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Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power (A Philip E. Lilienthal Book)

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The title of this book is misleading. Marr's topic is not 1945 alone but the period beginning in 1940, when the Germans conquered France and the colonial adminisrators at the other end of the huge Eurasian landmass were left in confusion -- a period that reached a climax of sorts in 1945, with the surrender of the Japanese and the inevitable manuveuring among the various contending factions within Indochina for power in the post-war picture.

Back in 1940....some of the French colonials were happy to follow the lead from the new Vichy govt in France (the puppets of the Germans) and so to co-operate with the Japanese. Others had more or less open Gaullist sympathies. One develops some sympathy, in the course of this book, for the Gaullists -- who must have thought, after the liberation of their country in Europe in 1944, that they were entitled to a restoration of the colonial status quo ante as their share of the post-war settlement.

Early in 1945, the Japanese decided the French could no longer be trusted to run Indochina in Japan's interests, and they placed it under the control of their own military. This put the French and the VC in an odd alliance. It was also a very ineffective alliance -- the Japanese remained firmly in control up to the time their god/emperor told them in a radio address the war was over and they must lay down their arms.

In these events, and much more (I can't convey the thoroughness of Marr's account in this review!), one comes to see the future, the next thirty years of it!, as so much inevitable misery, like a wound-up spring destined to uncoil slowly and painfully for all concerned.

So read this book to give yourself the background for any understanding of those 30 years. If you can bear to do so.

Scholar and Vietnam historian, David G. Marr has created a work of epic scope in his finely tuned account of the year that saw the end of World War II and defined the postwar world. The detailed study of Allied, Japanese, and Vietnamese involvement during the war and in the postwar maneuver for dominance in Vietnam, is essential for the reader who seeks to probe the politics of a cold war struggle that continued to rage for thirty years of land war in Southeast Asia. France was occupied by Nazi Germany in the spring of 1940 while Axis power, Japan, prepared to invade Vietnam in September. With its seaports, airbases, and overland transportation routes, along with its abundant natural resources and rice belts, Vietnam was crucial to Japan's war errort. In Vietnam a French colonial government had ruled its Indochinese Union, exploiting Vietnam's natural resources and manipulating its economy for close to one hundred years. Fearful of losing its colonial possession entirely by force, the French collaborated with Japanese military forces that allowed a functional French colonial administration to sustain the machinations of government in Vietnam from 1942 to 1945. The Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the CIA, began covert operations in Vietnam in the spring of 1943, working directly with respected and admired communist-nationalist, Ho Chi Minh. Substantial research, eye-witness analysis, photgraphs, and extensive footnotes support Marr's account of Ho's newly formed Viet Minh forces working with OSS "Deer Team" operatives to achieve Allied war goals and oppose the Japanese war effort. The year 1945 is to Vietnam what 1776 is to the United States; it marks the birth of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam headed by Ho Chi Minh. Ho made it clear to his US friends that his primary aim was not to promote communism but to achieve independence and self-determination for Vietnam. All Americans who knew him personally saw him first as a nationalist and second as a communist. Japan seized power entirely in Vietnam from a French colonial administration 9March1945. Vietnamese leaders saw the ousting of the French as a window of opportunity. By the end of July with Japan on the brink of defeat, members of the Viet Minh, Indochinese Communist Party, and associated nationalists seized history in what was termed the "August Revolution." A tidal wave of revolutionary and nationalist zeal for independence swept the country. On 2September Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in a public address to a nation unified in its desire for independence, quoting from the United States' Declaration of Independence, "these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." Ho concluded his speech with: "Vietnam has the right to enjoy freedom and independence, and in fact has become a free and independent country. The entire Vietnamese people are determined to mobilize all their physical and mental strength, to sacrifice their lives and property, in order to safeguard their freedom and independence." Roosevelt opposed colonial aggression and returning Vietnam to France after the war stating that colonialism was dead. Before Roosevelt could enact US foreign policy regarding Indochina he died.The US State Department had little knowledge of or policy regarding Indochina. France's Provisional President, Charles DeGaulle, stated that if the US did not help France in Indochina, then France might be forced into the Soviet orbit. Only the US had a solvent economy at the close of WWII. The US believing France to be crucial in Europe in opposing Soviet expansionism, fully funded DeGaulle in taking back Vietnam from the Vietnamese. While DeGaulle organized a French Expeditionary Force to land, US ships transported British and Indian troops to seize control. Shipping, arms, uniforms, and provisions were supplied by the US. Contrary to orders from Allied Command, British General Douglas Gracey upon arrival 6September, maintained surrendered yet armed Japanese troops for internal security. Great Britain had her own colonies in Asia to put in order, hence, a vested interest in seeing colonial possessions regained. The newly formed government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was efficiently evicted from office. Eventually a French Expeditionary Force arrived and took over with business as usual, imprisonment and massacre. Mr.Marr's text comes alive with first-hand accounts from participants in the extraordinary arena that was 1945. Marr writes of the summer OSS "Deer Team" met with Ho and the Viet Minh. Ho wanted to chat about the US, its history, political ideals, and US support of free, popular governments throughout the world. Team member, Rene' Defourneaux, from New York recalls Ho's arguing in broken English: "Your statesmen make eloquent speeches about helping those with self-determination. We are self-determined. Why not help us. Am I any different from Nehru, Quezon, even your George Washington? Was not Washington considered a revolutionary? I too want to set my people free." With Ho Chi Minh's apparent affinity for the US, for democratic political ideals, and for American friends in the OSS, along with his desire and hopes for a US alliance and support in achieving Vietnamese independence, Marr makes evident that the US had the future of an emerging self-governing Vietnam in the palm of its hand at the close of WWII. The subsequent French and US involvement in Vietnam remains one of the most misled and tragic affairs of the twentieth century.

David G. Marr scored a knock-out or at least a TKO with, "Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power." David G. Marr launched the readers into Ba Đinh Square, Ha Noi on that hot muggy Sunday afternoon, 2 September, 1945, to listen to Nguyen Ai Quoc, the founder of the Indochinese Communist Party, read the Vietnamese version of the Declaration of Independence for the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the new name for a united Vietnam. The amount of research that David G. Marr put into this book was phenomenal making the readers drooling for more.

Along with Duiker, Marr is one ingorrant of history in Vietnam in its people. Ho Chi Minh was a thief, murderer and cruel dictator as the world has seen in Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot and many others of the 20th century.
Ho Chi Minh was never a nationalist, he worried about his own persona and legacy to Vietnam as much as the dictators of the world worried about their image. He was a communist because no regular government would have listened to his crazy mind using it as a mean to his end. Just like Hitler, he was nothing until some desperates listened to his so called charisma. When he lead the Communists in Vietnam, he was a much as fault for the 3 millions killed during the war. He, himself ordered executions of countless civilians as they refused to follow him. He forced thousands of Vietnamese to labor and camps in the North. From the North through the South of Vietnam, people were scared of the Communists, that's why the exodus of millions to the South in 1954 when the country was divided. And again in 1975, millions more left the country because the communists took over the rest of the country.
Do you really think the Vietnamese wanted Ho to lead the country? Would they submit themselves to tyranny and death camps so they can enjoy the lives of a communist? No! They fled everywhere Communists appear. Because in the Communists' eyes, anyone who is educated was a traitor, anyone who had different ideas than theirs, anyone who had religion, land, some kind of assets, some kind of beliefs, who hold traditional values was a traitor to their cause, and therefore they must be dealt with with torture and death to the whole family, as an example for others. Please refer to the movie "Killing Fields" as an illustration of what was going on with Cambodie and Vietnam. It was never on the media because journalists were never allowed on the other side of the fence, weren't they? The only thing you could see is just what Americans and the South Vietnamese were oppressing to the poor farmers. And how Jane Fonda made herslef useful to the NVA.
So please explain to me where Ho was a nationalist and a liberator?
Thirty years after the fall of Saigon, Vietnam still struggles with poverty, corruption and Communism where the rest of the world around Vietnam has taken off. Thanks to Ho and his communists, all the intellectuals of the country are either in jail or fled out of the country, and 95% out of the 80M Vietnamese is in poverty and earn less than $500 per year. And you can vote and have some kind of freedon only if you were to join the Communist Party. The rest of the people won't be allowed to voice their fears and frustations.

What kind of freedom and democracy is that?