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Virginia Review of Asian Studies: 22 (2020) 32-56ISSN: 2169-6309Head: Genesis of Vietnam War

The Murder of Peter Dewey, Cold War Asia, and the Genesis of America’s involvement in Vietnam

William Head1

Introduction

During the past 40 years, I have poured over thousands of documents related to the resulting combat stemming from America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. Most of my work has focused on airpower and the period from 1964 to 1973 when United States military forces struggled to prevent the occupation of Indochina by what American leadership saw as the expansion of communist totalitarian oppression. Some U.S. operatives on the ground in 1945 Indochina counseled their leaders that the struggle in the region was more of a nationalist fight for independence than a communist takeover.

As any historian worth their reputation realizes, the U.S. conflict with North Vietnam did not spring up overnight. Prior to U.S. involvement in the struggle for national self-rule among the indigenous peoples of the Indochina, France, America’s wartime ally and Cold War partner, took steps to restore her colonial claims in Southeast Asia. France fought a war from 1946 to 1954 to realize this end. Indeed, this conflagration ignited slowly out of unrequited issues in World War II and exploitative French colonialism in Indochina.

In the early 1940s, when Japan occupied much of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, they altered France’s colonial structure. However, they also thwarted the full flowering of national independence movements in the region by replacing the Free French with French collaborators. This provided false hope to those seeking freedom. When the War ended, Ho Chi Minh, Vo Nguyen Giap, and the Vietminh assumed since they had shed so much of their life’s blood in the allies fight against Japan, the French, British, and especially the U.S. accede to their desire for self-determination. After all, agents from the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) had joined Ho’s motley crew, smuggled in significant caches of weapons, ammunition, and medical supplies to give their allies the tools to defeat their mutual enemy. They even had American cargo aircraft drop supplies of quinine to save the lives of dozens of Vietminh from malaria. The most important one being Ho himself.2

1 William Head is Chief, 78 ABW Office of History, Robins AFB, Georgia. He has been an Air Force Historian since 1984 and the Chief of Robins AFB History Office since 1996. He received his Ph.D. in U.S. Diplomatic History from Florida State University in 1980. Dr. Head has published 18 books including Texas A&M University Press’ Night Hunters: A History of the AC-130s and their role in U.S. Air Power (2014). He has authored more than 50 articles in journals like the Journal of American History, Journal of Military History, Virginia Review of Asian Studies, and Air Power History. He has made more than 100 presentations to meetings including: Organization of American Historians, Association of Asian Studies and Society of Military History. 2For background on the first American operatives to help in the anti-Japanese war in Indochina, see R. Harris Smith, OSS: The Secret History of America’s first Central Intelligence, (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1972), [hereafter OSS]. The original version of this important work was written for the OSS and can be found in the CIA’s archives at https://

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American Idealism & Fears over the Red Menace

During the greater part of the war, President Franklin D. Roosevelt championed the right of colonel peoples to self-determination. However, as the war came to an end and the outcome was no longer in doubt, French leaders turned toward restoring their colonial claim to Indochina. In April 1945, Ho and the Vietnamese lost their champion and advocate when FDR died suddenly at Warm Springs, Georgia. This setback not withstanding, Ho Chi Minh, who had control of much of northern Vietnam, convened a substantial gathering in Hanoi, which he used to declare victory over the Japanese and announce the creation of an independent Vietnam. With OSS agents on the stage with him and the star and stripes flying over the gathering, it seemed to validate U.S. support for the Vietminh. However, for pro-independence Vietnamese forces the struggle was not yet over. Their struggle lasted 30 more years.

Following the Japanese surrender in August-September 1945, a power vacuum soon formed throughout East Asia. Ho, ever the political mastermind, quickly acted to fill the one in Vietnam. He immediately held out an olive branch to the U.S. asking them to help him since his cause resembled America’s struggle in 1775-1783. Eventually, it became clear to the Vietminh that the U.S. could not, or would not turn its back on its wartime ally and would at least tacitly support France in her effort to restore control over her former colonies in mainland Southeast Asia. To quote Asian specialist Geoffrey C. Gunn “early U.S. post-war planners seemed to have grasped the unjust nature of old-style colonialism only to have forgotten their ideals when confronted with an independent revolutionary movement in the early days of US-Soviet conflict.” The French war with the Vietminh coincided with the germination of the Cold War during which U.S. policy-makers decided to follow the provisions of the “containment policy.” They gradually escalated their presence in Vietnam in such a manner that eventually left them in an untenable military and political position. Many argued it had also placed them “on the wrong side of history.”3

The “Pentagon Papers” have become one of the most extraordinary compendium of documents from this period. Upon examination, these documents and reports most certainly provide the reader with a detailed examination of U.S. policies with regard to Vietnam and French efforts to reincorporate her overseas holdings. At first, American leadership formulated a decidedly ambivalent policy towards France and her colonial claims. While President Harry Truman generally tried to continue Roosevelt’s policies, he tended to be an advocate of containment. Many in his own party reminded him that the Atlantic Charter and many other proclamations supported national self-determination and independence for the emergent peoples throughout world. This began to change as Cold War tensions grew since the U.S. required French support to preserve Western Europe and, later, major parts of Asia and Africa. Facing

www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-rdp88-01350r000200220002-8. 3Geoffrey Gunn, “Origins of the American War in Vietnam: The OSS Role in Saigon in 1945,” The Asia-Pacific Journal – Japanese Focus, (9 May 2009), Vol. 7 Issue 19 No. 3, https://apjjf. org/geoffreygunn/ 3137/article.html , [hereafter Origins of the American War in Vietnam].

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this geopolitical reality, both the Truman and [Dwight D.] Eisenhower Administrations pragmatically backed France’s claims to all of her overseas possessions.4

In fact, most of the post-war confrontations that beset the world stemmed from residual ills caused by the neo-imperialistic colonial policies instituted by industrialized nations mostly of Western Europe. In turn, these national rivalries, which were a major component of this international abomination, led directly to World War I, World War II, as well as the rise of expansionist communism and fascism. These elements, in turn, led to the myriad of wars of national liberation, which have continued to this day.

During the four years America fought in World War II, President Roosevelt clung to his

belief in the evils of colonialism. He directed military and intelligence officials to provide French resistance groups inside Indochina with as much support as possible. However, things began to change as 1945 dawned. As U.S. forces moved closer to the Japanese home islands themselves, they poured everything possible into defeating Japanese military forces. As a result, commitments to allied insurgent forces in Southeast Asia began to wane. This left much of the region in the hands of British forces whose national leaders were determined to preserve their own international empire. 5

During the Yalta Conference of February 1945, the President and U.S. planners declined to offer logistical support to Free French forces in Indochina. This changed in March 1945, when Japanese military units staged a coup against Vichy French-leadership in Indochina. This action allowed Japanese military officials to take control of major parts of Indochina. They used their newly acquired authority to justify the arrest or detention of hundreds of French and western civilians. The American decision to decline further support for French operations in Southeast Asia led British Southeast Asia Command (SEAC) commander-in-chief, Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, headquartered in the Singapore, to liberate Malaya without U.S. assistance. Thus, when FDR died, U.S. policy towards the Allies former colonial structure in Asia lay in “disarray!” Thus, it was left to the only Americans in the region, the agents of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) to create their own policy.6

How did the OSS Evolve?

Late in the war, one of the most significant units involved in Indochina proved to be the OSS. Just prior to the Second World War, Roosevelt surreptitiously rebuilt America’s military and created the OSS in July 1941. It became America’s first overseas intelligence agency and the direct antecedent to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He appointed General William J. “Wild Bill” Donovan, World War I veteran and a successful Wall Street lawyer as well as Wendell Willkie, the 1940 Republican presidential candidate, to be run the agency. In reality,

4Ibid.; Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decision making on Vietnam, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971), Ch. 1 “Background to the Crisis, 1940-50,” pp. 1-52, [hereafter Pentagon Papers]. 5Pentagon Papers.6Gunn, “Origins of the American War in Vietnam.”

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Willkie turned out to be a figurehead. Donovan became the real leader of this diverse unit. He headed a cast of characters that were involved in some of the most daring clandestine operations in World War II. The OSS was a spin off from the Office of the Coordinator for Information whose roughly 10,000 agents were comprised of “the most conservative financial scions to the country’s most idealistic New Deal true believers.”7

They frequently ran end runs around government agencies designed to handle foreign and domestic intelligence gathering. In character with the New Deal, their tactics often involved trial-and-error methodology. In addition, they often formulated amazingly complex “James Bondish” operational plans that actually worked much of the time. They employed local national partisan guerilla fighters in places like Indochina and Yugoslavia to fight the Axis powers employing sabotage, ancillary combat, informational deception, and sometimes, conventional military combat. On occasions, these operations backfired. When OSS operatives appropriated highly secret Japanese military codebooks from their embassy in Portugal, it seemed to be a major achievement. All too soon, the Japanese realized that allied forces reacted too perfectly against their military actions. Thus, they deduced someone had taken their codebooks. In response, the Japanese altered the code U.S. Navy code breakers had taken months to decrypt. It took many more sleepless months to decode the revised librettos. Important to this essay, OSS agents were on site in Indochina. Unfortunately, leadership ignored or never received their reports, which played a key role in formulating policies that led to the Vietnam War.8

Throughout World War II, Roosevelt and Donovan worked closely together. Frequently, the President directed the OSS chief to provide support to national liberation movements in Asia to resist the Japanese. In France, the OSS worked with the French underground to undermine the Nazi’s occupation of northern France, and undermine the Vichy French Government in the south. In July 1942, as the Japanese occupied of much of Southeast Asia, OSS agents established headquarters in India to provide military and political support for insurgent operations in Southeast Asia and China. In the northern parts of Vietnam and the southern parts of Yunnan, China, Ho Chi Minh’s Vietminh communists worked in conjunction with the OSS to rescue downed U.S. fliers. This symbiotic union grew during the War, and as noted, not only did they save Ho’s life but also, OSS agents were present in Hanoi on 17 August 1945, the day that the Vietminh declared independence. Indeed, it proved to be a day of great joy. In addition, since the communist liberators could not find a flag of their own, they received an American one from the OSS team and raised it proudly. In his speech to the large crowd, Ho expressed his belief that Vietnam should follow the examples of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Karl Marx, and Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov “Lenin.” The irony of this must not be lost if one is to fully comprehend the foundation of the socialist and nationalist revolution which reached a jumping off point on that day.9

7Ibid.; Smith, OSS.8Smith, OSS; Archimedes L.A. Patti, Why Vietnam? Prelude to America’s Albatross (Berkley, California, University of California Press, 1980), pp. 28-42, [hereafter Why Vietnam?].9Smith, OSS; Patti, Why Vietnam? pp. 28-60.

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The Effects of FDR’s Views on Colonialism

Back home, most of the policies developed by American decision-makers, stemmed from their view of the bigger world picture. Even so, throughout the War, Roosevelt publically expressed his anti-colonial viewpoints on French rule in Indochina. He vehemently stated this opinion during the Tehran Conference of 28 November – 1 December 1943 where Roosevelt and Stalin agreed, among many other things, not to restore Indochina to the French after the War. In January 1944, the President re-stated this basic premise by opposing the British proposal to return former colonies to the status quo ante. FDR believed in outright independence or no less than trusteeship. The British opposed this since they “feared the effect [trusteeship] would have on their own possessions and those of the Dutch.” A short time later, close friend and influential New Deal industrialist, Charles W. Taussig, in a published discussion with Roosevelt, noted that, “the President was concerned about the plight of ‘brown people’ in the East ruled over by a handful of whites.” FDR went on to declare, “Our goal must be to help them achieve independence – 1.1 billion enemies are dangerous.” Roosevelt concluded that the allies should put French Indochina and New Caledonia under a trusteeship. Even if France retained these colonies, then they should do so with the caveat that “independence was the ultimate goal.”10 By this time, the U.S. had already made it clear they intended to do this in the Philippines after the War. This, in part, was why the Philippine resistance proved so determined to defeat the Japanese, in spite of rapacious Japanese retaliation, and was, ultimately, one of the most successful resistance groups in World War II.11

On 16 May 1945, not long after FDR died on 12 April 1945, OSS leaders created what they called the OSS “Deer Team.” Leaders instructed OSS operatives to intercept Japanese documents transported by enemy couriers, on the railroad lines from Hanoi in central Vietnam to Lang Son in northeast Vietnam. They hoped to gather enough information on Japanese troop movements to keep them out China. Once they obtained the data, they wrote intelligence reports and dispatched them to fellow agents stationed in China. At same time, OSS team members provided Ho and his Vietminh with training, military and medical supplies, as well as logistical assistance. The first Deer Team helped train 50 to 100 Vietminh insurgents to push the Japanese out of Indochina. Over time, this number increased exponentially. Even though the Deer Team worked closely with the Vietminh, they demonstrated a somewhat charming lack of total understanding of Vietnamese language and culture by calling Ho Chi Minh “Mr. Hoo” and Vo Nguyen Giap “Mr. Van.”12

10“Franklin D. Roosevelt conversation with Charles W. Taussig on French rule in Indochina, 15 March 1945,” Thomas G. Paterson and Dennis Merrill, Major Problems in American Foreign Policy, Vol. II: Since 1914, 4th ed., (Lexington, Kentucky: D.C. Heath and Co., 1995), pp.189-90, [hereafter FDR Conversation]. See also, “Papers of Charles W. Taussig, 1928-1948” Group 26, Accession number 51-143, Section D, “Trusteeship,” Boxes 63 & 68 France, Box 77 Report on Trusteeship, NUCMC, http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu.pdf. 11 FDR Conversation.12Claude G. Berube, “Ho Chi Minh and the OSS,” Historynet.com, (June 10, 2009), https://www.scriptlisters.com/ho-chi-minh-and-the-oss.htm.

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https://www.scriptlisters.com/ho-chi-minh-and-the-oss.htm

http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu.pdf/


The close bond between the two groups bore fruit with the capture of Japanese defensive positions in the town of Tan Trao. Employing U.S.-style tactics and Vietminh determination, they defeated a larger enemy force. Afterwards, they joined in exuberant celebration during which everyone got drunk together on whatever alcohol they could find, most of it being appropriated Sakai. Only a few days later, on 14 August, more good news arrived in a message announcing the Japanese surrender. While this left both the Americans and Vietminh in euphoria, in reality the Vietminh’s status remained uncertain. This tempered their feeling. On 16 August, General Giap and his Vietminh troopers marched to the French provincial capital of Thai Nguyen with the Americans alongside. Upon their arrival, the insurgents surrounded the city still subjugated by a Japanese-backed Vichy French governor. By 25 August, it became clear to the city’s defenders they would be foolish to resist, especially since the war was over. Giap, in turn, sequestered members of the Team on the outskirts of town. There they stayed where according to OSS Lt. Rene Defourneaux they spent their time “getting fat, getting a suntan, visiting the city, and waiting for permission to go to Hanoi.” As he recalled, “The Vietminh did everything to make our stay as pleasant as possible for us.”13

Finally, a message arrived from higher headquarters, directing the Americans to proceed to Hanoi in order to embark on their trip home. In Hanoi, the night before the Team members departed, unit commander, Major Allison Thomas had a private dinner with both Ho and Giap. Ho Chi Minh expressed his appreciation to Thomas and his men, saying, “I want to thank each of you for what you have done for us. We are truly grateful. You are welcome to come back at any time.” Of course, the melancholy irony of this sentiment remains to this day and begs the question “what could have been?” After all, Ho had every reason to be friendly toward the Americans and to expect U.S. support in his quest for independence since the Deer Team medic Pfc. Paul Hoagland had saved his life. As Lt. Defourneaux later remembered, “Ho was so ill he could not move from the corner of a smoky hut. Our medic thought it might have been dysentery, dengue fever, or hepatitis.”

The Americans eventually airdropped quinine and antibiotics that Hoagland administered to the sick leader. In addition, while they waited for the modern drugs, Ho’s people gathered herbs from the surrounding jungles, which Hoagland used to speed the recovery process. Ho soon recuperated. Predictably, he remained friendly toward the OSS and the U.S. in general until, in the 1950s, it became clear America supported the French efforts to re-establish their colony in Indochina.14

13Ibid.; Smith, OSS; Patti, Why Vietnam? pp. 38-41.14Smith OSS; David F. Day, “What Could Have Been,” posted on All Southeast Asia Blog, (October 15, 2013), http://davidfday.com/category/articles/all-southeast-asia/vietnam/vietnam-history-related/; Articles by Claude G. Berube, “Ho, Giap and OSS Agent Henry Prunier,” Historynet.com, 24 May 2011; Claude G. Berube, “How American Operatives saved the man who started the Vietnam War,” Historynet.com, 12 January 2018, https://www.historynet.com/ how-american-operatives-saved-the-man-who-started-the-vietnam-war.htm.

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https://www.historynet.com/%20how-american-operatives-saved-the-man-who-started-the-vietnam-war.htm

https://www.historynet.com/%20how-american-operatives-saved-the-man-who-started-the-vietnam-war.htm

http://davidfday.com/category/articles/all-southeast-asia/vietnam/vietnam-history-related/

http://davidfday.com/category/articles/all-southeast-asia/vietnam/vietnam-history-related/


It would be naïve to assume that Ho’s attitude toward America was strictly altruistic. Ho had survived this long by using any advantage presented to him or enacting any policy or practice, which brought him and his followers closer to their goal of independence. Although a Marxist, he was pragmatic enough to appeal to the U.S. for help in his quest. He supposed that since Americans, 150 years earlier, had thrown off the yoke of British colonial rule they would sympathize with his struggle. Many Americans did!

Working at Cross Purposes

A cornerstone of FDR’s anti-colonial views proved to be a belief in Western tutelage of the politically adolescent former colonial states. In short, he advocated various long-standing “democracies” institute a trusteeship in order to establish a transitionary bridge to self-government. However, none of the wartime allies favored such a political structure, especially not Winston Churchill and Great Britain. Even while other aspects of the Anglo-American alliance facilitated the military victory in Europe and the Pacific, politically FDR’s desire to phase-out colonialism foundered.

This became increasingly obvious during the August-September 1944 Dumbarton Oaks Conference where delegates began to meld together a blueprint for a new international system called the United Nations Organization (today the United Nations or UN). The verbal idealism expressed by the delegates during these meeting not withstanding non-American representatives all but completely circumvented the colonial issue. As it turned out only FDR cared. To everyone else they could not afford the time to discuss backwater issues, so they kicked the can down the road.

Ultimately, in a desperate effort to realize the dreams of his friend and mentor, Woodrow Wilson, to form a strong international organization, the President refused to take a hard line, especially against his friend Winston Churchill. Thus, at the end of the war, no clear rules of engagement existed and a policy calling for American intervention in Vietnam evaporated.

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Vo Nguyen Giap instructing Vietminh troops and cadres.

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A letter from Ho Chi Minh to Harry Truman appealing for U.S. support in their struggle for independence.

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OSS Deer Team members pose with Vietminh leaders Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap during training at Tan Trao in August 1945. Deer Team members standing, l to r, are Rene Defourneaux,

(Ho), Allison Thomas, (Giap), Henry Prunier, and Paul Hoagland, far right. Kneeling, left, are Lawrence Vogt and Aaron Squires. (Photo in collection of Rene Defourneaux)

Thus, Indochina, much the same as Burma, Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies (later known as Indonesia) dangled in the wind apparently left by allied representatives to be gobbled up by the victorious neo-imperialist powers.15

When President Roosevelt suffered his fatal cerebral hemorrhage on 12 April and Vice President Harry S. Truman became president it marked a turning point in American views of the larger issues concerning how to devolve colonialism and fulfill the ideals of independence for developing colonial peoples. Truman, although a willing partner in the New Deal idealism that dragged America out of the Great Depression, had not been an intimate party in making foreign policy. Besides, he was a self-taught populist politician from America’s heartland in Missouri. He was not a northeastern blue blood who his family groomed to be the U.S. head of state. The new President proved to be tough minded. Someone who believed earnestly in fair play, but was also suspicious of idealist policies and communism. Harlan Fisk Stone, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court swore him in to defend the constitution and national security and if that meant drawing a line around the “free world” to protect it from communist expansion, then he would do so at any cost.16

15The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decision making on Vietnam, (Boston: Beacon Press), five volumes, “Senator Gravel edition.” This copy includes materials and documents not included in the official government version. The specific volume covering the above events is Vol. 1. See also, Neil Sheehan, The Pentagon Papers, (New York: Bantam Books, 1971); Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers, (New York: Viking Press, 2002; George C. Herring, ed., The Pentagon Papers: Abridged Edition, (New York: McGraw, 1993). 16There are many outstanding biographies about President Truman that examine his handling of foreign policy. For more see, Robert Dallek, Harry S. Truman, (New York: Times Books,

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As the Cold War began, with the Soviet Union and the western powers confronting each throughout the world, Truman embraced the basic provisions of the “Containment Policy.” The evolution of this thread in America’s foreign strategy supposed that communist Russia was propagating the worldwide spread of Marxist-Communism, particularly within the developing world. To Truman and many other U.S. leaders, the nation could no longer afford the idealism of men like Roosevelt and Donovan who had held that the struggle against colonialism, as embodied in the Atlantic Charter, was a part of the struggle against tyranny. As suspicions between the east and west festered, idealism faded and new leaders replaced idealism with an intense scrutiny of anything communist or socialist. Concurrently, the U.S. President and Congress began a reappraisal of the Soviet Union and America’s international role in general. Nowhere else did this reassessment grow as it did in Asia and the Pacific.

This Cold War readjustment by the new Administration manifest itself in the hard line tactics instituted by the European experts in the State Department. Intent on making France a full partner in the new world order, diplomats in Washington told their French counterparts they remained committed to French sovereignty in Indochina. Indeed, at the opening of inaugural United Nations Organization Conference in San Francisco, May-June 1945, Secretary of State Edward Stettinius and Under-Secretary of State James Dunn, repeatedly assured the French the colonial status of Indochina remained, “officially” unchanged. While this soothed French feelings and calmed their fears of FDR’s anti-colonial posture, the unintended or perhaps apathetic consequence was that it undercut OSS agents in the field. According to one author, it meant the field teams were, “‘out of step with metropolitan policy-makers,’ especially with respect to the larger issues of colonialism and communism.” To that end, the dualistic posture left the door open for misunderstanding and perceived betrayal by the United States.17

American officials bolstered this pro-French Indochina principle during the Potsdam Conference of July-August 1945. Leaders decided temporarily to partition Vietnam and Laos at the 17th parallel. Under this arrangement, allied senior military chiefs assigned British forces to take the Japanese surrender in Saigon and in Cambodia, while Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Chinese forces took the surrender of Japanese forces just above the 17th parallel. In a sense, this action proved to be geniuses of the containment policy in Asia.

2008); Jonathan Daniels, The Man of Independence, (Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1998); Robert J. Donovan, Tumultuous Years: 1949–1953, (New York: W. W. Norton, 1983); Robert H. Ferrell, Harry S. Truman: A Life, (Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1994); Alonzo L. Hamby, Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995); David McCullough, Truman, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992). Justice Stone swore in Truman at the White House only two hours after he received word that FDR had died.

17Richard J. Aldrich, Intelligence and the War against Japan, Britain, America and the Politics of the Secret Service, (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 305, 343-45.

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George F. Kennan and the development of the Containment Policy

To understand the containment policy, one must also know George F. Kennan and his role in policy-making at this time. Twenty-nine year old Kennan was a part of the first contingent of U.S. diplomats to establish the U.S. Embassy in Moscow in 1933. Based on his dealings with functionaries and officials, he worked with in Joseph Stalin’s pitiless Soviet Union, he became increasingly jaded toward Stalin’s tyrannical communist regime. Ultimately, he concluded that Roosevelt’s policy of cooperation was misguided. Throughout against international communism. Once Truman ascended to power, their influence grew the pre-war period, State Department “realists” believed the Roosevelt Administration should stand firmer

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George F. Kennan in 1947.

His anti-communist sentiments aside, Kennan sided with FDR’s belief in self-determination. To this end, after the War, the brilliant and determined, Kennan urged the French and Dutch to renounce their 19th century imperialist policies and accept “modern realities.” In addition, he pled for the creation of “multinational collaboration in Asia with India, Pakistan, and the Philippines to dispel association with white imperialism.” Kennan “recognized militant

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Asian nationalism as a historical reality and viewed any attempt to reverse this process as an ‘anti-historical act’.” He further argued that, ultimately, resisting these geopolitical forces “would create more problems than it would solve and cause more damage than benefit.” In an introduction to a publication of important State Department policy planning papers, Anna Kaston Nelson touted Kennan’s view that Soviet attention in Southeast Asia was a strategic lever against the U.S.18

Kennan believed that the Soviet Union had worldwide expansionist goals that the West needed to halt. After all, they occupied Eastern Europe after the war and established pro-Soviet puppet regimes. His writings lay at the core of what he believed about U.S. foreign policy and appear in his famous “X Article,” actually entitled “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” and published in the influential Foreign Affairs journal under the pseudonym “Mr. X” in July 1947. The conceptualization of this piece originated in his earlier dispatch known as the “Long Telegram” of 22 February 1946. Kennan served as Deputy Chief of the U.S. Mission to the Soviet Union from 1944 to 1946. This original document morphed into another internal expose prepared, early 1947, for then Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, even as he prepared to become President Truman’s first Chief of the National Military Establishment (soon to be the Department of Defense).19

Kennan and Forrestal intended that the paper remain a secret. However, Hamilton Fish Armstrong, editor of Foreign Affairs, implored Kennan to obtain permission from Forrestal to publish the article under the pseudonym “X.” Forrestal approved the publication, not expecting it to be a statement of the government’s official views of the Soviet situation. How the Secretary expected the author to remain anonymous is in many ways incomprehensible. Soon, nearly everyone in Washington knew the author was George Kennan. As a result, the media and foreign leaders put two-and-two together and deduced this article reflected official policy. It left Secretary of State George C. Marshall in shock. He privately questioned the prudence of such a public statement. Kennan’s polemic encouraged a strategy of “patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies” based on an “adroit application of counterforce at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points.”

18George F. Kennan, American Diplomacy, Sixtieth Anniversary, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), pp. 113-134, Sources of Soviet Conduct, pp. 135-164 Cold War, [hereafter American Diplomacy]; Mr. X (George F. Kennan) “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” Foreign Affairs: An American Quarterly Review, (July 1947), Vol. 25, No. 4, pp. 30-34, [hereafter X Article]; Anna Kaston Nelson, editor and introduction, The State Department Policy Staff papers, 1947-1949, 3 vols., (New York: Garland Inc., 1983); John Lewis Gaddis, George F. Kennan: An American Life, (New York: Penguin Press,2011); John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983); John Lewis Gaddis, Russia, the Soviet Union, and the United States: An Interpretive History, 2nd edition, (New York: McGraw Hill, 1990).19George F. Kennan, Memoirs, 1925–1950 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967), 354–356, [hereafter Memoirs]. Worth reading are his diaries of 90 years in, George F. Kennan, editor Frank Costigliola, The Diaries of George F. Kennan, (New York: W.W. Norton, 2014).

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Intended or not, this idea soon became the basis for America’s Cold War policy of “containment.” By 12 March 1947, it also became the basis of the Truman Doctrine. This policy statement by President Truman led to Congressional funding in which the U.S. provided non-communist forces in Greece and Turkey with millions of dollars to “contain” the spread of communism. Truman also employed this reasoning when he decided to intervene in Korea three years later.20

As turned out, Kennan played a major role in formulating America’s policy toward the Soviet Union, but his concepts were not singular. On 24 September 1946, Clark Clifford, then Special Council to the President and George McKee Elsey, then military adviser to President Truman, submitted a lengthy report to Truman entitled, “American Relations with the Soviet Union.” It mirrored many of the same policy concepts as Kennan’s “Long Telegram.” Unlike Kennan’s piece, the Clifford-Elsey Report extrapolated the containment theory and explained how the spread of communism affected the world and explained what the United States could and should do to prevent such expansionism. The X Article combined the precepts of the two reports and, whether intentionally or not, constructed a road map for U.S. strategic foreign policy during the Cold War. To those who read it, and even those who did not, it became the public face of this policy.

Ironically, the author of the piece often said that readers and researchers misunderstood him. Years later, he argued that the words, “United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment” did not specifically mean the U.S. should contain the Soviet Union globally. While it is specifically true that much of Kennan’s meaning was misinterpreted it remains hard to see how anyone within the government, given the geopolitical climate of the times could have viewed it any other way. Kennan admitted, later, that there were major flaws in the article, which he regretted greatly. Even so, the result proved to be momentous.21

While this policy facilitated America’s international involvement in the myriad of nationalist revolutions in the developing world, specific regional events slowly-but-surely drew the United States into the Vietnam War, armed with pre-suppositions discussed above. The combination of the factors, as traced in the Pentagon Papers and so many other official and unofficial reports, books, and articles that layout the tragic path to conflict. To this end, the search for how such noble ideals mutated into hardline reconsiderations, and fluctuating loyalties demand a close examination of the early postwar days in Saigon.

The Influence of Nationalist China

20 X Article; Memoirs; American Diplomacy. Also see, Paul J. Heer, Mr. “X” and the Pacific: George F. Kennan and American Foreign Policy in East Asia, (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2018), see Chapter 8 on Vietnam. 21X Article; Report, Clark Clifford, Special Council and George McKee Elsey, “American Relations with the Soviet Union,” 24 September 1946, Conway Files, Harry S. Truman Presidential Papers, Harry S. Truman Library and Museum, Independence, Missouri.

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At the outset of World War II in Asia and the Pacific, FDR’s main concerned involved preserving the national government of China headed by Generalissimo Chiang K’ai-shek and his Kuo min-tang party. During the two Cairo Conferences, the first in late 1943 and second in early 1944, promised to support Chiang’s forces in the China Theater (later China-Burma-India) (CBI) with a vast supply of weapons, equipment, and money.

The Foreign Affairs issue in which the X Article appeared.

However, the amount was never enough since the western allies had long ago, decided to fight the war in Europe “first.” As a result, Chiang frequently had his feelings hurt.

Of note, this area of operations also included those parts of Thailand and Indochina then occupied by the Allies. While, in theory, Chiang held an equal position with the U.S., Britain, and Russia, in fact, China was the weak sister. Officially, the Generalissimo exercised authority in this region, during a meeting in Chungking on 16 October 1943, Southeast Asia Command (SEAC) commander Lord Louis Mountbatten obtained Chiang’s approval for British forces, specifically “Chindits” to operate inside these borders.22

22Patti, Why Viet Nam? p. 52; Ronald H. Spector, Advice and Support the Early Years of the United States Army in Vietnam 1941-1960, (New York: Free Press, 1985), [hereafter Advice and Support].

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Concurrently, American forces under General Joseph “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell also operated under an equally imprecise chain of command. Unfortunately, Stilwell and Chiang did not get along well. In fact, Vinegar Joe in his coded messages called Chiang “peanut head.” Stilwell, having literally walked out of Burma with the surviving troops under his command in 1942 when the Japanese occupied Southeast Asia, focused on building a supply road from India into China to augment and later replace airborne resupply efforts flying over the Himalayas better known as the “Hump.” Simultaneously, Chiang sought to let the British and American’s win the war with Japan while he built up his forces for what he perceived to be the inevitable war with the Communist Chinese after the war. With the Generalissimo, loathe send any of his own forces to support the Burma campaign the only combat forces Stilwell had were those of General Frank Merrill, “Merrill’s Marauders.” This proved to be a less than optimal arrangement. While Chinese forces did eventually participate in fighting in Indochina, they were most often forces commanded by non-Nationalist party warlords tacitly allied with Chiang.23

If this was not confused enough, as early as 1942-1943 U.S. intelligence operatives had begun operating throughout Nationalist China. In 1944, OSS agents arrived in Indochina to seek the support of the Vietminh against the Japanese. In 1945, OSS officials under the provisions of the previously mentioned SEAC/China arrangement established a staff headquarters at Kunming in Yunnan province. When the Japanese seized governmental control of northern Indochina in March 1945, this led the OSS to increasingly involve the forces of Ho Chi Minh in the war. In fact, despite the fact that the OSS operated more overtly in the south their action in the north proved to be very significant.

23For a detailed history of the U.S. role in the CBI, see Charles F. Romanus & Riley Sunderland, The United States Army in World War II, China-Burma-India Theater: Stilwell's mission to China (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 1953); --------, United States Army in World War II, China-Burma-India Theater: Stilwell's Command Problems (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 1956). --------, United States Army in World War II, China-Burma-India Theater: Time Runs Out in CBI (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 1959).

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Lord Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Commander, Southeast Asia Command

The cruel irony was that rather than having the foresight to listen to those on the ground in Indochina who advocated the inevitability of success by the nationalist movements in the region, American policy-makers opted to support the efforts by their British and French allies to restore the “colonial status quo ante.”24

Americans in Saigon: On the Path to Nowhere

The first group of U.S. agents to arrive in Saigon parachuted onto a nearby drop zone on 1 September 1945. Led by First Lt. Emile R. Counasse, this unit of OSS personnel was an advance element of Operation “Embarkment.” Their orders directed them to prepare for the evacuation of allied prisoners-of-war (POWS) from the area since most of the POWs were Americans. The OSS agents eventually joined British forces as they occupied Saigon. One of their official assignments aimed at investigating war crimes, locating and assisting former POWs, securing American properties, and assessing political factors. From the beginning, General Douglas Gracey, commander of the British contingency, complained to higher headquarters about the OSS presence in Vietnam. Fortunately, for the Americans, Lord Mountbatten overrode the General. This created an uneasy relationship between Gracey and the Operation “Embankment” Commander, Lt. Col. Albert Peter Dewey. Dewey flew into Saigon on 2 September with four team members. They touched down at the old Japanese airfield near the main Saigon highway, today known as Tan Son Nhut airport. Rather than the normal collegial reception from his British ally, the General notified Dewey, he and his OSS group were on their own and should not anticipate any logistical support from their British cousins. While

24David G. Marr, Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1995).

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this seemed to be a problem at first, ultimately, it allowed Dewey and his charges to function independently.25

As noted, senior U.S. officials sent Dewey’s unit to Indochina in support of search and rescue as well as release of U.S. POWs. For nearly three years, American air and naval forces had harried Japanese military sites in and around Vietnam. One of the most important locations was the harbor facilities near Saigon. U.S. carrier-based aircraft and bomber aircraft flown out bases in India conducted successful but dangerous attacks against ships, dock facilities, rail lines, rolling stock, and fuel depots. During these raids, the Japanese shot down some American flyers who bailed out in or around Saigon. If they survived their parachuting experience, they stood a fair chance of escaping. In addition, OSS operatives extricated 214 POWs from a camp close to Saigon. The Japanese captured most of them in Java and sent them to work on the infamous Kwai River railroad, which connected Bangkok and Rangoon.

Once the surviving POWs completed their “slave” labor on the rail line, the Japanese interned them in Saigon. The enemy shot down eight of those liberated. Once the OSS team freed the internees, they flew them out of Saigon on seven C-47s. Afterwards, the Americans supported the French investigation of Japanese crimes against humanity. Even as allied prosecutors worked on high profile cases like the one against Field Marshal Terauchi Hisaichi, the French prosecuted Japanese officials for war crimes in Vietnam. While some involved Americans, most were against French and Vietnamese officials and civilians.26

Terauchi commanded the southern zone of the Japanese Army during the war. When his forces came under threat in the Philippines, they retreated to Indochina. On 10 May 1945, with the war going badly, he suffered a stroke. On 12 September 1945, with the General still incapacitated, General Itagaki Seishiro surrendered 686,000 Japanese troops throughout mainland Southeast Asia. It was not until 30 November Terauchi personally capitulated to Lord Mountbatten. He died, the next year, of another stroke, while in a POW camp in Malaya.27

Ultimately, French prosecutors convicted five Japanese officers of “Crimes against Humanity.” Specifically, the allies executed them for the “murder” of several U.S. flyers downed in Indochina. In many cases dozens of Japanese avoided trial by joining the Vietminh as military advisors and administrators. Throughout this period, the OSS had to deal with the not only the surrendering Japanese, who acted “respectfully,” but also the “United National Front” government in Saigon that was made up of “Trotskyists, Cao Dai, Hao Hoa and other nationalist and religious groups and sects.” The OSS dismissed the second group as a “drugstore revolution.” Still, as they reported their control of the government proved to be “complete,” even if their activities appeared “hazy or unexplainable.”28

25Patti, Why Viet Nam? pp. 272-274; Smith, OSS.26See, Trevor N. Dupuy, Harper Encyclopedia of Military Biography, (New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 1992).27Ibid.28Smith, OSS.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harper_Encyclopedia_of_Military_Biography


Capt. Albert Peter Dewey prior to his assignment in Vietnam

Almost as soon as Dewey took over command his seven-man team established close contact with the leaders of the independence movement, which included the Vietminh. At the same time, French leaders and General Gracey, directed Dewey, based on the provisions of the Potsdam Conference, not to give the slightest “impression of official U.S. support for the independence movement.” This directive aside, Dewey had already made personal contact with Vietminh officials. In his radio message of 7 September, he described a joyous celebration held in Saigon for Independence Day. In many ways, it mirrored the exuberance of the earlier August Revolution in Hanoi, which created the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV). He also sent a detailed report regarding the arrival of French Colonel (later General) Jean Cedile, on 22-23 August, and his forces subsequent activities designed to re-establish of French control of Indochina. 29

On 27 August, Dewey met with Vietminh leaders in southern Vietnam. These included future communist historian, Tran Van Giau, Dr. Pham Ngoc Thac, and Nguyen Van Tao. In turn, he sent reports to Washington explaining the fragile situation. He also explained in one dispatch that he believed the Committee of the South, organized by the Vietminh, favored a “peaceful policy,” which sought support from U.S., China, and the Soviet Union in order to prevent the restoration of French rule. Dewey further noted that other organizations opposed the French. These included the pro-Japanese Phuc Quoc Party, the aforementioned United National

29Patti, Why Viet Nam? pp. 275-76; Smith, OSS.

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Front, and Binh Xuyen underworld syndicate. With arrival of French forces imminent, the Vietminh constructed makeshift roadblocks around Saigon. 30

For the time being, it seemed the U.S. relationship with the Vietminh was moving along well. After all, they had played a major role in the repatriation of 4,549 allied POWS, including 240 Americans from two Japanese camps around Saigon. Soon, Gen. Gracey’s arrogant attitude toward Dewey manifested itself in violent events that changed everything. When British occupation forces took the Japanese surrender, they had insufficient forces to control the vast numbers of enemy troops and police Saigon itself. On 22 September, to protect the city from what Gracey feared might be a potential Vietminh assault he agreed to arm French former POWs to act as a police unit. As these French soldiers patrolled the city, they beat or, even, shot Vietnamese who resisted the restoration of French authority. Eventually, roughly 1,400 French soldiers arrived to bolster their numbers. The next day, the French began removing Vietminh from the administrative offices they had just occupied.31

On 24 September, with city caught up in a very tense situation, things took a turn for the worse. That night, Vietminh fighters, in Thu Duc, ambushed and critically injured Capt. Joseph R. Coolidge IV part of the OSS team in Saigon. Ironically, Japanese soldiers rescued him and took him to a British field hospital for treatment. Not long afterwards, an Army Air Force aircraft flew him to Ceylon for further treatment. The attack ratcheted up the air of distrust.Dewey’s sympathies lay with the Vietminh, whom he regarded, as nationalists who hated the return of French colonial rule. Dewey’s outspoken style finally led to Gen. Gracey’s order for him to leave Indochina. Some sources believe the French were behind the orders, while still others contend that Dewey decided to depart on his own accord.32

On 26 September, weather conditions delayed the departure of the plane on which the Lieutenant Colonel was to return home. While he waited for the aircraft, he decided to have lunch with war correspondents William Downs and Jim McGlincy at the OSS compound in Saigon. He had hoped to do so anyway. As he neared the villa, accompanied by another OSS officer, Capt. Henry Bluechel, Dewey came to a Vietminh roadblock manned by three soldiers. He refused to stop bolting through the barrier. As he did, he turned around and yelled back at them, in French. They opened fire, killing Dewey instantly. The jeep flipped onto its side, dumping both men out. Bluechel suffered relatively minor injuries and escaped on foot. Later, Vietminh officials said that the guards had fired believing Dewey was French.33

Downs and McGlincy recalled, as they waited for their comrade on the patio of “the O.S.S. house on the northern edge of Saigon they prepared drinks for Dewey’s return from the

30Patti, Why Viet Nam? pp. 275-76; Smith, OSS. 31Patti, Why Viet Nam? pp. 275-76; Smith, OSS.32Peter Neville, Britain in Vietnam: Prelude to Disaster, 1945-6 (London: Routledge Press, 2007), Chapter “Death of an OSS Man.” 33Article by History.com editors, “First American soldier killed in American Phase of Vietnam War,” HISTORY, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-american-soldier-killed-in-vietnam, no date; Spector, Advice and Support, p. 68.

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https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-american-soldier-killed-in-vietnam


airport.” About five minutes after they sat down they heard “heavy firing up the road, and an American officer came running toward the OSS villa which was also, in effect, American Army headquarters in Saigon.” As they gathered their wits about them, an American officer came within sight. He “halted every few yards to crouch and fire his .45 back down the road at some invisibly pursuers.” Subsequently, the OSS operatives held up in the Villa Ferrier killed six Vietnamese during a fierce firefight.

In the aftermath of the tragedy, the question of what happened to Dewey’s body arose.

Vietminh officials reported that the soldiers had dumped it in a nearby river. Years later, historian, Tran Van Giau echoed this contention. Initially, the Vietminh refused to allow Americans into the area to search for Dewey, so the authenticity of this assertion could not be confirmed. According to many sources, Ho Chi Minh sent President Truman a letter of condolence about Dewey’s death. In turn, he ordered a thorough search be conducted for Dewey’s remains. Even after they gained access to the area, the Americans never located Dewey’s body.34

What Happened After Dewey’s Murder?

During the ensuing investigation of the incident, officials sought testimony from several individuals. In an affidavit dated 13 October 1945, Captain Frank H. White, an OSS team member who had been sent to find Dewey’s body, recalled late that afternoon, after relief forces had arrived at OSS headquarters, he “approached a Vietnamese party displaying a Red Cross flag, seeking to recover bodies of their slain comrades.” He went on to note that, there were a large “number of armed Vietnamese in the vicinity including the leader of the party, a French-speaking individual around 30 years old.” Confronting White, he began “a polemic against the French and the British,” saying “if he knew that Dewey was American, he would not have ordered the attack. Further, the man “stated that his party had only attacked OSS headquarters because he believed that French and British resided there.” In conclusion, “White also observed that the Vietnamese were equipped with Japanese military material including cartridge boxes and canteens.”35

Another aspect of the inquiries into the event became the question as to “who ordered the killing.” Some Americans blamed the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), who were also covertly operating in Saigon. In turn, the British blamed the Japanese, while the French blamed the Vietminh. At the time, Ho Chi Minh wished to placate the U.S., especially the OSS. As such, he made it known he disapproved of the killing by writing the abovementioned letter to President Truman. Not only did he express his sorrow but also his “friendship” toward “the American people.” Many years later, Tran Van Giau apologized directly to Dewey’s daughter for what he described as “the Viet Minh error.” Following their inquiry, members of the Allied

34Seymour Topping, “Vietnamese Historian Recalls Untold Story of Tragic Murder of Peter Dewey,” O.S.S. Society Newsletter, summer 2005, McLean, Virginia: The O.S.S. Society, Inc. pp. 3–4, found in Douglas Pike Collection, Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, Item no. 2360209040, [hereafter “Murder of Peter Dewey”]. 35Topping “Murder of Peter Dewey.”

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Control Commission released a report on Dewey’s death. Among their myriad of conclusions, they believed there had been little chance of avoiding the incident given the confluence of events and circumstances. However, they asserted that had the Americans been allowed to fly an U.S. flag on their jeeps, as they wanted to, the tragedy might have been avoided.36

In general, Major Frank M. Small best expressed the well-considered opinions of the OSS analysis of the incidents and settings in post-war Indochina in his sworn statement dated 25 October 1945. As he declared, “From my own observation and study, the general situation in Saigon reflects an intense desire on the part of the Vietnamese (Annamese) for independence and thorough hatred of them for the French and any other white people who happen to be in any way supporting or sympathizing with the French.” He went on to emphasize that, “The hatred of the Vietnamese for the French has been brought about by the not too enlightened policy of the French, which has been to exploit the Vietnamese to the greatest extent possible and treat them more or less with contempt.”

As Major Small further noted, “The Vietnamese naturally greatly resent the British protection of French interests and insomuch as the American military in Saigon regularly attend British staff meetings, it is quite likely that the Vietnamese infer that the United States tacitly approves the British policy.” He described British General Gracey as “not well suited to his assignment.” This proved to be most notable in “his mishandling of the situation with respect to arming the French POWs.” To the Major, this was the “single immediate contribution to the intensification of Vietnamese animosity to all whites in Saigon, and thus directly contributed to Dewey’s death.”37

Discord Spills into Laos

Vietnam was not the only place where problems arose in the relationship between the French and Americans. Leaders at OSS headquarters in Kunming dispatched the “Raven Mission” to Laos. On 16 September 1945, they parachuted into an area near known allied positions. From the moment, they made contact with French forces tensions arose. Indeed, in later years, French General and military historian Jean Boucher de Crevecoeur claimed that “American officers were not only opposed to the French and pro-French Lao but actually supported pro-independence groups including Prince Phetsarath, the anti-French Lao Issara or Lao nationalist leader, obliquely backed by the Japanese.” He specifically stated that, Major Aaron Banks, an OSS veteran of various missions in Europe, and Major Charles Holland had arrived “spouting anti-French propaganda.”38

36Ibid.; Documents Relating to OSS Activity in French Indochina, Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, File MLB-2739-B. 37“Murder of Major Peter Dewey.”38Arthur J. Dommen & George W. Dalley, “The OSS and Laos: The 1945 Raven Mission and American Policy,” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, vol. 22, no.2, (September 1991), pp. 327-346, [hereafter “The OSS and Laos”]; Jean Boucher de Crevecoeur, La Liberation du Laos, 1945-1946, (Vincennes, France: Service Historique de l’Armee de Terre, 1985), pp. 51-60, [La Liberation].

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Things came to a head when on 27 September, a group from the British SOE’s Force 136, led by Major Peter Kemp, while crossing the Mekong River from their base at Nakhon Phanom in northeast Thailand were surrounded by an armed Viet Minh patrol who ordered them to turn over French Lieutenant Francis Klotz who had accompanied the contingency. Even at this point, the seeds of the 1946-1954 First Indochina War between the French and Vietminh were beginning to sprout. During the standoff, even though the British tried to protect the French agent, the Vietminh killed him.

The lack of support by an OSS agent particularly upset French leadership. In the aftermath, the British demanded that the Vietminh send the assassin to their main base for prosecution. They refused. In turn, OSS higher headquarters recalled the mission. In their after-action report, the Americans asserted that, “What made the British operations reprehensible was that they were undertaken on behalf of the French.” They went on to add that the SOE had been operating in territory north of the 17th parallel officially set aside as the area under Chinese authority by the Potsdam Agreement.39

As historian Richard Aldrich suggested in his book on the subject, “Knowledge of the ‘impermissible independence’ of the OSS in Laos actually gave pause to President Truman and successors as to the need for firmer presidential control over a successor intelligence organization, namely the CIA.” Of course, the OSS and the myriad of other intelligence organizations had long been clogging up the U.S. information gathering process. Truman decided to combine them into a single centralized agency. Moreover, in the post-war scramble for funding, the OSS also fell victim of intra-bureaucratic “turf wars” in Washington.

While their leadership proved brilliant and cleaver, their understanding the intricacies of manipulating the system proved inadequate. As a result, President Truman formally closed down the OSS on 31 October 1945 with their personnel blended into a Strategic Services Unit under the War Department. In July 1947, the National Security Act of 1947 created the CIA and made it America’s prime intelligence organization, just as the Cold War intensified.40

Concluding Analysis

All the factors, perceptions, and events that comprised reality in Saigon and Laos bears witness to how big of a problem OSS personnel, and other Americans, faced in dealing with the evolving national independence movement. The communist Vietminh sought to build their own new nation-state based on Marxist-Communists precepts. They were willing use any tactic necessary to attain their endgame. Concurrently, the U.S. steered a vague path with the

39Crevecoeur, La Liberation, pp.55-60; Dommen & Dalley, “The OSS and Laos,” pp. 342-346.40Richard J. Aldrich, Intelligence and the War Against Japan: Britain, America and the Politics of Secret Service, (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 340-357.

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Americans on site remaining friendly to the Vietnamese who sought the sovereignty of their homeland while, the U.S. national leadership backed the French and British who had stood with them throughout the bloodiest war in history. While the Americans constantly spoke using noble words, being part of French and British occupation structure made the Vietminh predictably nervous. In turn, the idealistic OSS agents’ sympathies toward freedom seeking peoples made their allies suspicious about their goals in Indochina. All of this ultimately combined to lead to the Vietnamese war with France and later, the U.S. During 1945-1946, no one could really predict where all these regional and geopolitical vacillations would lead. As it turned out, U.S. personnel in urban Saigon and their fellows in Laos were eyewitnesses to the genesis of “a 30-year civil and international war of almost incalculable costs.”41

In the 1990s, many OSS veterans and their families returned to Vietnam as unofficial guests of the state. One of these was Peter Dewey’s daughter, Nancy (Dewey) Hoppin. It was during her visit that senior Vietnamese officials expressed their regret and sorrow over her father’s death. Unfortunately, the mutual misunderstanding between the two sides led to the U.S. War that lasted more than a decade and cost the lives of 58,000 American combatants and more than three million Vietnamese military and civilian lives. In the end, Vietnam became an independent nation. They fulfilled Ho’s vision of a socialist state, today, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). In report after report, in late 1945, OSS operatives in Vietnam predicted these results and urged American leaders to acknowledge the validity of Ho’s struggle for self-determination. Perhaps, in retrospect, it was just not possible to ask Harry S. Truman and other leaders to place concerns over Indochina above those larger apprehensions swirling around the growth of international communism led by the Soviet Union and, later, the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

While it may not be professionally appropriate for an historian to ask what might have

happen, this historian, as a thinking member of the human family, still wonders if just one bold action by America had taken place might the 30 years of death and destruction been forestalled. After Americans left, the bitterness and acrimony did not dissipate until 1993, when the Administration of President William Jefferson Clinton pushed through Congress legislations that would end America’s long-standing economic embargo against Vietnam, in spite of bitter opposition by many veterans and political groups.

In July 1995, the U.S. formally lifted the embargo and restored diplomatic relations. In fact, the President took this action, not out kindness of his heart, but at least in part, due to pressure coming from “American business interests that were still barred from trading with Vietnam.” In November 2000, President Clinton became the first U.S. head of state to visit Vietnam since the end of the war. In an effort, not to apologize, but to make progress toward reconciliation, he declared, “The history we leave behind is painful and hard. We must not forget it, but we must not be controlled by it.” As one who had said “no” to the war in his youth, his audience was doubtless all the more appreciative. Of course, since then, both Presidents George W. Bush and Barrack Obama have also traveled to Hanoi to continue the moves toward normalization.

41Ibid.

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Many military experts, historians, and socio-political analysts after America’s War in Vietnam while decrying the waste and destruction of the conflict, consoled themselves with the notion that given the lessons we had learned such a war would not and could not ever happen again. However, despite many positive changes in military and diplomatic policies and processes, this supposition did not become reality. Since 1975, due to unforeseen events, and hideous foreign policy mismanagement, the U.S. repeatedly found itself dragged into numerous contingencies. Some like the immediate response to the terror attacks of 11 September 2001 were unavoidable. However, the U.S. has now been at war in Afghanistan and Central Asia for nearly 20 years, a record with which no citizen can or should be pleased. It has come to resemble a bleeding abscess constantly draining human, moral, and economic resources out of the nation.

Without doubt, one of the most legitimate “truisms” ever coined is that military victories only lead to the next war. In looking back, leaders declared that World War I was the war to end all wars. Selfish and vengeful diplomacy led to the rise of evil dictators and World War II. When, attacked in 1941 America fought back, and after four years, the U.S. vowed to create a new world order to prevent the repeat of such ruin and mendacity. Then came Korea, the Cold War, and Vietnam. Once again, failed diplomacy caused leaders to misinterpret the needs of the people in Vietnam. They had fought ferociously to defeat one foreign invader, the Japanese, expecting that after they spearheaded that effort their reward would be independence. After all, President Roosevelt, leader of the great western democracy, had stated that he believed, as had his mentor Woodrow Wilson, in national self-determination for all peoples. Whether it would have mattered if he had lived longer, we will never know.

What did happen was that the tenuous allied alliance came apart when their mutual enemies surrendered and the Cold War proved to be the immediate result. In the growth of this rivalry, national leaders pushed their concerns about Indochina and Vietnam onto the back burner. Besides, between 1946 and 1954, the French seemed ready and able to deal with that problem. In fact, they did not. This led to America’s eventual involvement and more bloodletting on an even greater scale.

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