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

by Fredrik Logevall

And certainly this much seems clear: A decision by the Truman administration to support Vietnamese independence in the late summer and fall of 1945 would have gone a long way toward averting the mass bloodshed and destruction that was to follow.

The Viet Minh, Ho stressed, would make full use of the swamps, the thick jungles, the mountains and caves, the terrain they knew so well. “It will be a war between an elephant and a tiger. If the tiger ever stands still the elephant will crush him with his mighty tusks. But the tiger does not stand still. He lurks in the jungle by day and emerges only at night. He will leap upon the back of the elephant, tearing huge chunks from his hide, and then he will leap back into the dark jungle. And slowly the elephant will bleed to death. That will be the war of Indochina.”39