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

50 THOMAS A. BASS
It would be another three years before they attacked the French
again in open battle at Dien Bien Phu, a lonely fort in a mountainous
valley one hundred and eighty miles west of Hanoi.
On the first page of his journal Bobby described Ho Chi
Minh as “an old Communist agitator” who had no popular support
in Vietnam. The following day, after his first briefing, he
had changed his mind: “If poll taken today, at least 70% of
people throughout whole of Indo China would vote for Ho
Chi Minh merely because he fights the French. The populace
where fighting is taking place are all in favor of Ho Chi Minh.
Sometimes they will help the Viet Nam troops, but they attempt
to give the French troops wrong information, if they
give them any.”
The only Vietnamese the Kennedys interviewed was an unnamed
journalist who complained that Vietnam was overrun
by French colons. Bobby concurred. “Too many streets with
French names, too many French flags, too many French in
high places,” he wrote. The journalist told the Kennedys about
Vietnam’s long-standing hatred of the Chinese—the reason
why Ho Chi Minh would never bring Chinese troops into the
war. Unfortunately, this lesson had been forgotten by the time
John F. Kennedy became president of the United States in 1960.
The Kennedys were invited to dine, in evening dress, with
His Majesty Bao Dai, the former emperor whom the French had
brought back to run the State of Vietnam. “Had dinner with
President at his palace—armed guards with revolvers in full
view around the corridors,” wrote JFK. “After dinner a small
elephant was brought in [to the dining room] and spent some
time there.”
Two nights later, the Kennedys dined with General de Lattre
de Tassigny, who was particularly worried about the Red
River delta, home to seven and a half million Tonkinese, “good
fighters and workers,” de Lattre said, “the best people in
S.E. Asia.” De Lattre outlined an early version of the domino
theory. “If the Commies gain control [of the Red River delta]