Word: viet
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...cloudless day last week, General René Cogny, commander of North Viet Nam, flew to the troubled southern zone of the Red River Delta. At Namdinh, 45 miles southeast of Hanoi, with evident pleasure, he presented a unit citation to the elite 2nd Amphibious Group, 1st Foreign Legion Cavalry Regiment; he tied the traditional fanon, an Arabian horse's tail, to the regimental colors. Then the strapping (6 ft., 200 Ibs.) three-star general called the legion officers around him. "Dienbienphu was a blow," he said, "but that's all over now. We must turn the page...
...came to a stream. Some laughing Vietnamese soldiers in soaking-wet uniforms were displaying their new collection of Communist rifles and grenades. They held out hatfuls of Communist paper money that bore the portrait of Ho Chi Minh. "My men surprised a Viet Minh company, and we killed 15 of them," a Vietnamese battalion commander explained. "They say our morale is bad, but you should have seen it. My men dived into the river to get at the enemy...
Their obvious tactic was to stall until the Viet Minh could mount an offensive against the Red River Delta or drive westward into Laos. Whenever the West showed signs of impatience, they could throw another crumb on the table. If the West finally got disgusted and moved toward intervention, the Communists could always accept the half-loaf that France was all too willing to give them...
Last week the Communists threw a crumb. Viet Minh's Pham Van Dong* suggested an immediate cease-fire and a readjustment of the zones held by the two sides into large "economic areas." The U.S.'s Bedell Smith promptly declared that this would lead to a "dishonorable" peace. But Bidault seized the crumb, carried it off to Paris and a meeting with the Cabinet. He returned with orders to examine the proposal prayerfully and to suggest a modification: troops should stay in their present general positions, thus creating a smallpox pattern instead of large divisions, which would amount...
...Geneva, the Red Viet Minh delegates talked about her; in Manhattan, student nurses prayed for her; in Washington, President Eisenhower said she should be named the "Woman of the Year." Before the League of Red Cross Societies, U.S. General Bedell Smith called her the epitome of nursely virtue. "Poor little one," said her mother the Vicomtesse in Paris. "She has no clothes to put on. She must have been wearing the same dress for 20 days. She is a true soldier...