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  • The OSS and Ho Chi Minh: Unexpected Allies in the War Against Japan
  • Glenn E. Helm
The OSS and Ho Chi Minh: Unexpected Allies in the War Against Japan. By Dixee R. Bartholomew-Feis . Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006. ISBN 0-7006-1431-1. Maps. Photographs. Illustration. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. x, 435. $34.95.

America's controversial World War II involvement with Ho Chi Minh and his communist dominated Viet Minh movement is described in this solid well-written work, the most detailed survey published on the subject. Specialists as well as general readers interested in intelligence in the Second World War, modern Vietnamese history, and the roots of U.S. involvement in thirty years of subsequent conflict in Indochina will find this book of particular interest. The author has assimilated a huge amount of data: interviews, correspondence, and archival materials, as well as all of the essential published [End Page 281] sources. Though not numerous, the photographs alone are probably worth the price of the book.

The author provides a concise, solid background on French colonialism in Indochina, the rise of Ho Chi Minh, the wartime Japanese occupation and coup in Indochina, American interest in the region, Allied bureaucratic struggles, and the complexity and growth of U.S. intelligence activities in the Japanese-occupied Vichy French colony. Much of the second half of the book focuses on the deepening relationship between the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and Ho Chi Minh. It details how the OSS sought to collect intelligence, rescue shot-down U.S. aircrews and prisoners of war, investigate Japanese war crimes, and assist Allied forces in disarming and repatriating Japanese forces after the war. Ho Chi Minh, regardless of his political orientation, was recognized as a valuable asset in accomplishing these objectives. To Ho Chi Minh the OSS was a source of training, weapons, equipment, and propaganda, since OSS cooperation with the Viet Minh could be construed to indicate American support of Viet Minh political objectives. The author convincingly demonstrates that Americans were not directly responsible for bringing Ho Chi Minh to power as president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the power vacuum after Japan's defeat.

The connoisseur of footnotes critical of other authors will be disappointed, but the careful reader will uncover gems among the notes. They detail topics as wide ranging as the role of Japanese deserters supporting the Viet Minh against the French, to the story of a French Army wife who was hidden from the Japanese during the Japanese coup against the French in Indochina in March 1945, and then protected from hostile Vietnamese before finally being returned to French control two years later thanks to a sympathetic Viet Minh cadre. The most exciting note concerns the adventures of a Chinese American agent forced to cross a minefield twice by Japanese officers before being allowed to continue on his way. Insight on Ho Chi Minh is provided by a note concerning the difficulty in choosing appropriate clothing for him to wear on Vietnamese Independence Day in September 1945. Ho refused to wear a tie, woolen clothing, leather shoes, or anything expensive or elegant. He was subsequently garbed in a suit based on clothing worn by Joseph Stalin in a photograph. It is regrettable that the author chose not to provide translation of French sources quoted in the notes. This book is highly recommended.

Glenn E. Helm
Navy Department Library
Washington, D.C.
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