Word: minh
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Indo-China the Communist Viet Minh forces were closing in on the key city of Hanoi. Top U.S. military men were resigned to the imminent fall of Hanoi, of the whole Red River delta and of all northern Indo-China. Any possibility of a U.S. effort to save the North had been abandoned. It was too late. At the Pentagon the discussion had turned to another kind of effort: how to evacuate the 300,000 non-Communist residents and troops in the area. This would require some 130 ships, would rival Dunkirk in its drama and scope...
...Much? They would get little support from the British, who made it plain they were prepared to hand over most of Viet Nam to the Communist Viet Minh. "How much of the country have they got now?" asked one British delegate, and answered his own question: "Ninety percent." The British were also unwilling to back up France's stand against Communist demands for partition of Laos. The Communists already control "most" of it, the British said...
...promised that the talkers would take no decision. At a special Saturday Cabinet meeting, Eden argued that he could solve the Indo-China problem-if he just had enough time. The only problem was what the British call "American impatience" and the advance of the Viet Minh in the Red River Delta. He did not mention that the "decisive" two-week period he had previously talked about had now passed indecisively...
...Dienbienphu had not led to hysterical demands for peace at any price, as the Communists had hoped. French pride was offended. French anger aroused. At the much feared debate on Indo-China, French Assemblymen had cried not for immediate surrender, but for more vigorous efforts to meet new Viet Minh attacks. The Cabinet itself reacted. It pledged itself to the defense of the whole Red River Delta. Marc Jacquet, an apostle of despair, was forced out. General Navarre was relieved, and General Paul Ely, France's Chief of Staff (see box), sent out to take full military and civilian...
...with the Vietnamese National Army, 100,000 with the French Union Army, 70,000 with the militia, plus 20,000 irregulars. These Vietnamese had fought well enough from time to time (e.g., Dienbienphu, Seno), but they were clearly no match for the regulars of the Red Viet Minh. Disillusioned by Dienbienphu and fearful that they would be sold out at Geneva, the Vietnamese were now losing outposts at the rate of three or four a day, especially in "quiet" South Viet Nam; they were losing 200 rifles a month in one province without a single engagement; their public support...