prised of the government-owned ships assigned to the Army and Navy for ocean transportation of personnel and material, together with the personnel, facilities, and equipment to support such operations. The command was not responsible for ships assigned to the Navy's combatant fleets or "those required by the individual services in harbors or inland waterways." MSTS was authorized to acquire additional merchant-type ships by permanent assignment or charter.35 Heavy demands would be placed on MSTS during the Korean and Vietnam wars.

By the latter part of 1949 the fall of Nationalist China was imminent. On 1 December, Admiral Sherman ordered that a carrier be permanently deployed to the Western Pacific. Boxer joined the Seventh Task Fleet on 29 January 1950, the first carrier to be so assigned since the summer of 1947. The task fleet was redesignated the Seventh Fleet on 11 February 1950. A few months later, this small fleet was desparately needed in an emergency effort to help stem Communist aggression in Korea, and to deter war between the mainland Chinese Communists and the Taiwan-based Nationalists.

These events and others on the worldwide scene had been imparting an increased sense of urgency to the question as to whether or not the United States should furnish military and economic aid to the French Union Forces in Indochina.

35

SECNAV, "Semi-annual Report," July-Dec. 1949,

pp. 176-77.

American Military Aid

Until 1950, the French, insofar as the United States was concerned, were on their own in the war against the Viet Minh. Repeatedly Francestruggling to recover from the effects of World War II and the German occupation, and beset with troubles elsewhere-had sought American arms, munitions, naval ships and craft, and other military equipment. Although support was provided to assist metropolitan France, the United States continued to withhold aid for the reestablishment of control over Indochina.

From the beginning of the Marxist revolutionary movement, one of its doctrines had been the exploitation of suitable "wars of national liberation," and one of its assumptions had been that conflicting objectives of "capitalist" nations would weaken their resistance to the movement. Events added substance to that assumption when, after World War II, two objectives complicated American policy toward Indochina. One objective, stemming from the principle of self-determination, was progress toward independence of the Indochinese peoples from colonial rule. The other, resulting both from this principle and from the cumulative threat of international communism, was maintenance of the area's freedom from Communist control. Both objectives were consistent, and conceivably could have been accommodated in a long-range plan of action. Balancing of the two objectives did, however, pose problems as to priorities, and was complicated by uncertain assessments of the Vietnam conflict. The result was indecision and ambiguity in the American position. As Secretary of State Acheson later evaluated the situation:

1

Both during this period [prior to 1950] and after it our conduct was criticized as being a muddled hodgepodge, directed neither toward edging the French out of an effort to re-establish their colonial role, which was beyond their power, nor helping them hard enough to accomplish it or, even better, to defeat Ho and gracefully withdraw. The description is accurate enough.1

Acheson, Present at the Creation, pp. 672-73.

On 8 January 1947, three weeks after the Viet Minh attacks which triggered the war, the State Department had notified the American Ambassador in Paris that the sale of arms and armaments to France would not be approved "in cases which appear to relate to Indochina." Yet, early the next month, the State Department said it wanted to avoid the appearance that the United States was in any way endeavoring to undermine the posiion of full recognition of French sovereignty, stating that the "French should know it is our desire to be helpful and we stand ready to assist [in] any appropriate way we can to find [a] solution for [the] Indochinese problem." No overall solution for the problem was suggested. On the one hand, expressing concern over "continued existence dangerously outmoded colonial outlook and methods in area," the United States urged France to be "more than generous in trying to find a solution." On the other hand, recognizing the association of Ho Chi Minh with the international Communist movement, the United States told France that "we are not interested in seeing colonial empire administrations supplanted by philosophy and political organizations emanating from and controlled by Kremlin. . .

2

From the earliest days of the war, the French had sought "more moderate" leaders than Ho. The key figure in the French plan was former Emperor Bao Dai, head of the short-lived government which the Japanese had established in the wake of their Indochina coup in March 1945. When Bao Dai abdicated under Viet Minh pressure in August 1945, he accepted an appointment as the Supreme Political Advisor to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. However, after departing for Hong Kong, where he resided for more than a year, Bao Dai took no active role in Indochinese affairs. Then, in January 1947, the French asked him to form a broadly based coalition of Vietnamese nationalists. Bao Dai demanded, as a precondition for his active leadership of Indochinese affairs, firm assurance of support for the longstanding goals of the Vietnamese nationalists for independence and unity. He reportedly told one French representative that he would demand as much or more of the French than Ho Chi Minh.3

Despite the expressed American desire for a non-Communist Vietnamese government, the French move did not receive Washington's unqualified

3

Quoted in U.S.-V.N. Relations. bk 1. p. 1. PP. A44-A46.

Msg, U.S. Ambassador France, of 22 Jan. 1947 in U.S., State Department, The Far East Vol. VI of Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947 (Washington: GPO, 1972), p. 66; Lancaster, Emancipation of French Indochina, pp. 175, 179; Hammer, Struggle for Indochina, pp. 207-08.

support. Some policy-makers viewed Ho Chi Minh as the only leader with broad-based backing in Vietnam and characterized Bao Dai as a potential French "puppet." One of the interesting consequences of this attitude arose in August 1947 when the Assistant Naval Attache in Thailand, Commander Alfred W. Gardes, Jr., proposed a good-will visit to Vietnam by United States naval units. Although the visit was endorsed by Charles S. Reed, the American Consul in Saigon, by Admiral Robert Battet, Commander in Chief French Naval Forces, Far East, and by the French High Commissioner, Émile Bollaert, officials in Washington vetoed the proposal. One concern was that such an operation might imply American endorsement of French support of Bao Dai.*

That same month Vietnamese nationalists, comprising a National Union Front, appealed to Bao Dai to return to Indochina for negotiations with the French. In October, as another pessimistic estimate of the viability of a Bao Dai government was issued by American diplomats, the former emperor gave a favorable response to the renewed appeal of Vietnamese leaders that he open negotiations with the French for a new government. Bao Dai specifically pledged that in his bargaining with France, "I want first of all to get independence and unity for you. . . . Then I shall exert the full weight of my authority to mediate in the conflict which has put you one against the other."

In December 1947, Bao Dai flew from Hong Kong to Along Bay for a conference with Bollaert in the cruiser Duguay-Trouin concerning the establishment of such a government. At the conclusion of the conference, both parties initialed a joint French-Vietnamese declaration recognizing Vietnam's right to independence. Yet, upon returning to Hong Kong, Bao Dai discovered that, while his advisors were in agreement about approving the declaration, they rejected the secret protocol which accompanied it. This protocol seriously restricted Vietnamese independence in diplomatic and military spheres.

The French continued their attempts to define a satisfactory relationship upon which to base a new government and meet American prerequisites

'Msgs, SECSTATE, of 13 May 1947 and U.S. Ambassador China, of 18 Oct. 1947, and memo, Assistant Chief, Division of Southeast Asian Affairs to Deputy Director, Office of Far Eastern Affairs, of 4 Aug. 1947 in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947, Vol. VI, pp. 95-97, 128-29, 143-44; NA Bangkok, report, R 123-47 of 28 Aug. 1947, JN 5694, box 6, FRC.

6

"Quoted in Hammer, Struggle for Indochina, pp. 210–11, 214.

Lancaster, Emancipation of French Indochina, pp. 181-85.

for aid. In May 1948, Bao Dai, although still refusing to return to Southeast Asia, concurred in the establishment of a provisional central government for Vietnam under Nguyen Van Xuan, who previously had served as Prime Minister of the Provisional Government of Cochin China. Xuan and Bao Dai met in Along Bay with French authorities on 5 June and formally approved a second agreement guaranteeing Vietnamese independence and unity, subject to continuing French authority in specified areas and to the approval of the French Assembly in Paris."

Indochina and the Cold War

In the debate as to whether the United States should furnish aid to the French in Southeast Asia, one of the questions continued to be the relationship of the Indochina struggle to the Cold War. Some American assessments, while indicating little doubt as to the Communist domination of the Viet Minh, raised questions as to Moscow's role. In July 1948, the State Department informed the Ambassador in China:

7

1. Depts info indicates that Ho Chi Minh is Communist. His long and well-known record in Comintern during twenties and thirties, continuous support by French Communist newspaper Humanite since 1945, praise given him by Radio Moscow (which for past six months has been devoting increasing attention to Indochina) and fact he has been called 'leading communist' by recent Russian publications as well as Daily Worker makes any other conclusion appear to be wishful thinking.

2. Dept has no evidence of direct link between Ho and Moscow but assumes it exists, nor is it able evaluate amount pressure or guidance Moscow exerting. We have impression Ho must be given or is retaining large degree latitude. Dept considers that USSR accomplishing its immediate aims in Indochina by (a) pinning down large numbers of French troops, (b) causing steady drain upon French economy thereby tending retard recovery and dissipate ECA [Economic Cooperation Administration] assistance to France, and (c) denying to world generally surpluses which Indochina normally has available thus perpetuating conditions of disorder and shortages which favorable to growth communism. Furthermore, Ho seems quite capable of retaining and even strengthening his grip on Indochina with no outside. assistance other than continuing procession of French puppet govts.

Hammer, Struggle for Indochina, pp. 215, 221, 224-25; Lancaster, Emancipation of French Indochina, pp. 186-88.

"Quoted in U.S.-V.N. Relations, bk 1, pt. 1, p. A49.