A Vietnamese socialist in Paris wrote to the three powers to demand independence for Vietnam from France, signing his appeal Nguyen Ai Quoc (Patriot Nguyen). Aged twenty-eight, Nguyen Sinh Cung was the son of a rural teacher and magistrate who loathed French rule, though he had attended a French school. He had applied to study at the French Colonial Administrative School and travelled to France, but his application was turned down – one of the biggest mistakes in French imperial history, even if he was probably already a socialist. Instead he worked as a waiter and dishwasher, maybe even as a
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