Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
It appears that Gracey's instructions from the Allied Command in Southeast Asia explicitly limited his missions to the disarming of the Japanese, and certainly did not require him to undertake revision of the Vietnamese political system.36 But in fact, General Gracey used his troops and his position to overturn the Committee of the South. Neither communism nor Viet nationalism seems to have concerned the British commander. On 10 September, the Viet Minh had accepted a reorganization of the Committee of the South in which Tran Van Giau was replaced as Chairman by Phan Van Bach, a prominent independent nationalist, and ICP members occupied only four of thirteen Committee seats. Gracey apparently regarded the Vietnamese government with disdain, if not contempt, not because of its political complexion, but because of its lack of authority from the French, over which it presided. The British commander ordered the Japanese to assist in maintaining order, and directed the disarming of Vietnamese; both directives were ignored, but added to mounting tension.
The attitude of the occupation forces reinforced the position of the Trotskyites who had denounced the Viet Minh, the ICP, and Committee of the South as a "bourgeois-democratic government, even though the communists are now in power," and decried any attempts to cooperate with the Allies. The Trotskyite International Communist League called for the arming of the people, and incited the populace against the British. Beginning on 12 September, the Vietnamese police in Saigon launched a violent campaign to suppress the Trotskyites, in which many Trotskyite leaders were killed. In the rural areas, fighting broke out between Viet Minh troops and the forces of the Cao Dai and the Hoa Hao. The spreading intra-Viet violence rendered futile attempts to draw together the Vietnamese factions, and heightened apprehension among Westerners in Saigon.
- On 17 September 1945, the Committee of the South called a general strike to protest the Allied lack of cooperation, and arrested some sixteen French. The French then importuned Gracey to permit them to step in to restore order. On 19 September, the French "Commissioner" for Cochinchina, Cedile, announced that there would be no negotiations with Vietnamese nationalists until civil order was restored. On 20 September, General Gracey suspended all Vietnamese newspapers, and took over the Vietnamese police force. On 21 September, martial law was declared, outlawing all demonstrations, and the bearing by Vietnamese of any weapon whatsoever, including bamboo rods. On 22 September, the British freed some 1400 French parachutists that had been incarcerated outside Saigon by the Japanese, and these promptly descended on the city to beat Vietnamese wherever they could lay their hands on them. On the morning of 23 September, French troops occupied the police stations, the post office, and other public buildings, and began to arrest Vietnamese politicians and public officials, although members of the Committee account noted that:
- "It was indeed unfortunate that the manner in which this coup d'etat was executed together with the behavior of the
