In Vietnam, Admiral Thierry d’Argenlieu early in the year moved what was then still a localized and strictly Franco-Vietnamese conflict to the highest international level, that of East versus West, Communism versus anti-Communism. Long convinced that Washington and Moscow would clash on the world stage, the admiral now told anyone who would listen that Ho and the Viet Minh were mere pawns in Stalin’s struggle for world supremacy. France, he vowed, would never allow the Sovietization of a people it had nurtured and defended for decades, and he called Indochina a key battle in the West’s
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