Archimedes Patti

Archimedes Leonidas Attilio Patti (July 21, 1913 – April 23, 1998) was a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army and an Office of Strategic Services officer who headed operations in Kunming and Hanoi in 1945 when he was a Major. Patti is known for having worked closely with Hồ Chí Minh and the Việt Minh, this before and after Ho became President of the Provisional Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945.

Early life
Patti was born in The Bronx, New York City, on July 21, 1913 to Sicilian immigrants. His father worked as a tailor, his mother as a dress maker.

He was married to Margaret Telford. They had two daughters.

Career
The 1940 U.S. census lists Archimedes' profession as "Special Agent, U.S. War Department." In 1941, he joined the U.S. Army and served in Europe, where he was in contact with various anti-Axis resistance organizations including groups in North Africa, Italy, and Yugoslavia.

He was later transferred to the Office of Strategic Services in China after he had unknowingly volunteered for the mission in January 1944 on an assignment at Anzio with OSS Director William J. Donovan.

Indochina and Vietnam
During his career in China and Southeast Asia, Patti met Hồ Chí Minh, the then leader of the Việt Minh, who later became the leader and national hero of North Vietnam. In later interviews, Patti explained that his mission in Vietnam was to establish an intelligence network but not to assist the French in any way in their attempt to re-gain control over their former colony, a policy choice that he believed to be linked to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's belief in the self-determination of all peoples.

However, Patti, from a distance, helped to organize, train, and equip the fledgling Vietnamese forces that Ho Chi Minh was uniting and marshaling against the Japanese, which later became known as the People's Army of Vietnam. Patti worked closely with Ho Chi Minh and indeed commented on his early drafts of a Vietnamese constitution.

"In my opinion the Vietnam War was a great waste. There was no need for it to happen in the first place. At all. None whatsoever. During all the years of the Vietnam War no one ever approached me to find out what had happened in 1945 or in '44. In all the years that I spent in The Pentagon, Department of State in the White House, never was I approached by anyone in authority. However, I did prepare a large number, and I mean about, oh, well over fifteen position papers on our position in Vietnam. But I never knew what happened to them. Those things just disappeared, they just went down the dry well."

- From an interview with Archimedes Patti in 1981

Patti stated that when he arrived in Kunming in March 1945, the French colonials were either unwilling or unable to assist him in establishing an American intelligence network in Indochina and so he turned to "the only source [available]," the Viet Minh.

Patti was introduced to Ho Chi Minh by Colonel Austin Glass, the OSS expert in Indochina. Patti met Ho Chi Minh on the Indochinese-Chinese border in late April 1945. Patti agreed to provide intelligence to the allies if he could have "a line of communication with the allies."

Patti later helped to co-ordinate some small attacks against the Japanese Imperial Army by using a small group of operatives known as the OSS Deer Team under the command of Major Allison K. Thomas, who worked directly with Ho Chi Minh in August 1945.

Patti arrived in Hanoi on a mercy mission with an OSS agent, Carleton B. Swift, and a French government official, Jean Sainteny. His primary mission was to assist in the repatriation of allied prisoners-of-war, as the U.S. government feared reprisals against them by the Japanese after the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. His secondary mission was to gather intelligence.

Patti met with Ho Chi Minh on August 26, 1945 over lunch at his residence in Hanoi. Several days later, Ho Chi Minh read a draft of the Vietnamese Proclamation of Independence to him. Patti offered some corrections to the wording of the opening sentence, which Ho Chi Minh quoted from the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Ho also quoted the 1791 Declaration of the French Revolution and the motto “Liberty, equality, and fraternity,” which “first appeared during the French Revolution.” The Vietnam Declaration of Independence has a similar structure as, but different in content from, the US Declaration of Independence since the histories and circumstances of the two countries were clearly different.

Indeed, Ho Chi Minh had requested an actual copy of the U.S. Declaration of Independence from Colonel Austin Glass. On September 2, Ho Chi Minh declared independence, and some hours later, Patti had dinner with him. On the same day, Patti dispatched his Operational Priority communication:

Operational Priority

1945.09.02 Archimedes Patti Operational Priority.pdf ❝ Have had long conference with Prime Minister, Ho Chi Min and he impresses me as sensible, well balanced, politically minded individual. His demands are few and simple namely limited independence, liberation from French rule, right to live as free people in family of nations and lastly right to deal directly with outside world.

He stated that for many years missionary work of propaganda within party, training of youth and preparation for this day has made them ready not necessarily for complete independence but at least the privilege of dying for their ideals. From that I have seen these people mean business and am afraid that French will have to deal with them. For that matter we will all have to deal with them. French are beginning to recognize this fact and are going to be big about it by offering Viet Minh terms for their independence. On other hand Viet Minh is smart enough to see through Machiavellian attitude French here especially Sainteny and have absolutely refused to deal with him.

Annamese are in unique advantage our position in as much as Japs have given them independence so they consider themselves free of any sovereign power and this includes French who have been hiding behind Jap skirts, vichy tactics and passing themselves off as friends of Americans. On whole Viet Minh has full control of situation not only in Hanoi [unreadable due to punching holes, and could be guessed as "but also the"] whole of 3 provinces. Their organization is well knit, program clear and their demands on outside world few. They ask they be permitted travel particularly to America particularly for education purposes and that America send technical experts to help them establish those few industries Indochina is capable of exploiting. Prime Minister particularly asked me that American exercise some control over Chinese occupation forces and that Chinese purchase materials and food rather than requisitioning it during occupation period. Furthermore he pointed out and this I have confirmed from other sources Jap and French that due to flood this year famine is imminent and should Chinese depended on Indochinese for their subsistence during occupation period they will all starve plus creating situation where Annamese will be forced to wage war upon Chinese to protect his livelihood and family.

Annamese celebrating Annamese independence day tomorrow with high solemn mass by Catholics and special ritual by Buddhists. ❞

In the fall of 1945, French colonial forces had returned to Indochina on U.S.-manned Liberty ships.

Patti left Hanoi in late September 1945 after French allegations that the Americans had been fomenting a revolution.

Later life and death
Patti retired from the military in 1957. For 13 years, he was a crisis management specialist in the Office of Emergency Planning in Washington, DC.

In 1981, Patti stated that Julia Child, who had worked at the OSS in 1945, had allegedly submitted his position papers on Vietnam to appropriate authorities, but the way in which he had found them upon his retirement was exactly as she had sent them, and they had never been opened or read:

"The question rises from time to time as to whether or not the same situation doesn't apply to Iran, to Afghanistan, to El Salvador, to any other trouble spot in the world. That perhaps there are people who may know the causes that actually led to what followed and have never been approached or asked to give at least, if not their views, at least to give what facts they have. That is a question."

In retirement, he wrote several articles and completed his book on Vietnam. In 1980, he finally published his book ''Why Vietnam? Prelude to America's Albatross,'' which described his OSS-assigned activities with Ho Chi Minh, the communist and nationalist Viet Minh leader in 1946. His book grew out of his much-shorter 1946 memoir, which was completed in the 1950s, but on which the Department of the Army had put an injunction to prevent its publication due to the anticommunist fervor of the McCarthy era, and out of concern for perceived adverse criticism of US foreign policy by military members.

He died on April 23, 1998, at the age of 84, and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.