Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
- Indo-China. Dong Minh Hoi and Quoc Dan Dang control territory in Moncay, Langson, Vinh Yen area.
- "As yet no Catholic party has appeared nor do Catholics appear to be committed to support of any one party. Viet Minh League has been making tentative moves to capture Catholic support but is said to be too radical to obtain full cooperation from church. In view of fact church claims million members in Tonking and Annam (large percentage believed to be 'rice Christians'), it seems probable that Catholics as group will [not?] remain long absent from politics."[1]
In July, the same source reported that Viet Minh was steadily eliminating the Dong Minh Hoi and VNQDD as organized opposition.[2]
Ho Chi Minh was absent from Vietnam during the summer and early fall of 1946, engaged first by the abortive Fontainebleau negotiations and then by their aftermath, the modus vivendi he signed with France on 14 September 1946. During Ho's absence, Vo Nguyen Giap — Acting Minister of the Interior and Minister of National Defense — policed the Vietnamese political battlefield, arranging for the VNQDD and other "opposition" parties to survive — suitably disarmed and manned with cooperative nationalists — within the Lien Viet. The Lien Viet proceeded to forge new "unity" within the Front, and to tighten Front control over the DRV. On Ho's return, the National Assembly was galled back into session, presented with a reorganized government and a new constitution.
- (4) The Government of 3 November 1946
The National Assembly elected in January, 1946 — in dubiously honest elections — convened in Hanoi in late October. Of the original membership, 291 delegates presented themselves. The composition at opening was as follows:
