751G.00/4–453
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Chargé at Saigon (McClintock)1
Persons present:
- The Honorable Adlai E. Stevenson2
- Mr. Barry Bingham
- Mr. William Blair
- Mr. Robert McClintoek
- His Majesty Bao Dai
- Mr. Nguyen Duy Quang, Secretary General, Foreign Office
- Mr. Nguyen De, Minister of State, Chief of Imperial Cabinet
During the course of a long and rambling conversation Bao Dai gave Mr. Stevenson his own version of the development of Ho chi Minh and the Viet Minh revolutionary movement.
The Chief of State said that Ho chi Minh had emerged shortly after the first world war as a popular Nationalist leader in Indochina. His activities attracted the attention of French Communists and, when Ho chi Minh was a student in France he was selected by the French Communists for advance study in Moscow. It was only after his sojourn at the Lenin School and his eventual return to Canton in 1925 that he became to be more known as a Communist than as a simple Nationalist leader.
According to Bao Dai, Ho chi Minh was imprisoned by the British authorities in Hong Kong in 1925. At this time the French colonial government in Indochina requested the Hong Kong authorities to release Ho chi Minh in order that he might “be used against Japanese imperialism” (sic). Ho proceeded to Singapore where for a time he was a member of the British intelligence service. From Singapore he moved into Siam which thenceforth remained his seat of operations. It was from the Siamese vantage point that Ho organized the Viet Minh party which soon proved itself to be the most virile and effective of the various clandestine Indochinese parties. Ho eventually emerged, after the Japanese defeat in 1945, as the strongest Nationalist leader of Indochina. He was recognized as such by the authorities in French Indochina, particularly because the metropolitan government in France, whose Deputy Premier at this time was Maurice [Page 454] Thorez,3 looked with favor upon the activities of Ho chi Minh. It was due to Communist domination of French policy in 1945 that it was possible for Ho to become the Prime Minister of Vietnam.
It was at this time that Bao Dai abdicated and spent a period of five months as a Political Advisor to Ho chi Minh. Bao Dai said he was also elected in early 1946 as a Deputy in the National Assembly of the Viet Minh Government. In August of 1946 he was sent on a private mission to make contact with Chiang Kai Shek,4 seeking Nationalist Chinese recognition of the Viet Minh regime in Hanoi.
Bao Dai said that Ho’s popular appeal rapidly commenced to dwindle as the Vietnamese realized that he was more a Communist at heart than a true Nationalist. Bao Dai made the somewhat mystifying explanation that one of the prime motives of the December 1946 massacre in Hanoi was to establish Ho in the popular imagination as an inveterate enemy of the French and thus to canalize Nationalist feeling throughout the country in support of the Viet Minh movement.
Bao Dai said that with subsequent developments Ho chi Minh was now not an important figure and it made little practical difference whether he were alive or dead. The Chief of State repeated the current rumors that Ho chi Minh is in fact possibly no longer living. He stressed, however, that real control of affairs in the Viet Minh Government lies in the hands of the Supreme Military Commander, Giap, and in the Chinese Communist military advisors who are on his staff.
Mr. Stevenson repeatedly sought to ascertain from Bao Dai what motives sustained the Viet Minh in their fanatic warfare against the French and Vietnamese.
The oily assurances of Ambassador Quang (a professional courtier who, despite the fact that he was recently Foreign Minister of Viet Minh, is now the Secretary General of the Vietnam Foreign Office) that throughout the length and breadth of Vietnam Bao Dai is revered as the Father of his people did not carry great conviction. Similarly the Americans were not impressed by Bao Dai’s insistence that everyone in Viet Minh-occupied zones does what he does because he is forced to at bayonet point. Bao Dai’s thesis was, however, that the downtrodden peasantry of Viet Minh are groaning under a heavy yoke; that they suffer from forced requisitioning, particularly rice, and are the pawns of an elaborate system of corvée. He cited the ability of the Viet Minh armed forces to round up bands of as many as 20,000 coolies to maintain the LOC between main bases and advanced outposts. When asked why the Viet Minh soldiers fought so well, Bao Dai said that the army was treated as a corps d’élite; soldiers were well fed and paid, [Page 455] and in consequence their loyalty to the regime was greater than that of the great mass of the populace.
Turning to the Vietnam side of the picture, Bao Dai, in response to Governor Stevenson’s question as to the possibilities of elections for a National Assembly, at first said that this was fairly useless since half of his country was in enemy hands. He later said that of course eventually a National Assembly would come, but he clearly showed no great enthusiasm for the prospect.
The Chief of State dwelt at some length on the fact that the Vietnamese armed forces are not in control of their own destinies. However, he failed signally to respond to the suggestion that possibly higher morale would result if he personally would assume command of the Vietnamese armed forces.
The former Emperor went over ground previously traced in Saigon, discussing the proposed recruitment of 54 commando battalions in 1953 and the increase of military effectives for Vietnam. He said that of course all of this would cost money and that in turn would depend upon French aid. At no time did Bao Dai seem cognizant of the fact that one-third of the equipment being brought into his country for prosecution of the war is of American origin. In fact, so obvious was his omission to so much as mention American aid that his Minister of the Imperial Cabinet, Nguyen De, launched into a somewhat tipsy panegyric, extolling the American virtues in a mixture of Oriental hyperbole and French cafe oratory.
The Emperor mentioned his physical disabilities which included liver parasites as a result of amebiasis. It seemed clear that his eyes were fixed in glistening anticipation on the south of France. It was later learned from the Chef de Cabinet Civil that he will probably fly in his private Liberator for Cannes approximately April 10.
- This memorandum was transmitted to Washington in despatch 421, Apr. 4. (751G.00/4–453) Copies were also sent to Paris and Hanoi. The conversation recorded here took place at the retreat of Bao Dai at Banmethout.↩
- Governor Stevenson, Governor of Illinois, 1949–1953, and Democratic Party candidate for President in 1952, was on a visit in Indochina.↩
- Secretary-General of the French Communist Party.↩
- President of the Republic of China.↩