A French Foreign Legion officer who refused to be identified told The New York Times in the same week that France faced an unwinnable war against an elusive adversary. He echoed Leclerc’s claim that Paris had far too few boots on the ground in Vietnam, and he noted that “the Annamese are better organized than is the French Army for war in Indo-China.” The same sentiments were expressed by midlevel British and American officials. Abbot Low Moffat of the U.S. State Department, for example, told a senior British diplomat over dinner in Singapore that France was headed for disaster.
