Ho Chi Minh meets with President Thomas Marshall

POD: Wilson dies of stroke October 1918, Marshall allows the amendments to the LON treaty that result in the US joining.

Ho Chi Minh asks to meet with the new president when he goes to the first meeting of the LON and Marshall gives him a few minutes of his time. Ho Chi Minh finds Marshalls cigars and wit inspiring. Ho Chi Minh keeps a photograph of himself and President Marshall as a keepsake. The meeting infuriates the french but nothing much happens short term. However in the long term Ho Chi minh has a much softer view of the US and does not radicalize to the same extent as OTL.

Effects?
 
If he does not become a Communist, I can see the US pressuring the French to give Vietnam independence after World War II. Vietnam might be a US ally.
 

Japhy

Banned
This is one of those historical what if moments that is overblown entirely based on who Ho Chi Minh eventually became. The man was working as a busboy in Paris, and with a nationalist newspaper, nothing more. There was no official capacity for him to meet with the US President, no body he could be claiming to represent. Its not a matter of Wilson being a racist. Its an issue of the American President --- whoever they are --- being too busy to meet with some random dude on the street while trying to develop a Peace Treaty to appease a very diverse group of allied powers with different goals.
 
Whatever wilson was doing is irrelevant because wilson is dead of a stroke in this timeline.

Thomas Marshall becomes president LON treaty passes the senate.

Lets assume somehow the vietnamese delegation does meet with Marshall at a LON meeting maybe its just 5 minutes and maybe marshall doesnt even remember meeting them a year later but he does introduce them to diplomatic people contacts are made and Ho chi minh has a cute photo of him and marshall.

I could see a unified nationalist vietnam as a us ally against red china.
 

Japhy

Banned
Whatever wilson was doing is irrelevant because wilson is dead of a stroke in this timeline.

The point was it doesn't matter if its Wilson or someone else. There's no basis for a meeting to happen. Ho Chi Minh had no organization, no standing to petition to see anyone at the conference. Random people off the street do not get to set up meetings with foreign heads of state to make cases for their causes, organizations do, and he had no organization. Not even for a five minute meeting and a photo.
 

TinyTartar

Banned
He was however already a Communist at this point. That is kind of a non starter. He was certainly a nationalist first, but he was indeed a Communist by this point and was a member of Communist groups while in France.
 
Top