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

by Fredrik Logevall

More and more, as 1947 progressed, they pondered a tantalizing question: What if you could win the people’s allegiance away from the Viet Minh? Many Vietnamese, after all, northern as well as southern, did not support Ho’s revolution, were anti-Communist, and loathed Vo Nguyen Giap’s capacity for ruthlessness and repression. Could they be persuaded to coalesce around another Vietnamese leader who, if not exactly pro-French, would be less hostile to France’s aims? Senior strategists, led by Léon Pignon, thought so. Even as they rejected genuine negotiations with the Viet Minh and disavowed full independence for Vietnam, they cast about for such a figure, who would simultaneously draw support away from Ho Chi Minh and win favor with the Americans, and in the process win greater support for the war effort in the French Assembly, where many Socialists and all Communists were clamoring for an end to the fighting through negotiations with Ho. The move could also alter views elsewhere in Asia, where many national leaders condemned France for engaging in what they saw as naked colonial aggression.13