Vietnamese non-Communists likewise saw their leverage reduced with the Americans’ arrival. Whereas in Indonesia non-Communist nationalists under Sukarno won U.S. backing in their struggle against the Netherlands and secured independence via an international negotiated settlement in 1949, in Vietnam a different dynamic prevailed. Here the non-Communists were allied with the French against the Viet Minh and thus had far less chance to play the Americans—who saw this as a Cold War struggle first and foremost—against the colonial overlord. With each passing month, it seemed, non-Communist
...more
