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

by Fredrik Logevall

BAO DAI TOO SAW THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE VIET MINH’S MILITARY success and of Mao’s gains in China. They gave him increased leverage but also reduced his options. The French, with one eye on Mao’s advancing armies and the other on their own stalemated war, might now give him more of what he wanted, but they might also abandon him if he dithered; they could opt simply to back Xuan and start a new Cochin China experiment with a puppet government run from Paris. He decided to take the plunge, hopeful also that the Americans—who were always at the forefront of his calculations—would now be more inclined to get involved. The reasoning went like this: To contain the Chinese Communists, the Truman administration would step up assistance to France in Indochina, but only if U.S. officials were persuaded that the French cause was vital to the West. This, however, presupposed that the Vietnam that was to be “saved” from Communism was not a mere colonial entity but an independent nation, one headed not by a French puppet but by a genuine nationalist with broad popular support.