Embers of War (124 page)

22
De Lattre,
La ferveur et le sacrifice
, 273-74; Edgar O’Ballance,
The Indo-China War, 1945–1954
(London: Faber & Faber, 1964), 134; Martin Windrow,
The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam
(Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo, 2004), 114–15.

23
Duiker,
Communist Road
, 157; Cecil B. Currey,
Victory at Any Cost: The Genius of Viet Nam’s Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap
(Dulles, Va.: Potomac, 2005), 174; Douglas Pike, “General Vo Nguyen Giap—Man on the Spot,” typescript (in author’s possession), May 1968, 12; Tran Trong Trung oral history, Hanoi, June 12, 2007 (courtesy of Merle Pribbenow).

24
Quoted in Howard R. Simpson,
Tiger in the Barbed Wire: An American in Vietnam, 1952–1991
(Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 1992), 12. See also Greg Lockhart,
Nation in Arms: The Origins of the People’s Army of Vietnam
(Wellington, N.Z.: Allen & Unwin, 1989), 241.

25
Time
, September 24, 1951.

26
Salisbury-Jones,
So Full a Glory
, 260.

27
De Lattre,
La ferveur et le sacrifice
, 255–59; Salisbury-Jones,
So Full a Glory
, 260–61; Destremau,
De Lattre
, 521–23;
Time
, June 11, 1951.

28
Office of the Military Attaché, British Legation-Saigon, Report No. 3, August 9, 1951, FO 959/104, TNA.

29
Quoted in Salisbury-Jones,
So Full a Glory
, 263–64.

30
See his caustic comments as reported in Saigon to FO, June 29, 1951, FO 959/109, TNA.

31
Quoted in Marilyn B. Young, “ ‘The Same Struggle for Liberty’: Korea and Vietnam,” in Mark Atwood Lawrence and Fredrik Logevall, eds.,
The First Vietnam War: Colonial Conflict and Cold War Crisis
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007), 342n22. See also
The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of Decisionmaking on Vietnam
, Senator Gravel edition (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971), 1:67.

32
See Graham Greene,
Ways of Escape
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1980), 164–65.

33
Saigon to FO, July 10, 1951, FO 371/92453, TNA.

34
Shaplen,
Lost Revolution
, 81. A draft of the address is printed in de Lattre,
La ferveur et le sacrifice
, 281–91.

35
MDAP Monthly Report, October 1951, G-3 091 Indochina, Record Group 319, NARA.

36
De Lattre’s suspicions of U.S. intentions are a theme in his letters and telegrams of the period. See, e.g., Télégramme a Jean Letourneau, April 16, 1951, printed in de Lattre,
La ferveur et le sacrifice
, 228–30. See also Saigon to FO, April 28, 1951, FO 959/109, TNA; Heath to Sec. State, June 14, 1951,
FRUS, 1950, East Asia and the Pacific
, VI, 1:425ff.

37
Young, “Same Struggle for Liberty,” 203; Kathryn C. Statler,
Replacing France: The Origins of American Intervention in Vietnam
(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2007), 42–43.

38
Acheson to Heath, July 13, 1951,
FRUS, 1950, East Asia and the Pacific
, VI, 1:453.

39
Discours-d’inauguration de la salle de lecture des services américans d’information, July 23, 1951, printed in de Lattre,
La ferveur et le sacrifice
, 312–17; Saigon to FO, July 28, 1951, FO 959/109, TNA.

40
Hanoi to Saigon, July 30, 1951, FO 959/109, TNA.

41
Paris to FO, January 19, 1952, FO 959/126, TNA. See also Salisbury-Jones,
So Full a Glory
, 266.

42
See Paris to London, September 5, 1951, FO 959/109, TNA.

43
Time
, September 24, 1951; Destremau,
De Lattre
, 531–38.

44
Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, “Indochine 1951: Ma Mission aux Etats-Unis,”
La revue deux mondes
, December 1951, 387–89.

45
NYT
, September 15, 1951; Spector,
Advice and Support
, 143.

46
Record of Meeting, September 20, 1951,
FRUS, 1951, Asia and the Pacific
, VI, 1:517–21.

47
Washington Post
, September 21, 1951; Alan Brinkley,
The Publisher: Henry Luce and His American Century
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010), 377; Robert E. Herzstein,
Henry R. Luce, Time, and the American Crusade in Asia
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 168. The National Press Club remarks are printed in de Lattre,
La ferveur et le sacrifice
, 345–52.

48
Washington Post
, September 18, 1951.

49
NYT
, September 24, 1951. For de Lattre’s assessment of the trip, see his report in
La ferveur et le sacrifice
, 354–62.

50
Spector,
Advice and Support
, 146.

51
Quoted in Salisbury-Jones,
So Full a Glory
, 269. Collins’s private evaluation, in a memo to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was also effusive in its praise of the general and his accomplishments. “I was greatly impressed by what I saw,” Collins wrote. “Unless the Chinese Communists, perhaps under the guise of volunteers, enter Indo-China, the French and Vietnam forces should be able to hold Indo-China indefinitely.” “Memorandum for the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” November 13, 1951, Box 23, Collins Papers, Eisenhower Library.

52
Geoffrey Perret,
Jack: A Life Like No Other
(New York, Random House, 2001), 169; Robert Dallek,
An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963
(Boston: Little, Brown, 2003), 168; Robert Mann,
A Grand Delusion: America’s Descent into Vietnam
(New York: Basic, 2001), 85.

53
Mann,
A Grand Delusion
, 86.

54
NYT
, January 8, 1951; Saigon to FO, November 8, 1951, FO 959/107, TNA. The author of this cable, British minister H. A. Graves, speculated that the suicide was not intentional; rather, the grenade got tangled in the assassin’s clothing and went off prematurely.

55
Military Attaché, British Legation, to Minister, August 9, 1951, FO 959/107, TNA.

56
Yves Gras,
Histoire de la guerre d’Indochine
(Paris: Plon, 1979), 424–28.

57
See the accounts in Fall,
Street Without Joy
, 48–60; and O’Ballance,
Indo-China War
, 159–66.

58
Greene,
Ways of Escape
, 164.

59
Edward Rice-Maximin,
Accommodation and Resistance: The French Left, Indochina and the Cold War
(Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1986), 113; Clayton,
Three Marshals of France
, 163.

60
Paris to FO, January 19, 1952, FO 959/126, TNA.

CHAPTER 12:
The Quiet Englishman

  
1
NYT
, January 10, 1952.

  
2
Life
, January 28, 1952.

  
3
Saigon to Washington, January 10, 1952, “Indo-China: Internal Affairs: 1950–54,” Central Files, NARA.

  
4
Saigon to FO, February 29, 1952, FO 474/6, TNA. On Thé’s background and rise, see Sergei Blagov,
Honest Mistakes: The Life and Death of Trình Minh Thê (1922–1955), South Vietnam’s Alternative Leader
(Huntington, N.Y.: Nova Science, 2001), 27–30.

  
5
Graham Greene,
Ways of Escape
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1980), 161.

  
6
Ibid., 146; Richard Greene, ed.,
Graham Greene: A Life in Letters
(Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2007), 182, 187–88.

  
7
Tom Curry, “Graham Greene’s Vietnam—The Quiet American,” Literary Traveler (
www.literarytraveler.com/authors/graham_greenes_vietnam.aspx
). Last accessed April 20, 2009. Wartime Saigon in this period is described in David Lan Pham,
Two Hamlets in Nam Bo: Memoirs of Life in Vietnam
(Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2000), chap. 4.

  
8
Journalist Seymour Topping of the Associated Press would later claim that he and his wife introduced Greene to the opium dens. Seymour Topping,
Journey Between Two Chinas
(New York: Harper & Row, 1972), 110–11.

  
9
Andrew Forbes, “Graham Greene’s Saigon Revisited,” CPAMedia,
www.cpamedia.com/culture/graham_greene_saigon/
(last accessed on April 18, 2009); Michael Shelden,
Graham Greene: The Enemy Within
(New York: Random House, 1994), 322; Howard Simpson,
Tiger in the Barbed Wire: An American in Vietnam, 1952–1991
(Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 1992), 12.

10
Quoted in Norman Sherry,
The Life of Graham Greene
, vol. 2:
1939–1955
(New York: Viking, 1995), 401.

11
Time
, October 29, 1951.

12
Letter of November 16, 1951, in Greene,
Graham Greene
, 193. See also Graham Greene diary entry for November 13, 1951, Box 1, Graham Greene Papers, Georgetown University Library (hereafter GU).

13
Graham Greene,
The Quiet American
(New York: Viking, 1956), 142.

14
Ibid., 43; Greene diary entry for December 16, 1957, Box 1, Greene Papers, GU. See also Sherry,
Life of Graham Greene
, 2:395–96.

15
Greene diary entry for February 2, 1952, Box 1, Greene Papers, GU; Joseph Buttinger,
Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled
, vol. 2:
Vietnam at War
(New York: Praeger, 1967), 782–83; Greene,
Ways of Escape
, 170.

16
See Sherry,
Life of Graham Greene
, 2:417–20; W. J. West,
The Quest for Graham Greene
(New York: St. Martin’s, 1998), 157–58; Greene,
Ways of Escape
, 169–79.

17
Greene,
Quiet American
, 124.

18
Sol Sanders, “Viet Nam
Has
a Third Force,”
New Republic
, July 30, 1951. See also the even earlier article by Edwin Halsey, “The Third Force,”
Integrity
5 (May 1951): 33–39.

19
Shelden,
Graham Greene
, 327; Graham Greene, “Indo-China: France’s Crown of Thorns,”
Paris Match
, July 12, 1952, reprinted in Graham Greene,
Reflections
, ed. Judith Adamson (New York: Reinhardt, 1990), 129–47.

20
Greene, “Indo-China,” 146.

21
Letter to Catherine Walston, November 21, 1951, Box 12, Catherine Walston–Graham Greene Papers, GU; Greene,
Ways of Escape
, 125–27; Sherry,
Life of Graham Greene
, 2:481–88.

22
Lucien Bodard, “L’appel aux américains,”
L’Express
, 1967, as quoted in Sherry,
Life of Graham Greene
, 2:482. See also letter to Catherine Walston, December 11, 1951, Box 13, Walston–Greene Papers, GU.

23
Thomas A. Bass,
The Spy Who Loved Us: The Vietnam War and Pham Xuan An’s Dangerous Game
(New York: Public Affairs, 2009), 54–55. An’s remarkable life story is also detailed in Larry Berman,
Perfect Spy: The Incredible Double Life of Pham Xuan An
(New York: Smithsonian Books, 2007).

24
“Narrative of Lt. Col. A. G. Trevor-Wilson,” n.d., Peter Dunn Collection, Virtual Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Tex.; Shelden,
Graham Greene
, 328–30.

25
Sherry,
Life of Graham Greene
, 2:437–46; Judith Adamson,
Graham Greene, the Dangerous Edge: Where Art and Politics Meet
(New York: St. Martin’s, 1990), 131–32.

26
Greene,
Quiet American
, 16–17, 29; H. Arthur Scott Trask, “The Quiet American: Graham Greene’s Brilliant Novel Shines as a New Film,”
www.lewrockwell.com/orig/trask2.html
(last accessed May 2, 2009).

27
Greene,
Ways of Escape
, 171; Sherry,
Life of Graham Greene
, 2:430.

28
Heath to State, February 14, 1952, as quoted in Sherry,
Life of Graham Greene
, 2:432.

29
Saigon to FO, February 29, 1952, FO 474/6, TNA.

30
Jean Lartéguy,
Soldats perdus et fous de dieu: Indochine 1945–1955
(Paris: Presses de la cité, 1986), 179–81; Nhi Lang,
Phong Trao Khang Chien Trinh Minh Thé
(Boulder, Colo.: Lion Press, 1989), 107–9.