What exactly was the Cold War? How did it start, who was responsible and could it have been avoided?…
…South of the Chinese border, in an ancient province of the French empire, Tonkin, not yet generally known by its new name, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, another was was underway. The French had sent an expeditionary force into Haiphong and Hanoi to recapture the province, which had declared its independence in the wake of the Japanese surrender in 1945. Ho Chi Minh had rallied the underground forces that had fought on the Allied side against the Japanese and then struck back against the French.
—INDOCHINA. First Indo-Chinese War. Don Qui Thon. Vietminh prisoners replace bridges destroyed by a Vietminh attack. May, 1954.—Robert Capa. click image for source…
Minh had also sent messages to the Socialist premier of France, Leon Blum, proposing a truce and negotiations for independence and a new, friendly relationship between Vietnam and France. But Ho Chi Minh’s mesage never reached Leon Blum. The French commanding general, who was in charge of the the communication networks in North Vietnam, simply threw it into his wastebasket.
When the Vietnamese delegation in Paris discovered what had happened, they called in reporters on February 6 and made the truce proposal on the spot, demanding recognition of Vietnam as a free nation. The French Government, overwhelmed by the colonialist faction in Paris, officially rejected the proposal and ordered its armed forces to put down the “rebellion.” Thus the war in Vietnam erupted. Hardly anyone in the United States paid attention to what was happening in that distant land. ( to be continued)…
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