Nguyen Ngoc Bich

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Introduction

Dr. Nguyen Ngoc Bich, 1962
Nguyễn Ngọc Bích
Born 18 May 1911
Ben Tre, Vietnam
Died 4 Dec 1966
Thu Duc, Vietnam
Occupation *Engineer
  • Resistance fighter
  • Medical doctor
  • Politician
Title Doctor (medical)
Known for Resistance war, politics
Nguyen Ngoc Bich 1931, student at École polytechnique.
Nguyen Ngoc Bich, circa 1933, student at École polytechnique.

Nguyễn Ngọc Bích (1911–1966) was a French-educated engineer, a hero in the Vietnamese resistance against the French colonists,[1]:850. N.psq1 a French-educated medical doctor, an intellectual and politician, who proposed an alternative viewpoint to avoid the high-casualty, high-cost war between North Vietnam and South Vietnam.[2]

The Nguyen-Ngoc-Bich street in the city of Cần Thơ, Vietnam, was named after him to honor and commemorate his feats (of sabotaging bridges to slow down the colonial French-army advances) and heroism (being on the French most-wanted list,[3]:122 imprisoned, subjected to an "intensive and unpleasant interrogation"[3]:122 that left a mark on his forehead,N.bi and exiled) during the First Indochina War.

Upon graduating from the École polytechnique (engineering military school under the French Ministry of Armed Forces) and then from the École nationale des ponts et chaussées (civil engineering) in France in 1935,[4] Dr. Bich returned to Vietnam to work for the French colonial government. After World War II, in 1945, he joined the Viet-Minh, and became a senior commander in the Vietnamese resistance movement, and insisted on fighting for Vietnam's independence, not for communism.

SuspectingN.bs of being betrayed by the Communist factionN.bs of the Viet-Minh and apprehended by the French forces, he was saved from execution by a campaign for amnesty by his École polytechnique classmates based in Vietnam, mostly high-level officers of the French army,[5]: 299 and was subsequently exiled to France, where he founded with friends and managed the Vietnamese publishing house Minh Tan (in Paris), which published many important works for the Vietnamese literature.N.mbl In parallel, he studied medicine and became a medical doctor. He was highly regarded in Vietnamese politics, and was suggested by the French in 1954 as an alternative to Ngo Dinh Diem as the sixth prime minister of the State of Vietnam under the former Emperor Bao Dai as Head of State,[6]:84 who selected Ngo Dinh Diem as prime minister. While Bich's candidature for the 1961 presidential election in opposition to Diem was, however, declared invalid by the Saigon authorities at the last moment for "technical reasons",[7][4], he was "regarded by many as a possible successor to President Ngo Dinh Diem".[7] N.pi, N.tcq

A large majority of the information in this article came from the master document Nguyen Ngoc Bich (1911–1966): A Biography,[8] which contains even more information, including primary-source evidence and photos, than presented here.

Important historical events that affected Bich's adult life, together with those mentioned in his 1962 paper (e.g., failed agrarian reform, napalm bombs, famine, conquest for rice, etc.) are summarized, in particular the atmosphere in which Bich had lived for ten years working for the French colonialists (from 1935 to 1945), and the historical conditions that drove this French-educated engineer to become a "Francophile anticolonialist"N.fa, N.psq2 and to join the Viet Minh in 1945 (e.g., the French brutal repressions in 1940 and 1945, the power vacuum after the Japanese coup de force in 1945, Ho Chi Minh's call for a general uprising from Tân Trào, the 1945 August Revolution, the Black Sunday on 1945 Sep 2 in Saigon, etc.). The key principle is to summarize a historical event only when it was directly related to Bich's activities. Care is exercised in selecting references and quotations that complement, but not duplicate, other Wikipedia articles at the time of this writing. For example, the history and the general use of napalm bombs, which Bich mentioned in his 1962 article, are not summarized. Regarding the French using American-made napalm bombs in the First Indochina War, well-known battlesN.nb are also not summarized.

Bao Dai to de Gaulle
❝I beg you to understand that the only means of safeguarding French interests and the spiritual influence of France in Indochina is to recognize the independence of Vietnam unreservedly and to renounce any idea of reestablishing French sovereignty or rule here in any form. . . . Even if you were to reestablish the French administration here, it would not be obeyed, and each village would be a nest of resistance. . . . We would be able to understand each other so easily and become friends if you would stop hoping to become our masters again.❞
--- Bao Dai, message to de Gaulle on 1945 Aug 20[9]:xiii–xiv

First Indochina War

The broader historic events of World War II and the First Indochina War---specifically, the short interwar period between end of the former and the beginning of the later—led to the context in which Nguyen Ngoc Bich fought the French colonists until he was captured. The activities directly or indirectly affected Bich's life by four historic individuals are summarized. French General de Gaulle, by his desire to reconquer Indochina as a French colony, was a main force that led to the First Indochina War, in which Bich fought. Ho Chi Minh, founder and leader of the Viet Minh, called for the general uprising---against the French colonists and the Japanese occupiers---to which Bich responded. US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ardent anticolonialism could have prevented the two Indochina wars, and changed the course of history. US President Harry Truman was a reason that the First Indochina War is now called the "French-American" War in Vietnamese literature,[10] and through his support for the French war effort supplied napalm bombs, which Bich mentioned in his 1962 paper. The US funded more than 30% of the war cost in 1952 under US President Eisenhower, and "nearly 80%" in 1954 under Truman.N.fwc

Charles de Gaulle

Charles de Gaulle in 1942

At the beginning of World War II, in his historic four-minute call-to-arms broadcast from London on 1940 June 18, later known as L'Appel du 18 Juin in French history, the mostly then unknownN.cdg1 General de Gaulle counted on the French Empire, with Indochina as the "Pearl of the Empire", rich in rubber, tin, coal, and rice,[11]:28 to provide resources to fight the Axis, with the support of the British Empire and the powerful industry of the United States. Understanding that Indochina was under the menace of occupation by the Japanese, de Gaulle harbored the dream of wresting this colony back into the fold of the French Empire, writing in his memoirs "As I saw her move away into the mist, I swore to myself that I would one day bring her back."[11]:25

US President Truman and French General de Gaulle, White House, 1945 Aug 12.

"Within two weeks" of the death of US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on 1945 Apr 12, de Gaulle pressured Harry Truman on the Indochina issue, and his government launched "an intensive propaganda effort to mold world opinion in favor of the status quo (French control) in Indochina",[12]:116 and this after having approved the Japanese occupation of Indochina since 1940 September 22.[12]:452 By the time General de GaulleN.cdg2 came to the US in 1945 Aug (inset photo) to campaign for US military aid from then US President Harry Truman, the "French had been forced to drown several Vietnamese uprisings in blood. They had seen the colonial economy completely disrupted. They had been humiliated by the Germans in Europe and incarcerated by the Japanese in Indochina. Even to begin to reassert sovereignty in Indochina, the French were forced to go hat in hand to the Americans (see inset photo, de Gaulle visited Truman), British, and Chinese."[13]:413

Emperor Bao Dai

De Gaulle was a prime mover leading to the First Indochina War in which the French-educated Bich fought on the Viet Minh side against the French colonialists. On 1945 Aug 20, just ten days before he abdicated on 1945 Aug 30,N.bda Vietnam Emperor Bao Dai sent a moving plea to de Gaulle:N.bdq

Bao Dai to de Gaulle
❝I beg you to understand that the only means of safeguarding French interests and the spiritual influence of France in Indochina is to recognize the independence of Vietnam unreservedly and to renounce any idea of reestablishing French sovereignty or rule here in any form. . . . Even if you were to reestablish the French administration here, it would not be obeyed, and each village would be a nest of resistance. . . . We would be able to understand each other so easily and become friends if you would stop hoping to become our masters again.❞
--- Bao Dai, message to de Gaulle on 1945 Aug 20[9]:xiii–xiv
OSS Maj. Archimedes Patti in Kunming, 1945 May.

Just a few days later on 1945 Aug 26 (or very shortly thereafter), Ho Chi Minh put the resistance in much stronger terms to US OSS Major Archimedes Patti, who still remembered vividly after some 35 years:N.hcm1

Ho Chi Minh to Archimedes Patti
❝If the French intended to return to Viet Nam as imperialists to exploit, to maim and kill my people, [I] could assure them and the world that Viet Nam from north to south would be reduced to ashes, even if it meant the life of every man, woman, and child, and that [my] government's policy would be one of scorched earth to the end.❞
--- Ho Chi Minh to OSS Maj. Archimedes Patti[12]:4

The Southeast Asia and Buddhism expert Paul Mus, who first met Ho Chi Minh in 1945, recounted that Ho Chi Minh said[14] then:N.ytp1

Ho Chi Minh to Paul Mus
❝I have no army, no diplomacy, no finances, no industry, no public works. All I have is hatred, and I will not disarm it until I feel I can trust you [the French].❞
--- Ho Chi Minh, according to Paul Mus, the New York Times 1969 obituary[14]

Paul Mus added "For every time Ho Chi Minh has trusted us, we betrayed him."N.ytp2

Notes

The Note link-labels, such as N.bda in superscript, are unique identifiers for the corresponding Notes, with "N" standing for "Note", followed by a period and three or four characters summarizing the Note contents, e.g., "bda" for "Bao Dai abdication," which is the title (in italics) of the Note N.bda. In front of each Note, the uparrow ↑ preceeding a Note link such as (↑ N.bda) indicates the link to jump back to the text with the link N.bda.

The target of the link (↑ N.bda) is the HTML anchor with the code <span id="Bao Dai abdication jump"></span> having the anchor name being "Bao Dai abdication jump", without an Anchor_text (or link text, or link label) inside. The code [[#Bao Dai abdication jump|N.bda]] creates the link (see Help:Link) with label "N.bda" to jump to the anchor with anchor name "Bao Dai abdication jump".

  • (↑ N.bda) Bao Dai abdication: Under the pressure of the Viet Minh,[12]:186-187 Bao Dai had decided to abdicate on 1945 Aug 24,[12]:186-187 and abdicated officially on 1945 Aug 30.[12]:220 Ho Chi Minh then appointed "Mr. Nguyen Vinh Thuy" (Bao Dai's birth name) as "Supreme Counsellor"[12]:220 of the Provisional Government of Vietnam.[12]:220

  • (↑ N.bda) Bao Dai quote: In the foreword by Devillers for Tønnesson's 2010 book Vietnam 1946.[9]:xiii-xiv

  • (↑ N.bs) Betrayal suspicion: On the betrayal suspicion, Cooper, Chester L. (1970), The Lost Crusade: America in Vietnam, Dood, Mead & Company, New York. Retrieved on 7 Mar 2023, p.123, wrote: "Whether the Viet Minh had actually betrayed him to French agents is not known for certain, but Bich always suspected that this was how he had been discovered," whereas the assertion that he "was betrayed by his Communist colleagues to the French" was written in the short biography that accompanied Bich's 1962 article, as written in Honey, P.J., ed. (March 1962), "Special Issue on Vietnam", The China Quarterly 9. Retrieved on 18 Feb 2023. Volume 9. See the Note on The China Quarterly.

  • (↑ N.bi) Bich's injury: A photo showing the injury mark on the forefront of Dr. Bich as a result of this "intensive and unpleasant interrogation" can be found in Nguyen Ngoc Bich (1911–1966): A Biography.[8]

  • (↑ N.cdg1, N.cdg2) De Gaulle: The permanent undersecretary at the British Foreign Office knew only that de Gaulle had a 'head like a pineapple and hips like a woman's', whereas the counselor at the US embassy in Paris and most of de Gaulle compatriots never heard of him.[11]:24 By Aug 1946, de Gaulle had resigned from the presidency of the French Provisional Government on 1946 Jan 20.[15]

  • (↑ N.fa) Francophile anticolonialists: "French teachings and models over Confucian ones. Some of these teachings were, to say the least, unhelpful to the colonial enterprise. Voltaire's condemnation of tyranny, Rousseau's embrace of popular sovereignty, and Victor Hugo's advocacy of liberty and defense of workers' uprisings turned some Vietnamese into that curious creature found also elsewhere in the empire: the Francophile anticolonialist."[11]:9

  • (↑ N.fwc) French-war cost: PBS US Involvement in Vietnam Video time 0:11 to 0:32:[16] "In 1952, General Dwight Eisenhower was elected President, in part because he promised to take a tougher stance on communism. That year, American taxpayers were footing more than 30% of the bill for the French war in Vietnam (also called the "French-American" war[10]). Within two years, that number would rise to nearly 80%." To be more precise, the "U.S. aid to the French military effort mounted from $130 million in 1950 to $800 million in 1953."[17]:597 The "United States became France's largest patron, ultimately funding 78 percent of the French war effort in Indochina,"reported historian L.H.T. Nguyen based on the Vietnamese document "Tong ket cuoc khang chien chong thuc dan Phap," Hanoi: Chinh Tri Quoc Gia, 1996.[18]:46

  • (↑ N.hcm1) HCM quote1: From 1945 Aug 26 to 1980, when Patti published his book.[12]:4

  • (↑ N.psq1, N.psq2) Primary sources, quotations: See primary sources, extensive notes and quotations in Nguyen Ngoc Bich (1911–1966): A Biography[8] and Notes on Vietnam History.[19]

  • (↑ N.ytp1, N.ytp2) Year of the Pig: In his interview in the 1968 documentary In the Year of the Pig, at the Youtube video time 13:56, Paul Mus recounted: "Ho Chi Minh said [in 1945], 'I have no army.' That's not true now [in 1968]. 'I have no army.' 1945. 'I have no finance. I have no diplomacy. I have no public instruction. I have just hatred and I will not disarm it until you give me confidence in you.' Now this is the thing on which I would insist because it's still alive in his memory, as in mine. For every time Ho Chi Minh has trusted us, we betrayed him."

References

Marr 1984[13], Marr 2013[20]

  1. ↑ Buttinger, Joseph (1967b), Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled, Vol.2, Frederik A. Praegers, New York. Retrieved on 25 Feb 2023
  2. ↑ Nguyen-Ngoc-Bich (March 1962), "Vietnam—An Independent Viewpoint", The China Quarterly 9. Retrieved on 18 Feb 2023, pp. 105–111. See also the contents of Volume 9, which included the articles of many well-known experts on Vietnam history and politics such as Bernard B. Fall, Hoang Van Chi, Phillipe Devillers (see, e.g., his classic 1952 book Histoire du Viet-Nam in Section References and French French Cochinchina, Ref. 40), P. J. Honey, Gerard Tongas (see, e.g, J'ai vécu dans l'Enfer Communiste au Nord Viet-Nam, Debresse, Paris, 1961, reviewed] by P. J. Honey), among others.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Cooper, Chester L. (1970), The Lost Crusade: America in Vietnam, Dood, Mead & Company, New York. Retrieved on 7 Mar 2023
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Nguyen-Ngoc-Chau (2018), Le Temps des Ancêtres: Une famille vietnamienne dans sa traversée du XXe siècle, L'Harmattan, Paris, France. Retrieved on 18 Feb 2023. Preface by historian Pierre Brocheux.
  5. ↑ Tran-Thi-Lien (2002), Henriette Bui: The narrative of Vietnam's first woman doctor, in Gisele Bousquet and Pierre Brocheux, Viêt Nam Exposé: French Scholarship on Twentieth-Century Vietnamese Society, University of Michigan Press, ISBN 9780472098057, DOI:10.3998/mpub.12124, at 278–309. Google Book (search for "Bui Quang Chieu Ngoc Bich"), accessed 20 May 2023.
  6. ↑ Langguth, Arthur John (2000), Our Vietnam: The war, 1954–1975, Simon & Schuster, New York. Retrieved on 14 Mar 2023
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Honey, P.J., ed. (March 1962), "Special Issue on Vietnam", The China Quarterly 9. Retrieved on 18 Feb 2023.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Nguyen-Ngoc-Chau & Vu-Quoc-Loc (2023), Nguyen Ngoc Bich (1911–1966): A Biography, Internet Archive. Retrieved on 21 Mar 2023, CC-BY-SA 4.0. (Backup copy.) Much of the information in the present article came from this biography, which also contains many relevant and informative photos not displayed here.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Tønnesson, Stein (2010), Vietnam 1946: How the War Began, University of California Press, Berkeley, California. Retrieved on 2024-05-05.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Lady Borton (2020), WE NEVER KNEW: Napalm use during Vietnam's French-American War, vietnamnet.vn, May 5.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 Logevall, Fredrik (2012), Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam, Random House, New York. Retrieved on 12 Apr 2012, 864 pp. Winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in History: "For a distinguished and appropriately documented book on the history of the United States, Ten thousand dollars ($10,000). A balanced, deeply researched history of how, as French colonial rule faltered, a succession of American leaders moved step by step down a road toward full-blown war" • Winner of the 2013 Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians • Winner of the 2013 American Library in Paris Book Award • Winner of the Council on Foreign Relations 2013 Gold Medal Arthur Ross Book Award • Finalist for the 2013 Cundill Prize in Historical Literature.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 12.5 12.6 12.7 12.8 Patti, Archimedes (1980), Why Viet Nam? Prelude to America's Albatross, Berkeley: University of California Press, ISBN 978-0520047839
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Marr, David G. (1984), Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 1920-1945, University of California Press, Berkeley. Retrieved on 2024-05-05.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 "Dr. Paul Mus dies; a Yale professor. Southeast Asia authority also taught in France", New York Times, 16 August 1969.
  15. ↑ Charles de Gaulle (1959-1969), Former Presidents of the Republic, 15 November 2018. Retrieved on 13 Jun 2023. Internet archived on 2023.03.28.
  16. ↑ US Involvement in Indochina. Retrieved on 2023-12-09, PBS Learning Media, Illinois. Teaching video excerpt from the documentary The Vietnam War, a film by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick.
  17. ↑ Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy, vol. 3, Charles Scribner's & Sons, 2002. Retrieved on 2024-05-11.
  18. ↑ The First Vietnam War: Colonial Conflict and the Cold War, Harvard University Press, Massachusetts, 2007.
  19. ↑ Vu Quoc Loc (2023a), Notes on Vietnam History, Internet Archive. Retrieved on 27 Jun 2023, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  20. ↑ Marr, David G. (2013), Vietnam: State, War, and Revolution (1945-1946), University of California Press, Berkeley.
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