The question looms: Did Ho’s Paris sojourn in mid-1946 represent the great lost chance for a genuine and far-reaching accord, one that could have defused the growing crisis before it devolved into large-scale war, one that could have prevented thirty years of indescribably bloody and destructive war on the Indochinese peninsula? What if the French had really put Ho’s conciliatory words to the test? He was not staking out a maximalist position, after all—he was not demanding full and complete independence. He sought compromise and indicated a willingness—maybe even a desire—to maintain an
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