Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
Ho Chi Minh forwarded to the Secretary of State the D.R.V. Declaration of Independence, Bao Dai's abdication rescript, general DRV foreign policy declarations, and its expressed position on the war in South Vietnam. He cited the Atlantic Charter as the "foundation of future Vietnam" and the San Francisco Charter as eradicating colonial oppression. Ho appealed for "immediate interference" and submitted several requests — the key one being that the United Nations should recognize the full independence of Vietnam. Again, in November, he made three points: (1) the French had ignored all treaties at the end of the war, and attacked Saigon in September; (2) the Vietnamese people were willing to support the United Nations, but would fight any French troops coming into Vietnamese territory; and (3) any bloodshed would be the responsibility of the French. Two weeks later, Ho appealed to President Truman and UNRRA for assistance to combat starvation caused by flood, drought, and French conflict. Also in November, Ho wrote to the Secretary of State asking to establish cultural relations with the U.S. by sending fifty Vietnamese students to the U.S., and to complain of the absence of Vietnamese representation at the Washington Conference for the Far East. Prompted by Truman's appointment of General Marshall as special representative in China, early in 1946 Ho Chi Minh again appealed for direct intervention by the U.S. to provide an immediate solution of the Vietnamese issue. On 16 February 1946, a tone of irritation was introduced: Ho wrote once more to President Truman implying "complicity, or at least, the connivance of the Great Democracies" in the French aggression; but still Ho pleaded with the U.S. to take a "decisive step" in support of Vietnamese independence asking only what had been "graciously granted to the Philippines." Ho then addressed an urgent broadcast appeal to the U.S., China, Russia, and Great Britain for "interference" by the Big Four to stop the bloodshed and to bring the Indochina issue before the United Nations.
It became abundantly clear, however, that the U.S. would do nothing to aid the Viet Minh. Assuming the sincerity of Ho Chi Minh's appeals, the most opportune time for the U.S. to have intervened in Vietnam passed in autumn, 1945, and prospects for U.S. action dimmed as DRV negotiations with the French proceeded in February–March 1946. Paradoxically, it was the possibility of communist accession to power in France that both added to Ho's incentive to negotiate with the French, and stimulated stronger U.S. support for France. Ultimately, the U.S. was deterred from backing Viet Minh anti-colonialism (though the U.S. pressured France for concessions to Viet nationalism) because its interests seemed more directly engaged in shoring up the French as a key part of its assistance to European recovery. On the other hand, Ho Chi Minh continued to hope for a new France, breaking away from its old colonialist policies under a Socialist or Communist government.
Ho Chi Minh's correspondence with the U.S. ceased after the 6 March 1946 Accord with France, although Ho Chi Minh did visit the U.S. Embassy in Paris on 11 September 1946.
