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Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
- If I had to pick out one quality about that little old man sitting on his hill in the jungle, it was his gentleness.'
- "He and John exchanged toasts and shared stewed tiger livers. John now admits his naiveté in being ready to believe that Ho was not a Communist. But even if he was, John felt certain that Ho was sincere in wanting to co-operate with the West, especially with France and the United States. Some of Ho's men impressed John less. 'They go charging around with great fervor shouting 'independence,' but seventy-five percent of them don't know the meaning of the word,' he wrote in his diary. John still has two letters in English Ho sent him in the jungle. One of them, written soon after the Japanese surrender, when the Vietminh was about to sieze control of the nationalist movement, reads as follows:
- Dear Lt. [John],
- I feel weaker since you left. Maybe I'd have to follow your advice—move to some other place where food is easy to get, to improve my health....
- I'm sending you a bottle of wine, hope you like it.
- Be so kind as to give me foreign news you got.
- ...Please be good enuf to send to your H.Q. the following wires.
- 1. Daivet [an anti-Vietminh nationalist group] plans to exercise large terror against French and to push it upon shoulder of VML [Vietminh League]. VML ordered 2 millions members and all of its population be watchful ande stop Daivet criminal plan when & if possible. VML declares before the world its aim is national independence. It fights with political & if necessary military means. But never resorts to criminal & dishonest act.
Signed— NATIONAL LIBERATION COMMITTEE
OF VML
- 2. National Liberation Committee of VML begs U.S. authorities to inform United Nations the following. We were fighting Japs on the side of the United Nations. Now Japs surrendered. We beg United Nations to realize their solemn promise that all nationalities will be given democracy and independence. If United Nations forget their solemn promise & don't grant Indochina full independence, we will keep fighting until we get it.
Signed— LIBERATION COMMITTEE OF VML
- Thank you for all the troubles I give you....Best greetings!
Yours sincerely, Hoo [sic]."[1]
C-59
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
- ↑ Robert Shaplen, The Lost Revolution, (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), 28–30.
