The Indochinese experience of the French and the Americans : nationalism and communism in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam

The Indochinese Experience of

the French and the Americans

The Indochinese Experience of

the French and the Americans

NATIONALISM AND

COMMUNISM IN CAMBODIA,

LAOS, AND VIETNAM

Arthur J. Dommen

INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS

BLOOMINGTON AND INDIANAPOLIS

This book is a publication of

Indiana University Press

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© 2001 by Arthur J. Dommen

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The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements

of American National Standard for Information

Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI

Z39.48-1984.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dommen, Arthur J., 1934–

The Indochinese experience of the French and the Americans : nationalism

and communism in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam / Arthur J. Dommen.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-253-33854-9 (cl : alk. paper)

1. Indochina—Politics and government. 2. Indochina—Foreign rela￾tions—France. 3. France—Foreign relations—Indochina. 4. Indochina—

Foreign relations—United States. 5. United States—Foreign relations—

Indochina. 6. France—Foreign relations—20th century. 7. United States—

Foreign relations—20th century. 8. Nationalism—Indochina. 9. Commu￾nism—Indochina. I. Title.

DS549 .D67 2001

325'.344059—dc21

00-053969

1 2 3 4 5 06 05 04 03 02 01

For Loan,

and for all those officers of the Foreign Service of the United

States who over the years between 1939 and 1975 reported

objectively, and sometimes brilliantly, on the affairs of the

Indochinese and for whom there were no Pulitzer Prizes or

Nobel Peace Prizes,

and for the archivists in whose custody their reports have

ended up, to the lasting enlightenment of historians and

readers.

INTRODUCTION / ix

ABBREVIATIONS / xi

1. The Arrival of the French (1625–1893) 1

2. Dealing with the French (1893–August 30, 1945) 21

3. The Rise of Nationalist Feeling and the Suppression

of the Nationalists (August 30, 1945–December 1946) 113

4. The Growth of Foreign Intervention

(December 19, 1946–July 20, 1954) 171

5. The Crucible of Nationalism (July 20, 1954–1957) 255

6. The Decline of the Nationalists (1958–1960) 349

7. The Nationalists Struggle against Great Odds (1961–1963) 427

8. Americanization of the War (1964–1968) 565

9. The End of the Non-Communist Nationalists (1969–1973) 698

10. The Party Center Triumphant (1973–2000) 854

Epilogue 1010

NOTES / 1012

INDEX / 1141

CONTENTS

Twenty-five years have passed since the army of the Democratic Republic of

Vietnam entered Saigon, putting a decisive end to the 30-year war between the

nationalists and Communists that had been set off by the Communists’ coup

d’état in Hanoi on August 19, 1945. I have tried in this book to unravel the skein

of these events and, like Thucydides, who chronicled the 27-year war in which

his own Athens became embroiled during his lifetime, to distribute credit

where credit is merited and to assign blame where blame is due. The Indo￾chinese will forgive, I hope, a foreigner’s presumption in writing a history

of their countries. As a foreign correspondent, I had the good fortune to share

their hospitality during some of the most critical times. For sources in the

modern period, I have been able to rely for large parts on reports of their pub￾lic statements and even their private thoughts contained in the archives of the

American Foreign Service, a precious gift to historians of all countries. This

book is the fruit of 40 years of reflecting on their struggle for self-determina￾tion and self-respect; in the final analysis, it is up to them to judge whether my

attempt to match the balance and admirable lack of partisanship of Thucydides

has succeeded. My book is intended to be a stimulus to students to do more

research rather than the final word on the subject.

I have paid particular attention in chronicling events from the mid-nine￾teenth century to sovereignty. Sovereignty is a concept of which the Indo￾chinese without exception were enamoured, one that governed their actions on

many occasions. When the king of Luang Prabang placed his kingdom under

French protection it was because he had been evicted from his capital by en￾emies coming from the outside. Sovereignty resided in the monarchy in Laos

for 600 years and in Cambodia for nearly 2,000 years. In Vietnam, the French

placed sovereignty over Cochinchina (which the Khmer called Kampuchea

Krom) in their own National Assembly and president, but this was an aberra￾tion. While the French allowed the court of Hue to retain sovereignty, it was

often nominal, and the modern history of Annam and Tonkin is one of the

struggle of the emperor to preserve as much sovereignty from encroachment

as circumstances and the means at hand permitted.

INTRODUCTION

X INTRODUCTION

With the abdication of the last of the Nguyên emperors, who had made a

strong affirmation of sovereignty by unifying his country, sovereignty passed to

republican forms of statehood, arrived at either by force or by constitutional

procedures. President Ngô Dinh Diem of the Republic of Vietnam was acutely

sensitive to the issue and he proceeded to evict the French Expeditionary Corps,

the most visible embodiment of the exercise of foreign sovereignty in Viet￾nam. The generals who succeeded him in power were much less solicitous of

sovereignty and allowed it to pass into foreign hands once more.

But it was without doubt the Vietnamese Communists who made sover￾eignty the keystone of their policy with their policy of armed diplomacy.

In January 1973, they obtained the signature of the American secretary of state

on a document that, in their view, recognized the sovereignty of the Demo￾cratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) over all of Vietnam, including the right to

station its troops in the southern zone that had been created by the 1954 parti￾tion. Months later, the DRV’s army completed the process by obliterating the

remnants of sovereignty that had been returned to the discredited nationalist

leaders by the departing Americans. In July 1995, finally, the Socialist Republic

of Vietnam received full diplomatic recognition from the Americans, thereby

righting the slight of 50 years earlier when President Ho Chi Minh’s appeal to

the American secretary of state had gone unanswered and doing much to over￾come among the Vietnamese the stigma attached to the regime’s illegal and

illegitimate origin. My chronicle of these events will bring, I hope, a beginning

of understanding to those who did not live through them, as I did.

A Note on Punctuation

Vietnamese words and proper names have been rendered, as a matter of

printing convenience, without their full complement of diacritical marks.

Although Pierre Mendès France spelled his name without a hyphen, this

book adopts the usage in American diplomatic reporting, which hyphenated

the last two names.

Acknowledgments

I wish to acknowledge the invaluable help over many years of George

Dalley, researcher and book dealer extraordinaire, in bringing to light docu￾ments on Laos.

I am greatly indebted to John Gallman, former director of Indiana Univer￾sity Press, who accepted my book proposal. I also express my gratitude to Jane

Lyle, managing editor at IUP, and to Kate Babbitt, my copy editor, for their hard

work and devotion.

Arthur J. Dommen

Bethesda, Maryland

August 2000

INTRODUCTION XI

ABBREVIATIONS

AFP Agence France-Presse

AGAS Air Ground Aid Section

ANL Armée Nationale Lao

AOM Archives d’Outre-Mer

ARVN Army of the Republic of Vietnam

ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations

BBC British Broadcasting Corporation

BLDP Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party

BSM Bureau de Statistiques Militaires

CAT Civil Air Transport

CDNI Committee for the Defense of the National Interests

CIA Central Intelligence Agency

CIDG Civilian Irregular Defense Group

CINCPAC Commander in chief, Pacific

CMAG Chinese Military Advisory Group

COSVN Central Office for South Vietnam

CPK Communist Party of Kampuchea

CPP Cambodian People’s Party

CPSU Communist Party of the Soviet Union

DAO Defense Attaché Office

DEPTEL Departmental Telegram

DMZ Demilitarized Zone

DNC Direction Nationale de la Coordination

DRV Democratic Republic of Vietnam

D.R.V.N. Democratic Republic of Viet Nam

EFEO Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient

FAR Royal Lao Army

FBIS Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service

FEC French Expeditionary Corps

FPJMC Four-Party Joint Military Commission

FRUS Foreign Relations of the United States

FULRO United Front for the Struggle of the Oppressed Races

FUNCINPEC National United Front for an Independent, Neutral,

Peaceful, and Cooperative Cambodia

G.B.T. [Laurence] Gordon-[Harry] Bernard-[Frank] Tan network

GM Groupe Mobile

GVN Government of [South] Vietnam

ICC International Control Commission

ICCS International Commission of Control and Supervision

ICP Indochinese Communist Party

ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross

ITP Indochinese Trotskyite Party

JCIA Joint Commission to Implement the Agreement

JCS Joint Chiefs of Staff

JGS Joint General Staff

JUSMAG Joint United States Military Assistance Advisory Group

JUSPAO Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office

KKK Struggle Front of the Khmer of Kampuchea Krom

KNUFNS Kampuchean National United Front for National Salvation

KPNLF Khmer People’s National Liberation Front

KPRP Khmer People’s Revolutionary Party

LPDR Lao People’s Democratic Republic

LPRP Lao People’s Revolutionary Party

LPF Lao Patriotic Front

MAAG Military Assistance Advisory Group

MACV Military Assistance Command Vietnam

MAP Military Assistance Program

MIA Missing in Action

MPs military police

MRC Military Revolutionary Committee

MSU Michigan State University

NARA National Archives and Records Administration

NCNA New China News Agency

NCOs non-commissioned officers

NLF National Liberation Front (South Vietnam)

NLHS Lao Patriotic Front

NPCC National Political Consultative Council

NRM National Revolutionary Movement

NSC National Security Council

NUFK National United Front of Kampuchea

NVA North Vietnamese Army

NVN North Vietnam

OSS American Office of Strategic Services

PARU Police Aerial Reconnaissance (Resupply) Unit

XII ABBREVIATIONS

PARU Royal Thai Police Aerial Resupply Unit

PAVN Peoples’ Army of Vietnam

PDK Party of Democratic Kampuchea

PEC Provisional Executive Committee

PEO Programs Evaluation Office

PGNU Provisional Government of National Union

PL Pathet Lao

PLA People’s Liberation Army

POWs prisoners of war

PRGSVN Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of

South Vietnam

PRK People’s Republic of Kampuchea

PTT Poste, Télégraphe et Téléphone

RG Record Group

RGNU Royal Government of National Union

R. I. C. Régiment d’Infanterie Coloniale

RKG Royal Khmer Government

RLAF Royal Lao Air Force

RLG Royal Lao Government

RO Requirements Office

SA Service Action

SEATO Southeast Asia Treaty Organization

SEPES Service des Etudes Politiques et Sociales

SIDASP Service Interministériel d’Action Sociale et Politique

SNC Supreme National Council

SPA Supreme People’s Assembly

SRV Socialist Republic of Vietnam

SSPP Special Service for Political Propaganda

TPJMC Two-Party Joint Military Commission

SVN South Vietnam

U.B.K.C./H.C. Uy Ban Khang Chien/Hanh Chinh

UBCV Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam

UN United Nations

UNF United National Front

UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund

UNTAC United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia

URAS Union des Républicains d’Action Sociale

USIS United States Information Service

USOM United States Operations Mission

VCP Vietnamese Communist Party

VML Viet Minh League

VNIP Vietnam National Independence Party

VNQDD Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (Vietnamese Nationalist Party)

VWP Vietnam Workers’ Party

ABBREVIATIONS XIII