirations of the Indochinese, the United States must at the same time conciliate a France reluctant to abandon her colonial past.
Under US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the US policy was to remove the French colonists from Indochina,[36][lower-alpha 5] as the French official Jean Sainteny lamented that he was "face to face with a deliberate Allied maneuver to evict the French from Indochina and that at the present time the Allied attitude is more harmful than that of the Viet-Minh".[37][lower-alpha 5]
General Wedemeyer's orders not to aid the French came directly from the War Department. Apparently it was American policy then that French Indochina would not be returned to the French. The American government was interested in seeing the French forcibly ejected from Indochina so the problem of postwar separation from their colony would be easier. . . . While American transports in China avoided Indochina, the British flew aerial supply missions for the French all the way from Calcutta, dropping tommy guns, grenades and mortars.
After FDR died on 1945 Apr 12 (cite Langguth, Chronology). I AM HERE 2023.04.29. Egm4313.s12 (talk) 01:48, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
☛ NOT DONE, TO ADD: Egm4313.s12 (talk) 15:17, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
After graduating in 1935 from the École nationale des ponts et chaussées, a civil engineering school, Nguyen Ngoc Bich returned home to work as a civil engineer for the colonial government at the Soc-Trang Irrigation Department until the Japanese coup d'état in Viet Nam (1945 Sep 03). Bich then joined the Resistance in the Soc-Trang base area and was appointed Deputy Commander of the Military Zone 9 (vi), established on 1945 Dec 10, and included the provinces of Cần Thơ, Sóc Trăng, Rạch Giá, together with six other provinces. Bich sabotaged many bridges that were notoriously difficult to destroy such as Cai-Rang bridge in Can Tho—where a street was named to honor his feats[41][lower-alpha 7]—Nhu-Gia Bridge in Soc Trang, etc., blocking the advance of French forces directed by General Valluy and General Nyo, who were under the general command of General Philippe Leclerc, commander of the French Far East Expeditionary Corps (Corps expéditionnaire français en Extrême-Orient, CEFEO).
Between 1946 March 6, when the March 6 Accords were signed,N.m6a3 and 1946 December 19, when most historians used as the date that started the First Indochina War, in Cochinchina, the military situation did not favor the Vietnamese:
Outside Saigon the various nationalist resistance groups, weakened though they were by the months of warfare with the British and French, still controlled large sections of the Cochin Chinese countryside. Ho Chi Minh proposed to General Leclerc the sending of mixed Franco-Vietnamese commissions to establish peace in Cochin China after the signing of the March 6 accord, but the General saw no reason for this in what was supposed to be French territory. When Ho sent his own emissaries to the south, they were arrested by the French who continued to regard Cochin China as a French colony, claiming a free hand there until the referendum could be held. This led to difficult local problems, as in the case of the Vietnamese emissary sent by one Vietnamese zone commander [Nguyen Ngoc Bich] to discuss a cease-fire with the local French commanding officer. The emissary was unceremoniously informed that the French expected complete capitulation—the surrender of arms and prisoners—and that this was an ultimatum. They had until the 31st of March to comply; if they failed to do so, the fighting would begin again. Before the Vietnamese left French headquarters, the French officer took his name and it was soon public knowledge that the French had put a price on his head as well as on that of his commander, Nguyen Ngoc Bich. In this particular region of Cochin China fighting resumed by the end of the month.
Chester L. Cooper was an American diplomat and a key negotiator in many critical agreements in the 1950s and '60s, beginning with his involvement in the Geneva Conference on Indochina in 1954.[42] In his 2005 memoir In the Shadows of History: 50 Years Behind the Scenes of Cold War Diplomacy, "he recounted his association with a constellation of historic figures that included John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Nikita S. Khrushchev and Ho Chi Minh".[42][lower-alpha 8] Dr. Cooper[lower-alpha 9]—who acquired a deep knowledge of Vietnam history from his years in Asia, from 1941 to 1954, first working for the Office of Strategic Services[lower-alpha 10] in China, then for the CIA in 1947, and subsequently became head of the Far East staff of the Office of National Estimates in 1950[43]—devoted some three to four pages to describe Dr. Bich in his Vietnam-history book The Lost Crusade: America in Vietnam, in particular some aspects of Bich's resistance activities:
As commander of the Viet Minh forces in the Delta during the late 40s, Bich became one of the most popular local heroes. During 1946 the Viet Minh hierarchy became concerned that Bich might pose a threat to the aims of the Viet Minh in the southern part of Vietnam, and by the end of that year Ho apparently decided that Bich had served his purpose in the Delta. He was "invited" to move North to become a member of the Viet Minh political and military headquarters in Hanoi. Bich was reluctant to leave his command, not only because of his desire to continue the fight against the French, but also because he felt uneasy about leaving his base of power. Nonetheless, he made his way north via the nationalist underground to Hanoi.
A day or two before Bich was to report to the Viet Minh headquarters, the French discovered his hiding place near Hanoi. Since he was on the French "most wanted" list, he was subjected to an intensive and unpleasant interrogation.[lower-alpha 11]
Joseph A. Buttinger was an ardent advocate for refugees of persecution, and a "renowned authority on Vietnam and the American war" in that country.[45] In 1940, he helped founded the International Rescue Committee, "a nonprofit organization aiding refugees of political, religious and racial persecution", and while "working with refugees in Vietnam in the 1950s, he became immersed in the history, culture, and politics of that nation".[45] His scholarship was in high demand during the Vietnam War. The New York Times described his his two-volume Vietnam-history book, Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled,[46][47][lower-alpha 12] as "a monumental work" that "marks a strategic breakthrough in the serious study of Vietnamese politics in America" and as "the most thorough, informative and, over all, the most impressive book on Vietnam yet published in America".[45] Joseph Buttinger wrote in Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled, Vol. 2 that Dr. Bich was "the resistance hero" whom "Diem had no success" to convince to join his cabinet:
Diem left Paris for Saigon on June 24, accompanied by his brother Luyen, by Tran Chanh Thanh, and by Nguyen Van Thoai, a relative of the Ngo family and the only prominent exile willing to join Diem's Cabinet. With others, such as the resistance hero Nguyen Ngoc Bich, Diem had no success. He tried unsuccessfully to win Nguyen Manh Ha, a Catholic who had been Ho Chi Minh's first Minister of Economics but who had parted with the Vietminh in December, 1946. These men, and others too, rejected Diem's concept of government, which clearly aimed at a one-man rule. Nor did they share Diem's illusions about the chances of preventing a Geneva settlement favorable to the Vietminh. Diem apparently believed that the National Army, no longer fighting under the French but for an independent government, would quickly become effective and reduce the gains made by the Vietminh.
That Nguyen Ngoc Bich was being hunted by the French colonists was described in Joseph Buttinger's book:
[Note] 9. Miss Hammer cites the case of an emissary sent by Nguyen Ngoc Bich. The French took down his name when he came to their headquarters to negotiate a cease-fire, and "it was soon public knowledge that the French had put a price on his head as well as on that of his commander, Nguyen Ngoc Bich" (ibid., p. 158).
On the French use of American-made napalm bombs, Bich wrote that the Viet Minh stopped following the advice of Chinese tacticians in launching large-scale mass attacks once many of their soldiers died by French napalm bombs. They switched from the costlier manufacturing of arms to the less expensive manufacturing of hand grenades, which can be used against light battalions to seize their arms.[2]
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