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

by Fredrik Logevall

On December 17, Léon Blum became premier of France at the head of an all-Socialist cabinet—the same Blum who, earlier in the summer, had assured Ho, “I will be there at difficult moments. Count on me.” Could this be the development that the advocates of a political solution needed? There were grounds for hope. Just a week earlier Blum had written in the Socialist paper Le Populaire that French policy in Vietnam was bankrupt. “There is one way, and one way only,” he wrote, “to maintain in Indochina the prestige of our civilization, of our political and spiritual influence, and of our legitimate interests: We must reach agreement on the basis of independence, we must keep confidence and preserve friendship.” A leader of France had, at long last, uttered the magic word: independence.