Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
of French forces. In the meantime, the British withdrew from Cochinchina; on 4 March 1946, the Allied Southeast Asia Command deactivated Indochina as a territory within its purview. In February, the French deployed an amphibious task force prepared for operations in North Vietnam. On 28 February, they obtained Chinese agreement (from Chunking, not the Chinese satraps in North Vietnam) to turn over the occupation to France by April. Ho Chi Minh, faced with French military power and Chinese withdrawal, and denied succor from the United Nations or the U.S., had no recourse save to negotiate with the French.
The Accord signed by Ho with the French on 6 March, 1946, taxed Ho's popularity to the utmost. The VNQDD had vehemently opposed compromise, and even negotiations with the French, but Ho was careful to bring opposition representatives into his talks with Sainteny, the French spokesman, and to see ot it that the March 6 Accord was signed not only by Ho and Sainteny, but also by Vu Kong Kanh, the leader of the VNQDD. Still, feeling ran high against the French, and it took all of Ho's prestige to prevent rebellion against the Viet Minh. On 7 March, Ho and Vo Nguyen Giap defended the Accord before a crowd of 100,000 in Hanoi, in which Ho assured his people that: "You know that I would rather die than sell our country."50 On 8 March French troops landed in Haiphong, and re-entered Hanoi ten days later.
Upon French return — Ho's coalition cabinet and Vu Kong Kanh's signature on the March 6 Accord notwithstanding — a number of VNQDD leaders withdrew their support of Ho's government in protest against what they termed a "pro-French" policy of the Viet Minh. The Emperor Bao Dai left the country on 18 March, the day the French entered Hanoi. Ho, thereupon, moved to merge the Viet Minh into a larger, more embrasive Front organization, which would consolidate the several parties of the DRV, and thereby ease political stress. On 27 May 1946, the formation of the Popular National Front (Lien Hiep Quoc Dan Viet Nam) — subsequently known as the Lien Viet — was announced, to bring about "independence and democracy." Prominent leaders of all political parties were among the founders, and they jointly pledged "to safeguard our autonomy, so as to later attain complete independence."51 The Viet Minh, VNQDD, the Dong Minh Hoi, the Socialist Party and the Democratic Party were all roofed under the Lien Viet, but maintained separate organizations.
- (3) Chinese Withdrawal
Agreement among the several parties in the Lien Viet lived, however, only so long as the Chinese remained in North Vietnam. Despite Chungking's contract to withdraw by April, 1946, the warlords lingered at their looting into June. On June 10, 1946, Chinese Nationalist troops evacuated Hanoi, and on June 15, the last detachments embarked at Haiphong. On June 19, the official Lien Viet organ Qui Quoc published a sharp rebuke of "reactionary saboteurs of the March agreement," pointedly directed at the VNQDD. Reaffirming a policy of cooperation with France,
