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Just consider the U.S. response to
Ho Chi Minh’s declaration of Vietnam’s independence
on
September 2, 1945.
Vietnam had been a French colony before World War II
started. After France fell to Germany in 1940, Japan
seized control of Vietnam, but allowed French officials
and troops to administer the country. Seeing an
opportunity to liberate Vietnam, Ho made his way to
Vietnam from China in early 1941. It was the first
time in three decades that he had set foot in his
homeland. He had spent thirty years in exile, living
in the United States, Britain, France, and Russia among
other places.
Ho and his initial few followers
operated in primitive conditions in mountainous jungles
along Vietnam’s border with China. Local Vietnamese
slowly joined his cause. With time, Ho’s forces, known
as the
Viet Minh, effectively wrested control of several of
Vietnam’s northern (and remote) provinces. In March
1945, with the war in Pacific having clearly turned
against Japan, Tokyo seized direct control of Vietnam
and evicted French troops. The Viet Minh used the
resulting confusion to seize even more territory.
The Viet Minh’s success
attracted the attention of the U.S.
Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner
to the CIA. In March 1945, an OSS officer met
with Ho in Kunming, China. The two men quickly struck a
deal. The OSS would equip the Viet Minh with radios
and some light arms. In return, the Viet Minh would
give the OSS intelligence, harass Japanese forces, and
try to rescue American pilots shot down over Viet
Minh-controlled territory.
A small number of OSS
operatives parachuted into northern Vietnam in mid-July
1945 to help train the Viet Minh. This so-called Deer
Team found Ho deathly ill, “shaking like a leaf and
obviously running a high fever.” They treated him for
malaria and dysentery, and he recovered quickly. Looking
forward to what would happen after Japan’s defeat, he
asked his American guests, “your statesmen make
eloquent speeches about . . . self-determination. We are
self-determined. Why not help us? Am I any different
from . . . your George Washington?”
Ho’s question quickly became
relevant when Japan surrendered in mid-August. With the
Japanese defeated and French forces long gone, the Viet
Minh moved into Hanoi unopposed. It marked the first
time Ho had set foot in his country’s biggest city. The
streets were draped with Viet Minh flags. Talk of
independence was in the air. Ho did not disappoint.
On September 2, 1945, in front of
a crowd of hundreds of thousands, Ho declared Vietnam an
independent nation. He began his speech
with words familiar to any American schoolchild:
"All men
are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator
with certain inalienable rights, among them are
Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."
This immortal statement was
made in the Declaration of Independence of the United
States of America in 1776. In a broader sense, this
means: All the peoples on the earth are equal from
birth, all the peoples have a right to live, to be happy
and free.
Ho started by quoting
Thomas Jefferson’s famous words for a reason: He
desperately wanted U.S. support. Having it would prevent
France from trying to reassert control over Vietnam and
help keep Vietnam’s powerful neighbor and historical
adversary China at bay. Seeking U.S. support seemed a
reasonable goal. President Franklin Roosevelt’s
opposition to European colonialism was well known. He
had insisted that the
1941 Atlantic Charter, issued jointly by the United
States and Great Britain, contain a provision stating
that both countries
respected “the right of all peoples to choose the
form of government under which they will live.”
FDR wanted the United States firmly on the side of
anti-colonialism, and liberation movements across the
globe took him at his word.
In April 1954, diplomats from several nations –
including the United States, the Soviet Union, China,
France and Great Britain – attended a conference in the
Swiss city of Geneva. This led to the creation of the
Geneva Accords, which outlined a roadmap for peace
and reunification in Vietnam.
Much of this will be outlined by David Schoenbrun
was born in New York City. He began his career teaching
French.
Video below:
Schoenbrun enlisted in the Army in
1943 and became a World War 2 correspondent covering
North Africa through to the liberation of France, for
which he was decorated with the Croix de Guerre and the
Legion of Honour.
After the war, from 1947 to 1964,
Schoenbrun worked for
CBS, serving primarily as the network's bureau chief
in Paris, where he met and interviewed the President
Charles de Gaulle a number of times. He was one of the
reporters known as
Murrow's Boys.
From the 1960s through the 1980s,
Schoenbrun served as a news analyst for WNEW Radio in
New York (now
WBBR) and other
Metromedia broadcast properties, and later for
crosstown
WPIX Television and its
Independent Network News operation. In the
mid-1970s, he served as a foreign affairs analyst for a
short-lived public television channel in Los Angeles.
Schoenbrun is the author of On
and Off the Air, a personal account of the history
of CBS News through the 1970s. Schoenbrun also wrote
several books concerning World-War-II-era France and
other works drawn from his experiences as a newsman.
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