Vietnam A History Stanley Karnow

5 The Light That Failed

No Chi Mi"h and his 11l~f!" (ommand plamlitlg the battle of Dienbienphu in their
jun.f!Ie headquarters. At r((!IIt is Ge"eral Vo Nguyetl Giap, commander oflhe
Viet",;,,1, Jorces.

Bao Dai, cJlOSefl by the r
Frellc" to be the pflppet
emperor oj Vietnam, seen
here as a boy i1/ Paris,
where the Frmch sent him
to be educated. He lived
with a French fizmily and
acquired a partiwfar
afficrioll Jor Frellch girls.
He also [eamed to play
te1H1is.

Late ill 1949, Secretary of ....
State Achesoll (below, at
right) persuaded President r'-
Truman to earmark $15
million in aid to the
French Jorces itl
bldochitla. Over the next

Jour years, American
assistat'ICe Jor the French
war mOlH/ted to more tlla1l
S2 billioll.

Baa Dai abdicated jn
1945 and then fled to
Hong Kong, wllere he
was caricawred by Al
Hirschfeld, then 0" 0

world tOllr with S. J.

Perelman. To Perelmm"
tile ex-emperor was a
Hslippery-looking customer
ratlrer on tile pudgy side
a"d .freshly dipped i"
Crisco. "

Ce"era/jeal' de Lottre de
Tassigny, tile daslli"g
Frenclr commander it!
["dochi"a. A Callie
version of Get/eral
Douglas MacArthur, vai"
a"d brillimH, lie raised
FretlCh morale after
arriving ill 1950.

Ho Chi Minh gained a
major advantage when the
Communists cOflquered
China in 1949: he was
then able to obtain modem
weapons and other assis-
tance directly. Here he
eats with Chinese advisers
under portraits of himself
and Mao Zedong, the
Chinese leader.

The Vietminh forces were
meticulous in planning
battles. Here, using a
sand-table model, they
prepare an assault against
a village fortified by the
French and their Vietnam-
ese auxiliaries. Though
outgunned by the French,
the Vietminh had the ad-
vmllage of mobility.

The French commmJder in IndochifJa, Gmeral He'Jri Navarre {right}, with a deputy,
Major Gmeral Rene CogllY. Navarre's plan to pursue the Vietmi,lh forces in the
hinterland led him to deploy French units in the remote northeastem valley of
Die'lbienphu, near the border of Laos.

Colonel Christian de Cas-
triesJ French commander at
Dienbienphu1 was a ro-
mantic cavalry officer who
had be'" wounded and
decorated in World War
II; he also had a pile of
gambling debts and a list
of brokenhearted wom",.

With the Vietminh shelling them from the hazy hills in the distm,ce, the French forces
at Dienbienphu tried to survive itl trenches reminiscent oj World War I. But the
Vietminh gradually approached the French garrison by digging tu'mels.

.,.,.... , -~. A wOlmded Foreign
. -, LegiOfI lieutenant amid the
sondbags of a d"go"t at
Dienbietlplw. The Fretlch
were stumted that the
Vietminh had managed to
haul howitzers onto the
ridges overlookit'g the val-
ley mId were pOlmditJg its
airstrip and fortificatiolls.

Prime Minister Mendes-
France poses for photogra-
phers with 2ho" Enlai,
the Chinese foreign minis-
ter, "at Geneva in 1954.
The two mm had met se-
cretly beforehand and laid
the grout,dwork for a set-
tlement oj the war.

I . \.

I.

Captain James

McCovem, kllOWfl as
"Earthquake MeGoon, 11
was DllC oj two America115
killed at Dicllbiwphu. He

(/lid his copilot, Wallace
Hllfard, were shot down
by tllf~ Vietmi"h while
jlyillg SlIpplies to tlie
/:n:I1c1, i" IIfI1lUlrked U.S.
(nlt/sport platies .

Vietmit,h troops emeritlg
Hmloi ill October 1954 ,
followil/g the Frel/ch
evacuatioll. For many of
these soldiers, this was the
first time they had
pe"etrated an urban area
si"ce the war agaimt the
French broke OtlC "jlle
years earlier.

Presidem Eise,thower with
Secretary of State Dulles.
They regarded the Frel/ch
stand ill IlIdocJriua as vital
to the U.S. policy of
(fcontaillingJ) Commlmism
througllOtll the world) mId
they fillal/eed the war.