Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
- Soviet perspectives.' These perspectives might well include France as a firm ally of the USSR in Europe, in which case the Annamite independence movement would be an embarrassment. Therefore, it urged upon the Annamite comrades a policy of 'patience.' It advised them in particular to wait upon the results of the French elections, coming up the following month, in October, when additional Communist strength might assure the Annamites a better settlement. In the meantime, it baldly proposed that an emissary be sent not only to contact the French Communist Party but also the Russians 'in order to acquaint yourselves with the perspectives of coming event.'"39
Whether the circumstances were propitious or not, conflict had been thrust upon the Vietnamese of Cochinchina. The question before the communists there was how to respond, and apparently the Partly leadership determined that violence was the sole recourse, and that to regain leadership of the nationalist movement they had to make the Viet Minh the foremost proponent of war, the most unbending foe of compromise with the French General Gracey, on the urgings of Admiral Lord Mountbatten's Allied Command, made a determined effort to effect a compromise with the Viet Minh, and succeeded in obtaining a truce on 2 October. But this broke down quickly in the face of truculence on both sides. French reinforcements under General Leclerc began pouring into Saigon, bolstering French resolve. A representative from Ho's Hanoi government arrived to buttress the Viet NUnh's position with tales of Viet Minh ascendancy in Annam and Tonkin. The French sought to negotiate on the premise that they would rule, and allow some Viet participation; the Viet Minh demanded return to the status quo prior to 22 September, and eventual French evacuation. On October 9, 1945, France and the U.K. concluded an agreement in London in which the British formally recognized the French civil administration in Indochina as the sole legitimate authority south of the sixteenth parallel. Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin described to the House of Commons of Vietnamese disorder and looting, and of the difficulties presented by clashes between French troops under Gracey's command and Vietnamese forces. Britain, he announced, would assist in transporting to Vietnam enough French troops to permit them to take over from Gracey, and that in the interim British policy would support "close and friendly cooperation between the British and French commanders."40 On 11 October, the truce broke down, and fighting resumed. On 25 October, the French under General Leclerc thrust southward from Saigon to My Tho, the temporary capital of the Committee of the South, and, victorious there, to the northwest into Tay Ninh, where they subdued the Cao Dai. The Viet Minh opened a guerrilla campaign which greatly slowed the French, and demonstrated almost at once that neither French air power nor armor would suffice for pacification against that determined foe. The eminent French journalist, Philippe Devillers, who accompanied Leclerc's initial forays, wrote that:
- "From this time on the work of pacifying the country revealed an aspect it would never lose again: to be forever put in question. The Viet Minh would suddenly start shooting at night at a village protected by one of our posts...to pull
