Word: ho
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Point in Arguing. Laniel's conditions were plainly too much to ask of Ho Chi Minh's far-from-beaten Viet Minh forces, and the French government knew it when it allowed Laniel to make them public. But they were a deliberate prelude to something else. "Up until 1953," said Laniel, "two tendencies clashed in French opinion. Some hoped for an end to the conflict by negotiation. Others believed that we might triumph by force of arms . . . Today, this controversy is ended. In fact, we are unanimous from here on in hoping to settle the war by negotiation...
...were these nationalists, who came from the jungles to take over all IndoChina when the Japanese surrendered? They represented all colors of the anti-white spectrum, but their dominant hue was Red. The Communist leader was a tuberculous agitator who learned his trade in Moscow. His name: Ho Chi Minh...
...March 1946, the French made a deal with Ho, who held the north firmly with Japanese arms and Nationalist China's support. They recognized Ho's government as a "free" state within the French Union, and Ho let the French army into his capital, Hanoi (pop. 237,000). The French invited Ho to Fontainebleau as a chief of state to work out details of the agreement. By November, Ho was back in Indo-China, offering to work "in loyal cooperation" with the French. But the French soon learned, as others have painfully since, that Communist "interpretations" always differed...
...different sort of deal, if Ho Chi Minh were to get a share in the government, he would soon have all of Indo-China. The U.S. cannot confidently urge free elections in Viet Nam as it did in Korea, for it is not certain whom the Vietnamese would choose if confronted with a choice between Ho and Chief of State...
...this is well understood by General Henri Navarre and his hardheaded lieutenants in the war theater. They hold that the best outcome of Geneva would be an agreement by Red China to stop supplying the Viet Minh. Then, they say, "Ho Chi Minh would wither on the vine, like the guerrilla leader Markos in Greece." But what price would the Moscow-Peking axis exact for such a boon? If the enemy offered it at all, the price would be high. To which Paris replies, hopefully, that they detect an "appetite for negotiations" and signs of inner tiredness among the Viet...