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

by Fredrik Logevall

To the few Americans in the audience, Ho’s next words were stunning. “All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.… All the peoples on the earth are equal from birth, all the peoples have a right to live and to be happy and free.” These were “undeniable truths,” Ho continued, and had been accepted as such by the French people themselves since the time of the French Revolution. Yet for eighty years, France had abused these truths in her treatment of the Vietnamese people—Ho singled out the division of Vietnam into three administrative units, the killing or imprisonment of patriots, the expropriation of raw materials and land, and the levying of “hundreds of unfair taxes.” France referred to herself as the “protector” of Vietnam, yet twice in the past five years she had sold the territory to Japan. Well, no more: “Today we are determined to oppose the wicked schemes of the French imperialists, and we call upon the victorious Allies to recognize our freedom and independence.”