Challenge: Pro-U.S Ho Chi Minh

Your challenge is to get the U.S to suppor Ho Chi Minh in 1945, therefore causing a pro-U.S independent and united Vietnam from the late 1940s and no Vietnam War. How does it happen and what gets changed in history because of it?
 

abc123

Banned
Your challenge is to get the U.S to suppor Ho Chi Minh in 1945, therefore causing a pro-U.S independent and united Vietnam from the late 1940s and no Vietnam War. How does it happen and what gets changed in history because of it?


Well, wery easly in fact.
They just stay anti-colonialistic long enough to tell the French: the era of colonialism is over, and job is done.
;)
 
Well, wery easly in fact.
They just stay anti-colonialistic long enough to tell the French: the era of colonialism is over, and job is done.
;)

Yeah, pretty much. Ho Chi Min had worked with the US OSS to fight the Japanese during the war, and drafted something quite like the US constitution right after the war to govern the new nation of Vietnam.

Then the US stabbed him square between the shoulderblades. A sad day for democracy, and a sadder one for nationalism.

Vietnam would become a US ally, though military basing will only slowly shift from the Philippines, if at all. Vietnam will probably send token forces to conflicts like the Korean War to fight alongside the US and other allies. No Vietnam war... THAT's a big change to the US of the 1960's and 1970's. I can't begin to guess the butterflies beyond that point.
 
The problem with the US telling the French to screw off is that the US needed France a lot more than the Vietnamese. France was still an important European nation. Vietnam was some obscure country in an unimportant place.
 
President Henry Agard Wallace. (Of course, that would cause problems with the Brits...after he got kicked out of the VP slot, the Brits let it be known that they would be perfectly fine if Wallace had any job Roosevelt wanted...except State.)
 
The problem with the US telling the French to screw off is that the US needed France a lot more than the Vietnamese. France was still an important European nation. Vietnam was some obscure country in an unimportant place.

France in 1945 was an economic wreck with a military almost entirely armed with US and British equipment.

It wouldn't take a prescient US President to realize that Vietnam was more likely to STAY an ally than France was, and that Vietnam provided a willing Asian ally instead of a sulky European one.

Of course, to have Truman realize it and do anything about it doesn't seem likely.
 
The problem with the US telling the French to screw off is that the US needed France a lot more than the Vietnamese. France was still an important European nation. Vietnam was some obscure country in an unimportant place.
Egypt was alot more unimportant then Britain and France, but the Americans still backed them during the Suez Crisis. The other posters are right in saying that all that is needed is a bit more anti-colonialism from the US government.
 
France in 1945 was an economic wreck with a military almost entirely armed with US and British equipment.

That doesn't matter. No one thinks France is forever destroyed because of what happened. France will rebuild. France is still important. It's important to Europe's economy and to Europe's security. In the context of 1945, everyone is thinking about what to do with the Germans. France will be essential to whatever new European security system is devised. Vietnam is totally unimportant. It is strategically unimportant without any industry or clout. It's like claiming Paraguay is important.

France is going to insist on keeping its colonial empire. The US doesn't care. Then it sees Europe is in danger of going Communist. It starts to support Europe. It gives France aid. France attempts to assert control in Indochina. The US says, "We'd prefer you not do that." France says, "We are going to anyway, and you need us if you want to help keep the Soviets out of Western Europe. This is important to us. It is not important to you. So back off." And the US will.
 
France is going to insist on keeping its colonial empire. The US doesn't care. Then it sees Europe is in danger of going Communist. It starts to support Europe. It gives France aid. France attempts to assert control in Indochina. The US says, "We'd prefer you not do that." France says, "We are going to anyway, and you need us if you want to help keep the Soviets out of Western Europe. This is important to us. It is not important to you. So back off." And the US will.

That's almost if not exactly what happened in OTL, and I agree it is the most probable course with an POD after, oh, 1944 or so.

But if we imagine Truman or whoever's POTUS taking the long view, what good is France? The UK can do anything that needs an ally in Europe. France has been no help to the US since the American Revolution, and even the Free French weren't always willing to work with the US.

Vietnam is strategically located (granted, also near the Philippines), and is a foothold on Asia. France is gone for sure in the long run. Why try to keep someone a friend when they're going to abandon you anyway if there's anything, no matter how small, to be gained by just cutting them loose?

US says to France: you get $x Marshall Plan loans if you insist on keeping your troublesome empire and $XXX if you let it go. Even the French are smart enough to see which is the better deal.
 
One option is to not pick up where the french left off. Ho Chi Min is, or should be, savvy enough to see that US support for what it is.
 
Well if a certain so and so General really has a issue with reaction by the Free French during the war then he could Advise Truman or if HE was President.

Plus if its between Stalin and the US its most likely that France will have no where else to turn to anyway,...

Also if someone is really thinking longterm toward these countries being de-colonized then really battling for THEIR heart and soul is a key option to contianing the Reds
 
Agreed with the other posters on thinking that the US can tell the French to fuck themselves. As has been said, the US told both the French and British to go suck a fat one during the Suez crisis, and even threatened to effectively cripple the UK economy if they didn't go along. There is no reason that the US cannot do the same to the French with Vietnam.

Keep in mind that at the time the whole thing started, the French were effectively stuck with the US, if they don't want Marshall plan dollars, I'm sure the US could find some other country to spend it on, like the nationalist chinese. Also remember that when the French went back there, they didn't do it on their own, they did it using ships supplied by other nations.

Really, I think all you need is for DeGaul to be even more insufferable than OTL, or for the Allies to have less patience (not too hard mind you). This could get the other W Allies and Soviets to tell the French to fuck off when they ask for their colonial possessions back, or simply freeze them out of negotiations. That way when WWII is over the status of Indo China will be settled as an independent nation rather than a French possession and Truman will have no inclination to help them reclaim it, and the French can either grudgingly accept reality, or get turned into a western European shithole for the next twenty years. Maybe they could get an alliance going with Spain, what with both nations being effective pariah's at this point, but the Spanish can't do much to help out the french, so it wouldn't do much.

Also if the French government wants to go commie over this(highly unlikely), they might as well save themselves the trouble and just buy a few plane tickets to French Guianna. The French communists will most likely not support Degaul and the Free French as the leadership of France, and the Soviets would probably be happy to see the western powers quibble with each other rather than spend the resources supporting a communist takeover.
 
What would really help is an Asia-first policy during the Cold War. Maybe the China lobby is more successful? If the US focuses on China and watches it fall to communism, it might look for any ally it could find, such as Ho Chi Minh (of course, if they were foolish enough, they could also see the French as a more viable ally).
 
How about having Leon Blum, not Charles de Gaulle, being the heart of the political leadership of Free France? Might he have been less interested in recovering Indochina?

There's also the possibility of no Free France forming. If de Gaulle doesn't make it out of France... then we probably see the more pro-Allies colonies declaring independence. Felix Eboue's French Equatorial Africa would probably be the first. Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh in general would probably be granted control of Vietnam in this situation.
 
The problem with the US telling the French to screw off is that the US needed France a lot more than the Vietnamese. France was still an important European nation. Vietnam was some obscure country in an unimportant place.

OK, so how about the US and France do a compromise? France grants Vietnam independence in exchange for massive favours from the US in something (say, for example, maintaining French control in Algeria).
 
Ho Chi Mihn was a communist since youth, infact he was one the founding fathers of the French Communist party, so I honestly doubt that America would work with him.
 
Ho Chi Mihn was a communist since youth, infact he was one the founding fathers of the French Communist party, so I honestly doubt that America would work with him.

AFAIK Ho was a Nationalist first and a communist second, and as others have already stated he had cooperated with the OSS against the Japanese...as well as the 1945 Declaration of Independence for Vietnam, which borrowed heavily from the American DoI (if I recall correctly Ho was an admirer of Thomas Jefferson), I believe it's not too difficult to have the US continue to support him instead of abandoning him as in OTL.
 
AFAIK Ho was a Nationalist first and a communist second, and as others have already stated he had cooperated with the OSS against the Japanese...as well as the 1945 Declaration of Independence for Vietnam, which borrowed heavily from the American DoI (if I recall correctly Ho was an admirer of Thomas Jefferson), I believe it's not too difficult to have the US continue to support him instead of abandoning him as in OTL.

Tito and Enver Hoxha also collabroated with the british during WW2 and they didn't stop being communist.
Look what Ho-chi-mihn did in North Vietnam he collectivised agriculture, abolished private property and established a one party state.
The whole constitution thing was just a political ploy to make the US friendlier, but America can't afford to support communists in Vietnam and at the same time suppres them in Central America.
 

Hendryk

Banned
Ho Chi Mihn was a communist since youth, infact he was one the founding fathers of the French Communist party, so I honestly doubt that America would work with him.
Then it's America's problem, not Ho Chi Minh's. He was a Communist out of convenience, because he saw it as the best available means to national independence. No other political movement around at the time would give him the support he wanted.
 
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