Tag Archives: History

Some American Opinion in Summer 2025.

Posted on by
Reply

            In late June 2025, 80 percent of Americans supported using vaccines to prevent diseases.  “Only” 20 percent opposed vaccines.[1]  Twenty percent still seems like a lot.  In September 2025, the figures remained essentially the same: 78 percent versus 22 percent.  In the September 2025 poll, the spectrum ranged from 93 percent of Democrats to 72 percent of Independents to 67 percent of Republicans.[2]  That’s a 26-point difference between Democrats and Republicans, so a yawning crevasse between the two major parties. 

On the one hand, the great majority of Americans approve of vaccines, regardless of party.  Arguably, RFK, Jr.’s crusade against vaccines is going to get him canned after the November 2026 mid-terms, if not before.  On the other hand, there’s a 21-point differences between Democrats and Independents as well as a 5-point difference between Independents and Republicans.  In short, Democrats ae near-unanimous on vaccines. Independents and Republics have a lot more unbelievers.  So, there’s the Democrats and there’s everyone else. 

            Since 2001 we’ve had the dot.com bubble, the housing bubble, the Perdue Pharma Oxycontin scandal, and the “China Shock.”   In 2021, 60 percent of Americans still had a favorable view of Capitalism.  Since then we’ve had the economic upheavals caused by Covid, AI, and a nasty bout of inflation.  Today only 54 percent view Capitalism favorably.[3]  That means that 46 percent disapprove of Capitalism or Don’t Know what they think. 

As with vaccines, there is a marked partisan divide.  Almost three-quarters (74 percent) of Republican have a favorable view of Capitalism, while only 42 percent of Democrats have a favorable view.  What’s the theoretical alternative to Capitalism?  Socialism!  Well, 57 percent of Americans disapprove of Socialism,[4] compared with 39 percent who take a favorable view. 

            Playing with the numbers a bit.  A little over half (54 percent) take a favorable view of Capitalism and almost the same share (57 percent) disapprove of Socialism. So, that’s one block.  It is largely Republican.  At the same time, 26 percent of Republicans either don’t approve of Capitalism (at least in its present form) or Don’t Know what they think.  How can you be a Republican and NOT approve of Capitalism?  Well, you could be a Republican for cultural issues that are more important to you than the economic system.  Say, on abortion or illegal immigration. 

In contrast, 42 percent of Democrats have a favorable view of Capitalism, while 58 percent have an unfavorable view or Don’t Know what they think.  It may be reasonable to conjecture that there is a big overlap between that 58 percent of Democrats who don’t have a favorable view of Capitalism and the 39 percent of Americans who have a favorable view of Socialism.  That leaves 19 percent who don’t approve of either Capitalism or Socialism. 

            It may mean that many Democrats and some Republicans favor a “reformed” Capitalism, rather than its present form.  That doesn’t mean that they support Socialism.  

            In any event, vaccines are more credible than is Capitalism.  You don’t see that much in the news.  Bound to be younger people who believe in Socialism.  The Future belongs to Them. 

[1] NBC News poll, reported in “Poll Watch,” The Week, 4-11 July 2025, p. 17. 

[2] NBC News poll reported in “Poll Watch,” The Week, 19 September 2025. 

[3] Gallup poll reported in “Poll Watch,” The Week, 19 September 2025, p. 17. 

[4] NO, that doesn’t mean that people who live in New York City aren’t Americans. 

The French War in Indochina, 1946 to 1954 Part 1B

Posted on by
Reply

The Backwater in a Global War. 

Developments in French Indochina depended on the course of the Second World War, in which the French colony played no important part.  In Summer 1940, Germany defeated France and drove the British off the Continent.  In this moment of crisis, the French Third Republic gave way to the “Vichy Regime.”  Germany held the whip hand over Vichy: the Germans occupied two-thirds of the country (and eventually all of it); retained hundreds of thousands of French P.O.W.’s; and ruthlessly exploited the French economy.  At home, Vichy pursued a “National Revolution,” while simultaneously trying to defend its overseas empire.  The latter proved to be difficult.  Dissident and colonial nationalists sought to engage the “Anglo-Saxons.”  Eventually, French possessions in the Levant, the South Pacific, and Africa all fell under the control of anti-Vichy forces. 

A variety of this larger pattern arose in French Indochina.  There, the colonial administration declared for Vichy.  Almost immediately, predators gathered.  In this case, it was Japan.  Japan had been at war in China since 1937.  As the Japanese campaign had bogged down short of a Chinese surrender, Japan had sought to cut off the sources of external aid to China.  These ran through British-ruled Burma and French-ruled Indochina.  The rise of German power in Europe came to pre-occupy British and French leaders.  Painfully aware of their own weaknesses, Britain and France increasingly sought to accommodate Japan in the Far East. 

Only meager French forces defended the colony.  The “Colonial Army” consisted of French soldiers of the all-volunteer force (sometimes called “Marines”) and regiments of indigenous troops under French officers.  In addition, there were three battalions of the Foreign Legion.  The regiments of indigenous troops—“Tirailleurs”–numbered about 48,000 men, the French and Legion troops numbered about 17,000 men.  Neither supplies nor new recruits reached Indochina after France’s defeat in 1940.  French air forces in Indochina totaled only about 100 planes, many of them obsolete.  The French Navy ships in Indochina consisted of a light cruiser and at least four corvettes. 

In July 1940, Governor Admiral Jean Decoux signed an agreement with Japan under duress.  It allowed Japan to station forces in Indochina and to transit through the territory for other operations.  Then Japan exploited France’s subordination to Japan’s ally Germany to extract more substantial concessions.  In September 1940, Japanese troops marched into the northern territory of Tonkin; less than a year later, in July 1941, they moved into southern Indochina.  Just as Vichy served as Germany’s puppet in the metropole, so did the French colonial administration serve as a Japanese puppet in Indochina.  Thereafter, French troops still manned the defenses; French bureaucrats still handled the pettifoggery; French businessmen and planters still managed the economy.  All was done under the suspicious gaze of the Japanese.[1] 

Already in control of much of China, from late 1941 to mid-1942, Japan’s military over-ran a vast swath of territory belonging to the Western powers.  British Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, the American Philippines, and a host of islands to the south and east all passed under Japanese rule.  French Indochina lay isolated at the center of the Japanese empire.  Then the tide of Japanese victory began to ebb, as did that if its ally Germany.  By Summer 1944, the final outcome of the war seemed as certain as can be in anything so risky and surprising as war.  The Anglo-Americans liberated France and joined the Soviet Union in the direct assault on Germany.  A long string of American victories in the Pacific had destroyed Japanese naval power and brought American bombers within range of the Home Islands. 

A footnote to these great events appeared in the effort by the government of liberated France to assert its control over French Indochina.  In 1940, Winston Churchill had ordered the creation of a new organization to assist anti-German resistance movements in Europe.  This “Special Operations Executive” (S.O.E.) then added a Far Eastern element (Force 136) to work against the Japanese.  In later 1944 and 1945, Force 136 airdropped 40 French “Jedburghs”[2] into northern Indochina.  These men had exciting adventures, but made little difference on the ground. 

More importantly, Governor Admiral Decoux grew restive under Japanese control as Japan’s own doom drew near.  He made contact with the new government in France; he began to prepare an uprising against the Japanese; and he refused to turn over to the Japanese American Navy fliers downed during a carrier raid in the South China Sea. 

The carrier raid into the South China Sea alarmed the already-edgy local Japanese commander.[3]  He feared an imminent American invasion of Indochina and had some knowledge of Decoux’s preparation for a French uprising.  The Japanese Army began moving troops from surrounding areas into Indochina, almost doubling the size of the occupation force by the end of February 1945.  They spread out to key positions around the country.  On 9 March 1945, after obtaining permission from the government in Tokyo, Japanese troops in Indochina swarmed over the French garrisons around the colony.  The French fought in a number of places, but all resistance had ended by mid-March 1945.  As often had been the case during the Japanese offensive wave of 1941-1942, victories were accompanied by massacres of their defeated opponents. 

            The Vietnam Famine of 1944-1945.[4] 

            The global war weighed heavily upon political events in Indochina.  The same can be said of other, non-political events.  So, too, did other larger forces. 

            Coastal Vietnam had long suffered from droughts, floods, and typhoons.  All of these threatened the food supply.  Before the French arrived, the government had created rice storehouses.  French construction of a north-south coastal railroad drew part of its motivation from the desire to move food from the Mekong in the south to the central coast and mountains.  The French also built substantial flood control and irrigation infrastructure.  During the Depression of the 1930s, the French colonial administration had encouraged the cultivation of cash crops.  This did not seriously harm food production. 

The war seriously disrupted the rice market.  For one thing, the French government had imposed a mandatory government purchasing system which fixed a price paid to producers for the rice.[5]  The producer price remained fixed, while the sale price of rice on the market soared.  Ordinary peasants could not purchase enough rice to feed their families or plant for the next season.[6]  For another thing, the Japanese Army fed itself off local food production.  The presence of an eventual total of 140,000 Japanese troops meant that there were many more mouths to feed.  Moreover, the Japanese had the determination and the means to see that their troops got adequately fed, regardless of who else did not.  The food supply available for civilians shrank, while the market price rose.  Military factors compounded the difficulties.  The Japanese commandeered all sea vessels of more than 30 tons displacement.  Off and on, American planes attacked coastal shipping and the north-south railroad.  These attacks further disrupted the shipment of food to the hardest-hit areas.  Famine became widespread in the north during 1945. 

            The “Empire of Vietnam.” 

            A knock-on effect of the Japanese coup against the French came in the creation of a new “puppet state,” this one led by Vietnamese.  It marked the first play of the nationalist card as a device to maintain outside control.  It would not be the last. 

On 11 March 1945, two days after the Japanese “coup” began, the Emperor Bao Dai read a speech prepared for him by a minor[7] Japanese official.  He declared independence for the “Empire of Vietnam,” with himself as the head of state.  Two chief tasks preoccupied the emperor for the next six months.  First, the political structures of the new nation had to be created.  Second, Tonkin and Annam remained administratively separate from Cochinchina.  His government pursued national unification. 

As a first order of business, Bao Dai appointed Tran Trong Kim as his prime minister.[8]  Tran, in turn, began assembling a cabinet.  It would be considered a cabinet of “technical experts,” rather than a collection of representatives of any particular political outlook.[9] 

The work of the brief Tran Trong Kim government reminds one of the “Professors’ Parliament” of Germany during the Revolution of 1848-1849.  At the same time, they had no knowledge of future external events that would shape political developments.  For them, the cliché “the fog of war” was very real.  All the war news brought ill-tidings for Japan.  Who could tell when the roof would fall in?  On the other hand, France had been wrecked by the war and the Vietnamese had seen the French in Indochina humbled.  Real independence might well be within reach, particularly if it had the support of the Americans and the Nationalist Chinese.  What was worth doing that might set the stage for future developments?  The emperor, his prime minister, and the cabinet spent several months figuring out what to try to do in the very uncertain conditions. 

By the second half of June 1945, they were ready to take the next steps.  The Emperor created four committees: a “National Consultative Committee”; a committee on a constitution; a committee on basic administrative systems (administrative reform, legislation, and finance); and a committee on education.  They also worked on fostering a sense of national identity.  They designed a flag and  they renamed the country’s regions.  The set up a committee to pick national heroes for inclusion in a “Temple of Martyrs,” city streets were renamed from the French colonial names.  In some places French statues were torn down to remove a reminder of French triumphalism over the indigenous population. 

The Justice Minister amnestied some of the political prisoners held by the French.  They proclaimed freedom of the press.  A tide of anti-French publications flowed in.  Later, the criticism would turn against the emperor’s government.  The government, made up of middle-aged men, sought to mobilize “Youth” for the national cause.  Physical training and small-group organization presaged the formation of military units.  Sometimes “Youth” had other ideas.  Very soon the university at Hanoi became a hotbed of political activism. 

The second axis of effort for the “Empire of Vietnam” lay in creating territorial unity.  The French had established a “colony” in Cochinchina in the far south; then had established “protectorates” over Annam in the center and Tonkin in the north.  When the Japanese had prompted the declaration of independence by the “Empire of Vietnam” in March 1945, they had allowed Bao Dai authority over only Tonkin and Annam.  Cochinchina, far closer to the approaching enemy, remained under direct Japanese control.   Bao Dai insisted that the Japanese engage in negotiations to complete the unification of the country. 

In May and June 1945, Bao Dai’s Foreign Minister Tran Van Chuong eroded the Japanese resistance.  Eventually, in July, the Japanese yielded.  They agreed to begin the process of uniting Cochinchina with Annam and Tonkin.  Under normal conditions, this would have been a substantial victory for Indochinese nationalism.  Conditions weren’t normal. 

Most importantly, the famine entered its most severe stage in late 1944 and continued to wreak havoc through mid-1945.  Committees, flags, and formalities of diplomacy disappeared in significance when people could see the streets littered with emaciated corpses.  The inability of the “Empire of Vietnam” to respond effectively undermined its legitimacy in the eyes of many Vietnamese. 

This is not to say that the government stood around with its hands in its pockets.  However, the government’s response was confused.  The government liberalized the regulations on the rice trade to encourage entrepreneurs to buy and transport rice and the Minister of Supply was ordered to Saigon to co-ordinate famine aid.  It also worked against liberalization by imposing new controls on prices and stockpiles and it created a “Northern Economic Intelligence Service” to crack-down on smuggling.  The crux of the matter lay in the fall off in the rice harvest combined with the Japanese primacy in feeding their troops.  Eventually, the crisis eased, but not from government efforts.  Good harvests returned in May and June 1945, and—as a result of the famine–there being many fewer mouths left to feed.  Estimates vary between half a million and two million deaths during the famine.  Fairly or unfairly, the “Empire of Vietnam” bore much of the blame in the eyes of ordinary people. 

The “Empire of Vietnam” held no monopoly on organizing for the future.  When the Japanese overthrew French rule, the Viet Minh took action.  Hanoi and the port of Haiphong in the north, Saigon in the south, and Hue in the center formed the essential Japanese goals.  Japanese forces had little presence in the countryside beyond guarding lines of supply.  Beyond that, they wanted things quiet at a low cost to themselves.  They expected the “Empire of Vietnam” to maintain orderly government that did not interfere with Japanese activities.  For the Viet Minh, opportunity knocked. 

In a meeting in Hanoi in the third week of April 1945, the Viet Min’s Tonkin Revolutionary Military Conference struck a militant nationalist pose that set it apart from the cautious gradualism of the “Empire of Vietnam.”  They made a rhetorical call for resistance—an uprising, guerrilla war–against the Japanese. 

The Viet Minh had no real military force to speak of.  Much attention has focused on the group of soldiers from the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) who parachuted into northern Vietnam on 16 and 29 July 1945.  The set about creating a training program for Viet Minh recruits.  They also provided the weapons for several hundred Viet Minh soldiers.  However, they only remained in Vietnam until the end of August.  In all likelihood, much more help came from several hundred Japanese soldiers, either prisoners or deserters from the Japanese Army, who served with and advised the Viet Minh.  In any event, the Viet Minh didn’t do much fighting against the Japanese.  They didn’t have the forces for it. 

The real focus of their efforts lay toward the future.  They called for independence from France.  They denounced the “Empire of Vietnam” as a Japanese puppet.  They created seven military districts.  The countryside lay open before them.  Faced with famine, the Viet Minh led peasants in the seizure and distribution of the contents of 75-100 warehouses full of rice.  They intimidated tax collectors.  None of this did much to ease the famine, but it was dramatic and visible.  In contrast, the actions of the government were bureaucratic and veiled.  Many a peasant must have said “At least the Viet Minh did something!”  Peasant recruits began to come in.[10]  Like Bao Dai’s government, the Viet Minh wanted to lay the foundation for action in the near future. 

[1] The Japanese left it to the French to stamp out local revolt (Cochinchina, November-December 1940).   

[2] There are several academic books on the ”Jeds,” but you’re best served by consulting David Hogan, U.S. Army Special Operations in World War II (Center for Military History, 1992).  See: Wayback Machine 

[3] On the raid, see: South China Sea raid – Wikipedia 

[4] Geoffrey Gunn, Rice Wars in Colonial Vietnam: The Great Famine and the Viet Minh Road to Power (Rowman and Littlefield, 2014) is deeply researched. 

[5] This was an extension of the wartime farm price purchasing system adopted in metropolitan France.  There it led to an extensive black market. 

[6] The government price for 1943 was 1.4 piastres/10 kilograms.  The market price rose to 6-7 piastres in mid-1944.  During the height of the famine in 1945, the market price rose to 60-70 piastres/10 kilograms. 

[7] Minor in the scheme-of-things.  I’m sure that Yokoyama Seiko, the Minister of Economic Affairs at the Japanese diplomatic mission, gloried in his elevated position. 

[8] On Tran, see: Tran Trong Kim – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 

[9] The article on Tran, Tran Trong Kim – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, lists the cabinet members with links to the biographies in the Vietnamese Wikipedia. 

[10] There is another aspect to the famine that is worth exploring.  What social and psychological effects did the famine have on the worst-hit area? The famine was concentrated in the north.  This area became the base of the Viet Minh.  Doubtless, much of this depended upon proximity to China.  The Chinese Communist Party could offer some support and shelter to Indochinese Communists.  Covert travel to Annam and Cochinchina would be much more difficult.  Still, the failings of the Bao Dai government’s response would have been stark in the north, less so in the south.  Moreover, all the deaths would have torn apart families and villages.  Networks of social and intergenerational support—and obligation or duty—would have broken down.  Parents, wives, siblings, children would have died.  Perhaps many young men lost all the ‘hostages to fortune” that held them in place in their village.  Why not go to the forests and find a Cause for which they could fight?   From starvation to depression: unveiling the link between the great famine and late-life depression – PMC 

The First Indochina War, 1946-1954. Part 1C

Posted on by
Reply

            Introduction. 

            The First Indochina War (1946-1954) sprang from the collision between Indochinese desires and French whim.  On the one hand, there existed a long-standing and deeply-rooted desire among the people of Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia) for independence from French rule.[1]  Many elements divided the people of Indochina about what to put in place of French rule.  They disagreed about whether to seek complete independence or membership in a “French Union”; whether to fight or to negotiate; whether to create a Communist or a non-Communist state.  These questions had not been resolved in 1945 and would not be resolved for many years. 

On the other hand, the French emerged from the Second World War humiliated and confused about what the future held for their country.  They clung to empire as a way to not be shoved further downhill, while also fumbling toward a new and different France.[2] 

The war began in a haphazard and improvised kind of way.  As the Second World War drew to a sudden end in Summer 1945, the British, Americans, and Soviets had agreed that France was to be restored to power in Indochina.  It would be hard to do.  Japanese troops occupied Indochina.  The Japanese had replaced the French colonial system with several puppet-states.  The most important of these was the “Empire of Vietnam” led by the compliant Emperor Bao Dai.  The French military had been disarmed.  Indochinese nationalist groups of various stripes had been tolerated.  It would take time for the French to get even modest forces to Indochina.  In the meantime, foreigners—China and Britain–had to assume responsibility for the immediate occupation of French Indochina.  Neither country wanted to be embroiled there for long.  Each had their own attitudes toward European empires.  The realities opened a window of opportunity for the nationalists.  Blood soon flowed.  

Potsdam. 

In July-August 1945, the British, American, and Soviet leaders met in Potsdam, Germany to confer on important post-war matters.[3]  The fate of French Indochina did not rise to the level of an “important” matter.  However, the Anglo-American Combined Chiefs of Staff did devote some attention to the question.  The French had offered to send two army Divisions to the Far East.  The Chiefs agreed to accept this offer.  It would take some time to move the troops to Asia.  If the war were to end before their arrival, the Combined Chiefs agreed that troops from the Army of Kuomintang China would move in to accept the Japanese surrender north of the 16th Parallel, while troops from the British-led Southeast Asia command would do the same south of the 16th parallel.[4] 

            From Plans to Action, August 1945. 

On 6 August 1945, the Americans atom-bombed Hiroshima; on 8 August, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and immediately invaded Manchuria; and on 9 August the Americans atom-bombed Nagasaki.  On 15 August 1945, Japan’s resistance ended with the Emperor Hirohito’s announcement of Japan’s surrender.  American troops began arriving in Japan on 28 August.  The formal surrender took place on 2 September 1945. 

Japan’s “surprise surrender” ended the war, but it caught the Allies before they had all of their preparations for Indochina completed.[5]  While they hastened to launch their occupation of the two zones, local actors took matters into their own hands.  Among them was Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Communist-dominated Viet Minh.[6] 

In early August 1945, only a tiny handful of people in the United States and Britain knew the technology of the “atom bomb” and hundreds of thousands of Japanese knew the reality of it.  Most people remained in the dark.  They did know that something terrible had been done to the Japanese.  That, combined with the Soviet entry into the war, was driving Japan toward surrender.  In southeast Asia, the end of the war would come within a few days or a few weeks. 

Ho Chi Minh meant to make the most of the ending of Japanese command in Indochina before the French could return to power.  Even before Japan had announced its surrender (and probably before he knew anything of the decisions taken at the Potsdam Conference, Ho had begun preparations to seize power in as much of Indochina as possible.  Here he built upon the steps taken in response to the Japanese occupation of March to August 1945. 

As a first step, Ho sought to rally all the Indochinese nationalist groups under a single banner.  On 13 August 1945, representatives of several groups joined the Viet Minh at Ho’s headquarters in Tan Trao, in the mountains north of Hanoi.  They had a busy few days: on 14 August 1945, they created a “National Insurrection Committee” dominated by the Viet Minh; over the next few days they called for a national uprising, convened a “National People’s Congress,” and created a “National Liberation Committee” with Ho as its chairman.  Realizing (or at least suspecting) that foreign power might assist the French in re-establishing their power. Ho argued for rapid action.  He wanted to both seize urban centers of power and to mobilize the peasantry. 

Ho and the others had to maneuver around certain realities.  First, there remained a large French population in the major cities.  The French in Indochina had been abandoned by Vichy France.  Their army had been soundly defeated by the Japanese, who had taken over the administration of the country.  The Japanese had created an Indochinese puppet regime under Bao Dai, but had tolerated some activity by other nationalist groups.  Humiliated and enraged by their wartime experiences, the local French would welcome the return of French troops and French power with open arms.  They were spoiling for a fight to watch. 

Second, the Japanese Army remained a potent military force if they cared to use it and for some limited time to come.  The Japanese forces were, like the French, defeated, humiliated, demoralized, and eager to go home.  They were not necessarily anti-Viet Minh, so they might be a help to the Viet Minh.  They were to be disarmed.  Could the Viet Minh get possession of some of their weapons in order to arm themselves?  At the same time, the Japanese were a powerful irritant of Indochinese nationalism.  At least limited conflict with the Japanese could bolster the Viet Minh’s nationalist credentials. 

Third, the Viet Minh was much stronger in Tonkin in the north than in Cochinchina in the south.  In the south, a complex mix of royalists and religion-based groups rivaled the Viet Minh for leadership of the nationalist cause.[7]  They had, so far, resisted all the Viet Minh’s blandishments.  They were far away from the Viet Minh’s base of power.  Ho didn’t want a civil war if it could be avoided.  The Viet Minh might lose. 

Ho opted to roll the dice.  The Viet Minh went into action all across Tonkin and wherever they could manage in Annam and Cochinchina.  What followed came to be called the “August Revolution.”  On 19 August 1945, Viet Minh troops marched into Hanoi, seizing key sites.  Other Viet Minh troops seized other places around Tonkin.  On 20 August, at Thai Nguyen, north of Hanoi, they got into a fight with Japanese troops.  Thai Nguyen had a fort built by the French and now garrisoned by the Japanese.  The Viet Minh were too lightly armed to make headway against the fortifications or its well-armed defenders.  At the same time, no one on the Japanese side wanted to be the last man killed in a lost war.  After five days of desultory skirmishing, the two sides reached an agreement.  The Japanese would confine themselves to the fort and the Viet Minh would take control of the rest of the town.  The Viet Minh publicized this as a Japanese “surrender” and a Viet Minh “victory.” 

Elsewhere, the Viet Minh appeared to have the wind at their back.  On 22 August, in Saigon, the Japanese commander told two representatives of the Viet Minh that Japanese forces would not interfere with their actions.  On 23 August, in the old imperial capital of Hue, the Viet Minh seized power.  On 25 August, Bao Dai abdicated, transferring power to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.  He became a “counselor” to Ho.  That is, he was a captive and a puppet. 

Viet Minh leadership had the least sure grip in Cochinchina.  There, multiple anti-communist nationalist groups had deeper roots and more support.  These included two religious movements with political objectives, the Hoa Hao and the Cao Dai.[8]  Although the Viet Minh had claimed power in Hanoi, it wasn’t clear that they could hold onto it. 

On 2 September 1945, Ho Chi Minh proclaimed a new “Democratic Republic of Vietnam” and declared independence from France.  This first-draft of the DRV would soon be scribbled-out by more powerful forces.  However, it showed Ho’s speed of action when he saw an opportunity.  The future would give evidence for his tenacity. 

[1] David Marr, Vietnamese Anticolonialism, 1885–1925. (University of California Press, 1971); William Duiker, The Rise of Nationalism in Vietnam, 1900-1941 (Cornell University Press, 1976). 

[2] Jean-Pierre Rioux, The Fourth Republic, 1944-1958 (Cambridge University Press, 1989). 

[3] Herbert Feis, Between War and Peace: The Potsdam Conference (Princeton University Press, 1960); Wilson D. Miscamble, From Roosevelt to Truman: Potsdam, Hiroshima, and the Cold War (Cambridge University Press, 2007).  On Feis, see: Herbert Feis – Wikipedia 

[4] See: Historical Documents – Office of the Historian; Historical Documents – Office of the Historian; Historical Documents – Office of the Historian; Historical Documents – Office of the Historian.     

[5] Ronald H. Spector, In the Ruins of Empire: The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia (Random House, 2007), pp. 73-137, provides a first-rate scholarly analysis of events in Southeast Asia and particularly of French Indochina.   

[6] Biographies of Ho include Jean Lacouture, Ho Chi Minh: A Political Biography (Random House, 1968); William J. Duiker, Ho Chi Minh: A Life (Hyperion, 2001); and Pierre Brocheux, Ho Chi Minh: A Biography (Cambridge University Press, 2007). 

[7] A small group of Trotskyists also existed chiefly in the south.  There could be no serious bargaining with these people.  They would have to be killed. 

[8] On these groups, see: Bernard Fall, “The Political-Religious Sects of Viet-Nam,” Pacific Affairs, v. 28, #3 (September 1955), pp. 235-253; David W. P. Elliott, The Vietnamese War: revolution and social change in the Mekong Delta, 1930-1975 (M.E. Sharpe, 2003). 

Further Thoughts on the Alien Enemies Act.

Posted on by
Reply

            The Alien Enemies Act is constitutional.  The Supreme Court found it so in a 1948 case when it endorsed the order of a lower court that a German-American Nazi had to leave the country.  Trump’s use of the law to justify deportations seems illegitimate.  Still, the commentary on it seems equally revealing. 

            “It’s an 18th century law…”[1]  “We cannot allow antiquated laws to continue enabling discriminatory practices.”[2]  Well, both the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are creations of the 18th Century.  Marbury v. Madison and the Emancipation Proclamation are products of the 19th Century.  So, age is no issue if you like the results, but it is an issue if you don’t like them?    This argument is a flight from honest thought. 

            “No one has tried to argue that that invasion or predatory incursion language could be used in any context other than a conventional war.”[3]  Except that is just what Trump has argued, backed by his Department of Justice.  The Supreme Court has neither rejected nor affirmed Trump’s argument.[4]  Does the author mean to say that the argument is illegitimate because it is not hallowed by time?  This is the opposite of the previous argument.  Furthermore, Plessy v. Ferguson stood as “settled law” for almost a century.  So, hallowed by time. 

            “Historian Joseph Ellis called support for the Alien Enemies Act “unquestionably the biggest blunder” of Adams’ presidency.”[5]  So, an expert attacks the law as wrong right from the beginning.  We defer (or should defer) to expert opinion on the efficacy of vaccines.  Therefore, we should defer to expert opinion on the foolishness of a law passed in the many days ago?  JMO, but Adams’ “biggest blunder” was his support for the Sedition Act, which led to the prosecution of a number of Democratic-Republican journalists.  The Sedition Act was hard to pass because it raised so many doubts even among Federalists.  The application of the Act against political rivals aroused opposition to the Federalists.  John Adams became the first one-term president as a result.  It was repealed after the election of Thomas Jefferson in 1800.  In contrast, Presidents running declared wars against foreign powers have found it a useful tool.  During the Biden administration, bills to repeal the act were introduced in Congress in 2021 and 2023.  Neither bill made it out of committee.[6]  In both cases, the Democrats held the majority in the relevant chamber.  Some Democrats saw utility in keeping the Act.  Is this a case of a respected expert bending his analysis to oppose Trump? 

            That leaves the question of whether Trump’s use of the law in these circumstances is constitutional.  Currently, “the Supreme Court has limited the deportations without ruling on whether Trump may invoke the act.”[7]  So Trump’s actions may yet turn out to be constitutional.    

In the 1948 case, four Justices dissented, arguing that “Due process does not perish when war comes.”[8]  This is a complicated issue, but the one to fight on.  The rest is anti-Trump fluff. 

[1] “The Alien Enemies Act,” The Week, 9 May 2025, p. 11. 

[2] Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota), quoted in “A push for repeal,” The Week, 9 May 2025, p. 11. 

[3] Georgetown law professor Steve Vladeck, quoted in “The Alien Enemies Act,” The Week, 9 May 2025, p. 11. 

[4] “Supreme Court allows deportations to El Salvador,” The Week, 18 April 2025, p. 5.

[5] Ellis quoted in “The Alien Enemies Act,” The Week, 9 May 2025, p. 11. 

[6] “A push for repeal,” The Week, 9 May 2025, p. 11. 

[7] “The Alien Enemies Act,” The Week, 9 May 2025, p. 11. 

[8] Quoted in “The Alien Enemies Act,” The Week, 9 May 2025, p. 11. 

The Alien Enemies Act. Or, the Aliens Are Enemies Act.

Posted on by
Reply

            As the result of historical experience during the French and Indian Wars, Anglo-Americans regarded France as the enemy and Britain as their benevolent parent-country.  Then the British and their American colonists fell out.  War followed.  During the Revolutionary War, the self-proclaimed United States signed an alliance with the French monarchy.  France loaned money to the Americans and declared war on Britain.  France also sent military forces to America.  The Franco-American alliance remained in effect after the war.  Then the French Revolution broke out, France overthrew the monarchy and declared itself a Republic, and declared war (1792) on everyone except the Man in the Moon and the Americans. 

            Americans divided sharply on how to deal with France.  Many people (often Federalists) hated the French version of revolution.  Many other people (mostly Democratic-Republicans) sympathized, at the least, with the aims of the French revolutionaries.  The issue became a partisan matter.  Congress seized the opportunity to repudiate repayment of the French war loans because they were onerous (1793).  Congress then ratified the “Jay Treaty” which settled disputes between the United States and Britain (1794).  France responded by allowing French “privateers” to seize a lot of American merchant ships in the Atlantic and the Caribbean.  Trying to fend off a war, the Americans sent a delegation to negotiate with France (1797-1798).  This ended badly and a “Quasi-War” at sea broke out (1798-1801).[1] 

            President John Adams and the Federalist majorities in Congress passed a package of four “Alien and Sedition Laws” (1798).  Formally, Adams feared that the French would try to spread their revolutionary ideology to the United States.  Informally, the Federalists had come to see the Democratic-Republicans as inclined toward the same policies as the French.  So, stomp on them. 

            The “Alien Friends Act” allowed the President to deport anyone considered to be “dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States.”  The law sun-setted after two years, and the government didn’t make much of an effort to enforce it anyway. 

            The “Naturalization Act” extended the residence requirement before obtaining citizenship from 5 years to 14 years.  Lots of/most immigrants voted Democratic-Republicans once they got the right to vote.  The law was repealed in 1802. 

            The “Sedition Act” criminalized saying mean things about Federalists in government.  A whole bunch of Democratic-Republican writers for the media of the day were prosecuted.  (My personal favorite is Jame Callender.)  The law expired in 1801. 

            The “Alien Enemies Act” granted the President the authority to arrest, imprison, or deport any non-citizen during a time when the United States was at war with, either formally or informally, a foreign country from which that non-citizen originated.[2]  The informal part gave the president the right to act in something like the undeclared “Quasi-War” or if an attack occurred when Congress could not be consulted immediately.  The Act has never been repealed.  The Act has been used in the War of 1812, the First World War, and the Second World War. 

            So, can an old law be re-interpreted for new purposes?  If so, who can re-interpret it? 

[1] XYZ Affair – Wikipedia (sort of a “Town Mouse and Country Mouse” affair) and Quasi-War – Wikipedia 

[2] OK, that’s a long and clotted sentence.  The point is, the United States is not now at war with or suffering a “predatory incursion” ordered by a foreign country.  People free-lancing a “predatory incursion” isn’t covered by the language of the law.  Ipso fatso, President Trump doesn’t have a leg to stand on. 

War Movies: “Anthropoid” (2016).

Posted on by
Reply

If you want a look at a true case of “state-sponsored terrorism” and at one approach to counter-terrorism, watch “Anthropoid” (dir. Sean Ellis, 2016).  It gives a compelling view of the May 1942 assassination of Reinhard Heydrich (the head of the Reich Main Security Office and also “Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia”[1]) and of what followed. 

In the movie, the motive for the assassination is the desire on the part of the Czech government-in-exile to inspire more resistance in the Nazi-occupied country.  The team of killers (Josef Gabcik, Jan Kubis[2]) is air-dropped at night; overcome difficulties to reach Prague; find that the Germans have wrecked the resistance movement and they must rely upon a small group of locals; eventually, they are joined by some other parachutists who had been dropped later; and they improvise an attack on Heydrich.  The German is mortally wounded; a gigantic manhunt begins; the Germans track the parachutists to a Prague church; and one hell of a gunfight ensues.  The few surviving parachutists kill themselves rather than be taken alive. 

The movie strives for realism: it was filmed in Prague and mostly on the sites where events occurred; the pervasive fear of the Germans among the Czechs is brought out, not minimized; the semi-botched assassination is clearly portrayed; and the ferocious Nazi manhunt should leave anyone squirming. 

Still, the movie simplifies or omits some things.  First, it begins with Gabcik and Kubis on the ground in a Czech forest.  The movie elides the origins of “Operation Anthropoid.”  In fact, Eduard Benes, the leader of the Czech government-in-exile, feared that the West would sell out his country after the war if the Czechs didn’t show some fight.  The British and French had surrendered the Sudetenland to Hitler at Munich (September 1938) and had shrugged their shoulders when Germany occupied the rest of the country (March 1939).  Several thousand Czech soldiers had found their way to the West before the Second World War began (September 1939), but this wasn’t much of a contribution.  Internal resistance had mostly been the work of the Czech Communist Party after Germany attacked the Soviet Union (June 1941).  If the Germans lost the war, the Communists might claim a moral right to rule as the only true “resisters.”   A dramatic act might arouse non-Communist resistance, but it would surely make the government-in-exile appear to be doing something.  So, kill Heydrich now for a distant gain.    

Second, Heydrich had crushed the resistance by a combination of carrot and stick.  He had good material.  Few Czechs wanted to run risks for the sake of the Western powers that had betrayed them before.  Wages and working conditions in factories were improved at the same time that Gestapo penetration agents combatted the Communist underground. 

Third, the Germans unleashed a savage response to the attack on Heydrich.  Mass arrests; right to torture in the pursuit of some clue; massacres of villages on the mere rumor that someone had sheltered the killers.  In a society where few people actually backed resistance, this worked.  Finally, one of the parachutists betrayed someone else to save his own family; and the betrayed finally gave up the hiding place of the other parachutists. 

“The Battle of Algiers” openly confronts truths that “Anthropoid” skims over. 

[1] Also the driving force behind the implementation of the Holocaust.  On this, see: “Conspiracy” (dir. Frank Pierson, 2001), with Kenneth Branagh as Heydrich and Stanley Tucci as Adolf Eichmann. 

[2] Played by Cillian Murphy and Jamie Dornan respectively. 

An Episode of Appeasement: The Anglo-German Naval Pact, June 1935 4.

Posted on by
Reply

            Having decided to accept the German proposal for talks on a naval agreement, the government spent the next few months quietly setting the stage.  First, in January 1935, the Foreign Secretary, Sir John Simon, informed King George V that an agreement might help get Germany back into “the comity of nations.”  In February 1935, Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald met with the then very anti-German French Prime Minister Pierre Laval.  The “communique” afterward expressed their hope that talks with Germany would lead to enhanced security in Europe.  In late March 1935, Simon had a preliminary meeting with Hitler in Berlin.  The German dictator told Simon that he was done with the arms limitations imposed by Versailles Treaty.  Germany would expand its army from the 100,000-man limit imposed by Versailles to 500,000 men, begin conscription, and build an air force.  However, Hitler would make commitments to Britain to limit naval forces.  Hitler also announced that Joachim von Ribbentrop, a Nazi schemer, rather than an experienced diplomat, would lead the German delegation in such talks. 

Yet no talks began.  The British foreign policy-makers were divided in their attitudes.  Sir Robert Vansittart, the chief British diplomat, believed that Hitler meant to conquer all of Europe, so the best solution was a strong alliance with France, Italy, and even the Soviet Union if necessary.  Anthony Eden, the second-ranking political figure at the Foreign Office, wanted British commitment to Western Europe, but would abandon Eastern Europe; he also put more stock in the League of Nations than in an Italian alliance.  Sir John Simon, the Foreign Secretary, had no views of his own and went where Vansittart pushed. 

The British were busy negotiating the “Stresa Pact” with France and Italy.  Signed on 14 April 1935, it committed Britain, France, and Italy to resist any future German violations of the Versailles Treaty.  The Stresa Pact” could not be squared with a bilateral Anglo-German agreement to violate the naval limits in the treaty. 

At the end of April 1935, the Germans prodded the British by informing them that they had launched new U-Boats and had begun construction of 12 more.  They meant “We’re going ahead; with or without you.”  This got the British moving.  On 29 April 1935, Simon told the House of Commons that Germany had begun building U-Boats; on 2 May 1935, Prime Minister MacDonald told the Commons that he would seek a naval agreement with Germany. 

Things moved fast.  Ribbentrop came to London on 2 June 1935.  On 4 June, he told the British that Germany would accept the 35 percent ratio, but nothing less, and that the British had a few days to decide.  Simon, the Foreign Secretary, walked out in answer to such rude behavior.  Stil, on 5 June the government accepted Ribbentrop’s proposal.  Two days later, Simon left the Foreign Office and Sir Samuel Hoare became Foreign Secretary.  During further discussions, the Germans accepted the British requirement that the German fleet be symmetrical with the Royal Navy.  The two parties signed the completed agreement on 18 June 1935. 

The Anglo-German agreement enraged the French.  Britain had not consulted the French or the Italians.  The agreement of the British and Germans to “legalize” a violation of the disarmament clauses of the Versailles treaty could not be squared with the “Stresa Pact.”  It appeared to fall into the tradition of “Perfidious Albion.”  It’s hard to form an alliance against a common danger when the parties don’t trust each other.  That’s part of the story of appeasement. 

An Episode of Appeasement: The Anglo-German Naval Agreement, June 1935 3.

Posted on by
Reply

            Adolf Hitler’s view of Britain wavered between implacable foe and natural partner in a division of the world.  In Mein Kampf (1925), he castigated Imperial Germany for pursuing a pointless fleet-building program that forced Britain into alliance with its traditional colonial enemies France and Russia.  In the “Hossbach Memorandum” (1937) he described both France and Britain as “hate-filled” opponents who would never accept Germany’s revival.  In 1934-1935 he still had hopes of winning over Britain, if only to disrupt the emerging Franco-British-Italian common front. 

            In November 1934, the Germans told the British that they wanted to reach a bilateral agreement that would allow the Germany navy to rise to 35 percent of the British navy.[1]  The offer simultaneously attracted and disturbed the British.  The Germans seemed bent on rearming in defiance of the Versailles Treaty in any case.  The British most feared German bombing of cities.  An agreement on navies could lead to an agreement on air forces.  So, the German offer deserved consideration. 

Several questions had to be resolved.  First, could Britain tolerate ANY German naval rearmament?  The Royal Navy had to be dispersed to meet its global responsibilities, while a German fleet would be concentrated in the North Sea and North Atlantic.  Could Britain defend itself in Europe against a fleet one-third the size of the Royal Navy? 

Second, would it be best to shape that rearmament to the kind of German fleet would be easiest to deal with?  Would such a German fleet be symmetrical with the Royal Navy (in battle ships, cruisers, destroyers, submarines)?  Or would it be a “lighter” fleet organized for attacking merchant shipping (lots of submarines and light cruisers, but few battleships)? 

Third, British rearmament would prioritize the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, while German rearmament was already prioritizing the Army (Wehrmacht) and the Air Force (Luftwaffe).  Both the British Army and the Germany Navy got the leftovers.  Expert opinion held that the Germany Navy would not reach 35 percent of the present Royal Navy until 1942.  By that time the Royal Navy would have been greatly expanded.  The Germans would never really catch up.  Seen from this perspective, a naval agreement might be a strategically meaningless concession while perhaps improving the climate of relations between the two countries.  A more meaningful agreement on air forces might follow. 

Fourth, the agreement could create diplomatic problems with the French.  Britain and France were working up a common front with Italy to check further German violations of Versailles.[2]  A bilateral agreement to end the naval disarmament conditions of the multi-lateral Versailles Treaty would be understood in France as both slimy and a betrayal. 

            Committees considered the issues.  They concluded that a German fleet 35 percent the size of the Royal Navy marked the maximum that could be accepted, but it could be accepted.  It would be best to insist upon a symmetrical fleet to short-stop one organized for a “guerre de course.”  A naval agreement should be followed by pursuit of an agreement on air forces.  Finally, “the French be damned” went unspoken, but not unthought. 

[1] Joseph Maiolo, The Royal Navy and Nazi Germany, 1933–1939: Appeasement and the Origins of

the Second World War in Europe (1998). 

[2] See No more coals to Newcastle. | waroftheworldblog 

An Episode in Appeasement: The Anglo-German Naval Agreement, June 1935 2.

Posted on by
Reply

            Various “truths” emerged from the early histories of the origins of the First World War.  Prominent among them: arms races lead to war, so—by implication–disarmament would lead to peace.   The reasoning behind this “truth” ran something like the following.  Military equality led to stability.  Military inequality led to instability.  Military inequality could emerge from either countries creating larger armies or from new technologies.  Imbalances of either sort created a sense of insecurity on the weaker side and aggressive behavior on the stronger side.  Building up one’s own power to restore stability became an entrenched response.  Mutual fear and suspicion became entrenched, building up psychological tension.  Linked to this idea of a spiral of power and fear, was a belief that the “Merchants of Death” (MOD) winding-up governments and publics in order to increase their profits.  Corrupt politicians and journalists served the MOD as the agents of influence.  After the war, disarmament became one chief purpose of diplomacy. 

            Therefore, naval armaments remained a live subject after the First World War.  The Washington Naval Conference (1922) had agreed on a ratio of 5:5:3:1.75:1.75 in the number of battleships and battlecruisers between Britain, the United States, Japan, France, and Italy.  The Geneva Naval Conference (1927) tried and failed to strike an agreement on the size and number of cruisers.  The American and British concepts could not be reconciled.[1]  The issues were revived, and this time agreed upon, in the London Naval Treaty (1930).  The countries compromised on different classes of cruisers, while also limiting submarines and destroyers.[2] 

Germany participated in none of these conferences because its navy had been severely limited by the Versailles Treaty.  The Versailles Treaty did allow Germany to replace existing ships once they were at least 20 years old.  The oldest of its battleships had been built in 1902, so by the mid-Twenties, Germany designed a new type of ship, the “Panzerkreuzer” (or “pocket battleship”).  When the wartime Allies learned of these ships, they tried to prevent their construction.  Germany offered to not build the ships in exchange for admission to the Washington naval treaty with a limit of 125,000 tons.  The Americans and British were willing to appease German demands, but the French refused. 

Meanwhile, Germany argued that either all countries should disarm or Germany should be allowed to rearm to the level of other countries.  The League of Nations and many right-thinking people took this argument at face value, so it sponsored a World Disarmament Conference (1932-1933). 

Mid-stream, Hitler came to power, abandoned the Disarmament Conference (October 1933), and announced that Germany would rearm in defiance of the Versailles Treaty.  On the one hand, this tipped Britan toward a policy of gradual rearmament (1935-1939).[3]  On the other hand, it led to the creation of the Stresa Agreement (14 April 1935) between Britain, France, and Italy to resist future German violations of Versailles.  Could the “allies” maintain solidarity?  Yet no British leader wanted war.  Could Germany be either deterred or appeased?  

[1] The British wanted more light cruisers for protecting imperial trade routes, the Americans wanted fewer, but heavier cruisers.  The Japanese wanted a ratio of 70 percent of the American fleet, not the same 5:5:3 ratio of 1922. 

[2] One effect of the naval treaties combined with the Great Depression appeared in the collapse of the British shipbuilding industry.  Beating arms into breadlines, so to speak. 

[3] British rearmament in the Thirties. | waroftheworldblog 

Missak Manouchian.

Posted on by
Reply

            Off and on, the Ottoman Empire persecuted Armenians.  Many of the victims sought greener fields outside the empire.  Wherever they went, the emigres stayed in touch with other emigres and with their families at home.  In 1905, some of them established the Armenian General Benevolent Union.  The AGBU raised money to send seeds and farm equipment to Armenians still inside the Empire.  Then came the Ottoman Empire’s terrible genocide of the Armenians.  The AGBU provided much humanitarian aid at the time, but then also established orphanages to care for the hordes of children who had lost their parents.  Later, they paid for the higher education of talented Armenian orphans. 

Missak Manouchian (1909-1944) benefitted from the help of the AGBU.  He lost his parents in the genocide (must have been about 6 years old), grew up in an orphanage in French-ruled Lebanon, and went to France (1925) in search of work.  Eventually, he became a lathe-operator at Citroen near Paris.  Naturally, he joined the Confederation General du Travail (CGT), a trades union group.  He lost that job when the Depression hit France in the early Thirties.  Disappointed, like almost everyone else, in capitalism and parliamentary democracy, he joined the French Communist Party in 1934. 

He also had literary and intellectual aspirations.  From 1935 to 1937, the Party put him to editing an Armenian-language literary magazine, and working on a Party-inspired Relief Committee for Armenia. 

The Hitler-Stalin Pact (August 1939) led the French government to ban the Communist Party when war broke out a few days later.  Manouchian was one among many communists who were arrested.  Like others, he was then released for military service.  Assigned to a unit remote from the front lines, Manouchian was discharged after Germany defeated France in Summer 1940.  He went back to Paris; got arrested by the Germans; got released.  Then there is a gap in what is known of his life.  After Germany attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941, the Communist Party went to war in a serious way.  Manouchian seems not to have been involved or involved much in any Resistance work.  The most likely thing is that he did some writing for clandestine newspapers. 

Things changed in February 1943.  Boris Milev, a Bulgarian Communist living in France, recruited Manouchian for the group being led by Boris Holban.[1]  In Summer 1943, Manouchian replaced Holban as head of the group.  In September 1943, Manouchian ordered a team to kill an SS General in Paris.  They did and Heinrich Himmler demanded action.  He got it.  Holban had worried that the group’s many young men were careless about security.  He had wanted to back off for a while and increase security.  He had been right.  The Vichy police had already identified some of the group, who led them to many others.  The French arrested 22 members of the group in November 1943.  They were turned over to the Germans, tried and executed in February 1944. 

Much later, an ugly quarrel over responsibility took place in the media.[2]   

Resistance movements were (and are) vulnerable.  They attracted enthusiasts who often were not suited by maturity or temperament or life experience to secret work.  Security services often have the bulge in all these areas, along with superior resources.  It can be a martyr’s game. 

[1] Boris Milev – Wikipedia 

[2] See: Affiche Rouge – Wikipedia and Missak Manouchian – Wikipedia.  These people deserved better.