The Spy Who Loved Us_ The Vietnam War and Pham Xuan An's Dangerous Game ( PDFDrive )

The Spy Who Loved Us 47
were anchored in the Saigon River at the foot of rue Catinat, the
main street in Saigon, which runs from the Catholic church
past the Continental Hotel and down a tree-lined promenade
to the waterfront. The military display included the USS Boxer,
an aircraft carrier moored off the coast that launched a formation
of war planes. The American pilots buzzed the student
demonstrators in Saigon. Although the First Indochina War
would continue for another four years, the United States was
already positioning itself to succeed France in Vietnam.
“It looked as if all of Saigon had joined the students in their
demonstration, as the funeral procession wound its way from
Pétrus Ky high school to Cho Ray hospital, to pick up the body
of Tran Van On and carry it to the cemetery,” An says. “The
crowd was even larger for the second demonstration in March.
All the elements of society joined, the workers, clerks, market
vendors; everyone poured into the streets.
“We were protesting the agreement signed by France and
the United States in 1950. The Americans would foot the bill
for the French Expeditionary Corps on two conditions. The
French had to establish a Vietnamese armed force. There had
to be a real Vietnamese army, not just Vietnamese troops serving
under French command. The French also had to set up a
real Vietnamese government. Not the kind of phony front they
were used to operating with, but a real government, with some
autonomous power of its own.
“The American policy of self-determination, saying that
each sovereign country should have its own democratic government,
is actually a messianic policy that America tries to
impose on the rest of the world. This is why the Americans
tried to create a country called South Vietnam, which was assembled
out of the former colonies of Cochin China and Annam.”
The United States, according to An, prefers to rule the world
through client governments that are nominally independent
but do Washington’s bidding. The French saw this system as
messy and cumbersome, if not dangerous, because Vietnamese