One of the telegrams, written in 1945, asked Truman to make Vietnam an overseas protectorate of the United States, on par with Puerto Rico’s relationship with America. Truman never read any of the telegrams – there isn’t even evidence that the President received Ho’s messages. At the same time, he urged the Vietnamese people to rise up, capture arms and rice stocks, and keep the French from replacing the Japanese as their imperial masters. It turns out Ho Chi Minh sent a number of telegrams to President Truman after the end of WWII. And history shows, the French weren’t exactly the kindest of colonizers. When the Japanese surrendered to the Allies, ending WWII, he moved to ensure the French didn’t return.
As the OSS man in Vietnam, he was the chief organizer of anti-Japanese resistance. Instead, the high-minded anti-colonial Roosevelt administration was gone, replaced by the anti-communist Truman administration.Īs World War II came to a close, Uncle Ho was an agent of the U.S. Except he wasn’t dealing with the same America after that war ended. (Wikipedia)Īnd he was right to trust the World War II-era United States to ensure a free Vietnam after WWII.
