The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam

by Max Boot

Vo Nguyen Giap, for his part, would assemble fifty thousand carefully camouflaged troops on the forested slopes around Dien Bien Phu. Another fifty thousand or so porters and support troops—a long line of human ants—dragged heavy artillery and antiaircraft guns through the jungle. Incredibly enough, the Vietminh would have more than twice as many artillery tubes as the defenders.3 The French were blissfully unaware of the extent of Vietminh preparations. Their only concern was that the Vietminh might slink back into the jungle and refuse battle. A young French lieutenant stationed at Dien Bien Phu wrote to his sister on December 26, 1953, in racist prose typical of his comrades, “If they attack, there’ll be plenty of yellow meat in the barbed wire.”