Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam

by Fredrik Logevall

Paris officials had made the sale: They had brought the Cold War to Vietnam. Just like the Viet Minh, they retained their age-old ambivalence about opening Indochina to foreign influence; and, like the Viet Minh, they had nevertheless chosen to bet on the internationalization of the war, to take the struggle to the diplomatic front. France had convinced her principal Western allies that she was bearing the brunt of an international struggle between East and West, between the forces of Communism and the forces of freedom. French colonial power was no longer the only thing at stake in Indochina, each of these governments in effect now agreed, and because France was fighting her allies’ battle, she was entitled to a generous measure of military and political assistance.27 Which meant, ultimately, American assistance.