Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
- area beyond reach Soviet army. However, US attitude cld take acct such possibility only if every other possible avenue closed to preservation area from Kremlin control. Moreover, while Vietnam out of reach Soviet army it will doubtless be by no means out of reach Chi Commie hatchet men and armed forces.28
- 8. Ho, Asian Neutral?
Ho may indeed have never been other than a crafty Leninist, seeking a passing accommodation with the French or the U.S. while he gathered strength. His word and deed after 1949 support such a construction: In January 1950, the DRV declared itself to be the "only lawful government of the entire Vietnamese people,"29 joined the Sino-Soviet Bloc, and began attacks on the U.S. "imperialists" and "interventionalists."30 Early in 1951, the DRV legalized the Lao Dong Party, expressly communist.31
There remains, however, irresolvable doubt concerning Ho's earlier predilection for neutralism, or even a western affiliation. It can be said that, whatever Ho might have preferred, he was offered only narrow options. No reputable Westerner is known to have interviewed Ho face to face fram an abortive French attempt in 1947 to negotiate a Cochinchina settlement through late 1954.32 Ho had no direct means of communication with the U.S. after 1946, and the signals he received from the U.S. could hardly have been encouraging.33 By 1947, U.S. military equipment had already been used by French and British forces against the Vietnamese, and the U.S. had arranged credit for French purchase of $160 million worth of vehicles and miscellaneous industrial equipment for use in Indochina.34 Secretary of State George C. Marshall's January, 1947, public statement on Vietnam had been confined to a hope that "a pacific basis for adjustment of the difficulties could be found,"35 and the Marshall Plan for Europe definitely U.S. resources behind France. But assurances from the Russians were not materially stronger. While the Soviets excoriated colonial powers other than France, potential imminence of a French Communist government muffled even their verbal backing of Ho, let alone recognition and aid.36
