Word: viet
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Next day, the French Assembly installed a Premier pledged to get peace at Geneva within 30 days. Mendès-France's reported terms-abandonment of Northern Viet Nam and the Red River Delta, in return for a neutralized Laos and Cambodia-exactly accorded with the bargain Britain had long privately advocated. Eden put off his departure to confer through Saturday afternoon with Molotov, Chou and France's Jean Chauvel, hammering out an agreement that representatives of "the two sides" would meet immediately in Geneva or "on the spot" to discuss "the withdrawal of all foreign armed forces...
...presented. He warned grimly that withdrawal of "foreign military personnel" (suggested by Molotov) would deprive Laos and Cambodia of French military advisers, or of any right to outside technical or military assistance. He also expressed "grave doubts" that the military conversations would actually result in the withdrawal of Viet Minh invaders from Laos and Cambodia, since the Communists still insist that the Viet Minh were only ''volunteers." The British and the French shrugged. The Communists had the West firmly back on the hook again...
...hour for Viet Nam was late. "His mission is a pathetic one," Diem's chief of staff admitted. "Everyone thinks the cause is lost." But if there could be a rallying, Diem had unusual assets: the Asian fame of an ascetic, the ardor of an incorruptible nationalist, a record of stubborn noncollaboration with the Communists and the French...
Doctrinal Opposition. Ngo Dinh Diem (pronounced no-din-zim), a young-looking 53, was the son of a grand chamberlain of the Annamite court. Earnest, dedicated, a devout Roman Catholic, Diem graduated top of his class in Viet Nam's School of Administration, worked his way through the French-run Vietnamese civil service, and was appointed Interior Minister at 32, in one of France's early "Vietnamese nationalist governments." But Diem resigned two months later, decrying French hypocrisy and bumble, vowing to lead an ascetic life in doctrinal opposition to the colonial power...
...would no more cooperate with Communists than with the French. (A few months later, the Communists murdered one of Diem's five brothers, reportedly by burying him alive.) In August 1949 Diem also refused to join the Vietnamese government of Bao Dai, insisting upon complete independence for Viet Nam and a free hand for himself. "He must have his own way always," said one of his associates. And a second Vietnamese added: "He is a narrow...