User:Egm4313.s12/Draft:Nguyen Ngoc Bich


 * Draft:Nguyen Ngoc Bich. See Nguyen Ngoc Bich (1911-1966): A Biography.
 * User:Egm4313.s12/Draft:Nguyen Ngoc Bich, User:Egm4313.s12/Nguyen_Ngoc_Bich_(CZ)
 * Nguyen Ngoc Bich on Citizendium, where no anonymous users can edit.

Introduction
Nguyễn_Ngọc_Bích_(kỹ_sư)

Nguyen Ngoc Bich (1911–1966) was a French-educated engineer, a

Vietnamese resistance fighter against the French colonists, a French-educated medical doctor, an intellectual and politician, who proposed an alternative viewpoint to avoid the high-casualty, high-cost war between North Vietnam and South Vietnam.

The in the city of Cần Thơ, Vietnam, was named after him to honor and commemorate his feats (of sabotaging bridges to slow down the colonial French-army advances) and heroism (being on the French most-wanted list, imprisoned, subjected to an "intensive and unpleasant interrogation" that left a mark on his forehead, and exiled) during the First Indochina War.

Upon graduating from the École polytechnique (engineering military school under the French Ministry of Armed Forces) in 1933, and then from the École nationale des ponts et chaussées (civil engineering) in France in 1935, Bich returned to Vietnam to work for the French colonial government. After World War II, in 1945, he joined the Viet Minh, and became a senior commander in the Vietnamese resistance movement, and insisted on fighting for Vietnam's independence, not for communism.

Suspecting of being betrayed by the Communist faction of the Viet Minh and apprehended by the French forces, Bich was saved from execution by a campaign for amnesty by his École polytechnique classmates based in Vietnam, mostly high-level officers of the French army, and was subsequently exiled to France, where he founded with friends and managed the Vietnamese publishing house Minh Tan (in Paris), which published many important works for the Vietnamese literature. In parallel, he studied medicine and became a medical doctor. He was highly regarded in Vietnamese politics, and was suggested by the French in 1954 as an alternative to Ngo Dinh Diem as the sixth prime minister of the State of Vietnam under the former Emperor Bao Dai as Head of State, who selected Ngo Dinh Diem as prime minister. While Bich's candidature for the 1961 presidential election in opposition to Diem was, however, declared invalid by the Saigon authorities at the last moment for "technical reasons", Bich was "regarded by many as a possible successor to President Ngo Dinh Diem".

A large majority of the information in this article came from the master document Nguyen Ngoc Bich (1911–1966): A Biography, which contains even more information, including primary-source evidence and photos, than presented here.

Important historical events that affected Bich's adult life, together with those mentioned in his 1962 paper (e.g., failed agrarian reform, napalm bombs, famine, conquest for rice, etc.) are summarized, in particular the atmosphere in which Bich had lived for ten years working for the French colonialists (from 1935 to 1945), and the historical conditions that drove this French-educated engineer to become a "Francophile anticolonialist" and to join the Viet Minh in 1945 (e.g., the French brutal repressions in 1940 and 1945, the power vacuum after the Japanese coup de force in 1945, Ho Chi Minh's call for a general uprising from Tân Trào, the 1945 August Revolution, the Black Sunday on 1945 Sep 2 in Saigon, etc.). The key principle is to summarize a historical event only when it was directly related to Bich's activities. Care is exercised in selecting references and quotations that complement, but not duplicate, other Wikipedia articles at the time of this writing. For example, the history and the general use of napalm bombs, which Bich mentioned in his 1962 article, are not summarized. Regarding the French using American-made napalm bombs in the First Indochina War, well-known battles are also not summarized.

☛ DONE: Egm4313.s12 (talk) 16:30, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

First Indochina War
The broader historic events of World War II and the First Indochina War—specifically, the short interwar period between end of the former and the beginning of the later—led to the context in which Nguyen Ngoc Bich fought the French colonists until he was captured. The activities directly or indirectly affected Bich's life by four historic individuals are summarized. French General de Gaulle, by his desire to reconquer Indochina as a French colony, was a main force that led to the First Indochina War, in which Bich fought. Ho Chi Minh, founder and leader of the Viet Minh, called for the general uprising—against the French colonists and the Japanese occupiers—to which Bich responded. US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ardent anticolonialism could have prevented the two Indochina wars, and changed the course of history. US President Harry Truman was a reason that the First Indochina War is now called the “French-American” War in Vietnamese literature, and through his support for the French war effort supplied napalm bombs, which Bich mentioned in his 1962 paper. The US funded more than 30% of the war cost in 1952 under US President Eisenhower, and "nearly 80%" in 1954 under Truman.

Charles de Gaulle
At the beginning of World War II, in his historic four-minute call-to-arms broadcast from London on 1940 June 18, later known as L'Appel du 18 Juin in French history, the mostly then unknown General de Gaulle counted on the French Empire, with Indochina as the "Pearl of the Empire", rich in rubber, tin, coal, and rice, to provide resources to fight the Axis, with the support of the British Empire and the powerful industry of the United States. Understanding that Indochina was under the menace of occupation by the Japanese, de Gaulle harbored the dream of wresting this colony back into the fold of the French Empire, writing in his memoirs "As I saw her move away into the mist, I swore to myself that I would one day bring her back."

"Within two weeks" of the death of US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on 1945 Apr 12, de Gaulle pressured Harry Truman on the Indochina issue, and his government launched "an intensive propaganda effort to mold world opinion in favor of the status quo [French control] in Indochina", and this after having approved the Japanese occupation of Indochina since 1940 September 22. By the time General de Gaulle came to the US in 1945 Aug (inset photo) to campaign for US military aid from then US President Harry Truman, the "French had been forced to drown several Vietnamese uprisings in blood. They had seen the colonial economy completely disrupted. They had been humiliated by the Germans in Europe and incarcerated by the Japanese in Indochina. Even to begin to reassert sovereignty in Indochina, the French were forced to go hat in hand to the Americans [see inset photo, de Gaulle visited Truman], British, and Chinese."

De Gaulle was a prime mover leading to the First Indochina War in which the French-educated Bich fought on the Viet Minh side against the French colonialists. On 1945 Aug 20, just ten days before he abdicated on 1945 Aug 30, Vietnam Emperor Bao Dai sent a moving plea to de Gaulle:

Just a few days later on 1945 Aug 26 (or very shortly thereafter), Ho Chi Minh put the resistance in much stronger terms to US OSS Major Archimedes Patti, who still remembered vividly after some 35 years:

The Southeast Asia and Buddhism expert Paul Mus, who first met Ho Chi Minh in 1945, recounted that Ho Chi Minh said then:

Paul Mus added "For every time Ho Chi Minh has trusted us, we betrayed him."

Ho Chi Minh


For thirty years, from 1912 when Ho Chi Minh first visited Boston and New York City until about 1948-1949, Ho held out his hope that the US would provide military support for his anticolonialist resistance against the French. Since that visit to the US in his early twenties, Holike Bich, a Francophile anticolonialist, who was both a communist and a nationalist developed a "lifelong admiration for Americans".

Seizing on the opportunity of the Japanese entering Tonkin in 1940 September to begin occupy Indochina (with French agreement) to rid Vietnam of French colonial yoke, Ho (who was in Liuzhou, China) returned to the China-Vietnam border and began a "training program for cadres". Then on 1941 February 8, Ho crossed the border to enter Vietnam for the first time after 30 years away (from 1911 to 1941), and sheltered in cave Cốc Bó near the Pác Bó hamlet, in the Cao Bằng province, less than a mile from the Chinese border. There Ho convened a plenum in 1941 May, and founded the Viet Minh, an anticolonialist organization that Bich joined in 1945.

On 1941 Oct 25, the Viet Minh published its first manifesto: "Unification of all social strata, of all revolutionary organizations, of all ethnic minorities. Alliance with all other oppressed peoples of Indochina. Collaboration with all French anti-fascist groups. One goal: the destruction of colonialism and imperialist fascism."

In 1942 August, Ho (named "Nguyen Ai Quoc" at that time) crossed the border into China with the intention of attracting the interest of the Allies in Chungking (now Chongqing) for the Vietnamese resistance movement, arrested by the Chinese on 1942 August 28 for being "French spy", but the real reason was Ho's political activities, viewed as "Communistic", instead of "nationalistic", by the Chinese (Chiang Kai-shek) and the Allies at Chungking (now Chongqing). Ho was detained for thirteen months, starting at the Tienpao prison, moving through eighteen different prisons, and ending up at Liuchow (now Liuzhou), from where he was released on 1943 September 10, after changing his name from Nguyen Ai Quoc to Ho Chi Minh. At that time, the name "Nguyen Ai Quoc" was very popular, while hardly any one heard of the new name "Ho Chi Minh".

Ho Chi Minh returned to Vietnam in 1944 September, after obtaining the authorization from the Chinese authority, Gen. Chang Fa-kwei (Zhang Fakui, Trương Phát Khuê)who was under "severe pressure from the Japanese Ichigo offensive" to obtain intelligence in Indochinaand after submitting the "Outline of the Plan for the Activities of Entering Vietnam". All three protagoniststhe French Vichy colonialists, the Japanese occupiers, and the Viet Minhwere deceived by US war plan, and expected a US invasion of Indochina. Such expectation was the main reason that, in 1945 February-March, during an "unusually cold month of February," Ho once again crossed back into China, and walked from the Pác Bó hamlet to Kunming to meet (and to "make friends with") American OSS and OWI (Office of War Information) officers to exchange intelligence. Ho's report to the OSS mentioned the Japanese coup de force on the evening of 1945 March 9.

In Kunming, Ho requested OSS Lt. Charles Fenn to arrange for a meeting with Gen. Claire Chennault, commander of the Flying Tigers. In the meeting that occurred on 1945 Mar 29, Ho requested a portrait of Chennault, who signed across the bottom "Yours sincerely, Claire L. Chennault". Ho displayed the portrait of Chennault, along with those of Lenin and Mao, in his lodging at Tân Trào as "tangible evidence to convince skeptical Vietnamese nationalists that he had American support". As additional evidence, Ho also possessed six brand-new US Colt .45 pistols in original wrappings that he requested and got from Charles Fenn. This "seemingly insignificant quantity" of arms, together with "Chennault's autographed photograph" as evidence, convinced other factions of the primacy of the Viet Minh. Ho's American-backing ruse worked.

In Cochin China (the south), where Bich lived and worked, Tran Van Giau (Trần Văn Giàu), a Viet Minh leader and "Ho Chi Minh's trusted friend", on 1945 Aug 22 used Ho's ruse of "American backing for the Viet Minh", to convince other pro-Japanese nationalist groups (Phuc Quoc, Dai Viet, United National Front) and religious sects (Cao Dai, Hoa Hao) that they would be outlawed by the invading Allies, and thus should accept the leadership of the Viet Minh, which had strong support of "the Allies with arms, equipment and training".

Fearing a US invasion with the French colonialists helping, the Japanese initiated operation Bright Moon (Meigo sakusen), leading to a coup de force on 1945 March 9 to neutralize the French forces and to remove the French colonial administration in Indochina (and thus the status of Bich's job in the French colonial government). The resulting power vacuum following this coup de force changed the political situation, and provided a favorable setting for the Viet Minh takeover of the government. In 1945 April, Ho walked a perilous journey from Pác Bó to Tân Trào, the Viet Minh headquarters in the Liberated Area. There, on 1945 August 16, Ho called for a general uprising to throw out the Japanese occupiers that ultimately led to the August Revolution.

Even though being a son of a Cao Dai pope, Bich joined the Viet Minh in 1945, instead of the Cao Dai force.

CBS reporter David Schoenbrun interviewed Ho Chi Minh on 1946 Sep 11, the same day that a telegram was dispatched from the High Commissioner d'Argenlieu to the French Indochina Committee on the arrest of Bich on 1946 Aug 25.:

NOTE: Connect the mention of "napalm" to Bich's 1962 paper. I AM HERE 2024.04.28.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
I AM HERE Updated 2024.05.11 - Started before 2023.12.30.
 * 1) FDR
 * 2) * "By fuelling French and Japanese expectations of a US invasion, Roosevelt, Wedemeyer and the OSS prompted a Franco-Japanese confrontation, which in turn paved the way for revolution," and also for Bich to join the Viet Minh to fight the French.
 * 3) * "Although Roosevelt dismissed the Indochinese as 'a people of small stature', one of his great war aims was to liberate them from French colonialism."
 * 4) * "the accepted wisdom may be summarized in two points: First, Franklin D. Roosevelt abandoned or watered down his Indochina policy before he died. Second, the Truman administration built upon Roosevelt’s policy revision by endorsing the French return to Indochina. Both points will be challenged in the following pages, which argue that Roosevelt, though he was under pressure to abandon his policy, did not yield before he died." Tonnesson
 * 5) * "To substantiate these claims it is necessary to look at the role Roosevelt imagined for China in the war against Japan, relate the March 9 coup to his policy, and examine how trusteeship was abandoned after his death." Tonesson
 * 6) * "The postwar peace would depend on stable relations between a limited number of powers. Thus FDR developed the concept of the “four policemen,” an idea that he discussed with Stalin at Teheran in 1943. The United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and China were to police the world together. ... Roosevelt's China and Indochina policies were closely connected. When he failed to build up China as a great power, his Indochina policy suffered." Tonesson
 * 7) * believed that "France had cease to exist," despite having the strongest army in Europe,
 * 8) * thought European countries (France and Germany) could not live together peacefully: Both FDR and his Secretary of State Cordell Hull "believed that Franco-German disputes lay at the root of much of Europe's inability to maintain the peace".
 * 9) * blamed European empires for wars: "European colonialism had helped bring on both the First World War and the current one, he was convinced, and the continued existence of empires would in all likelihood result in future conflagrations." "What is more, like Wilson, he [FDR] emerged from World War I convinced that the scramble for empire not only had set the European powers against one another and created the conditions that led to war, but also worked against securing a negotiated settlement during the fighting."
 * 10) * was a staunch anticolonialist: "That de Gaulle shared Vichy's desire to preserve the French Empire only enhanced Roosevelt's disdain. By the time of Pearl Harbor, he had become a committed anticolonialist."
 * 11) * disliked de Gaulle's pomposity and egotism: "Roosevelt had not yet met de Gaulle, but he knew enough to dislike him. Basic personality differences played a role. In social interaction, de Gaulle was as austere and pompous as FDR was relaxed and jovial. For months, Roosevelt had heard Hull and other advisers rail against the general's egotism and haughty style, his serene confidence that he represented the destiny of the French people. Roosevelt, with his preference for the complicated, the ambiguous, and the devious, would get irritated just listening to these aides." Cordell Hull was convinced that "de Gaulle was a fascist and an enemy of the United States."
 * 12) * could change the course of history had he not died: "it's not fanciful to believe that had he lived beyond 1945, FDR would have tried to keep France from forcibly reclaiming control of Indochina, and might well have succeeded, thereby changing the flow of history." Then Bich would not join the Viet Minh and would not have to fight the French colonialists.

FDR's policy
American policy changed from firmly anti-colonialism in the late 1930s under US President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) to supporting the French colonialism under US President Harry Truman in the 1950s.

Well before World War II, Franklin D. Roosevelt had evolved into a committed anti-colonialist, who wanted "complete independence for all or almost all European colonies", as evidenced by his speech in March 1941:

Roosevelt's anti-colonialist speech was subsequently encoded in the third point of The Atlantic Charter, which Churchill was reluctant to agree to:

Truman's policy
NOTE: 24.5.1, to add that Virginia Thompson was the first British historian with a deep knowledge on French Indochina with her 1937 book French Indo-China (Internet Archive), George Allen & Unwin LTD, London. Also cite the reviews of this book. [https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/43/4/876/70968 French Indo-China. By Virginia Thompson. (New York: Macmillan Company. 1937. Pp. 516. $5.00.), reviewed by H.I. Priestley, The American Historical Review, Volume 43, Issue 4, July 1938, Pages 876–877, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/43.4.876 ] ENDNOTE.

Ellen J. Hammer was the first American-born historian with a deep knowledge of the French colonial rule in Indochina in the early 1950s during the First Indochina War. Dr. Hammer's highly influential book titled The Struggle for Indochina—published in 1954 well before the United States sent American troops to Vietnam in the 1960s—described the events, politics, and historic personalities leading to the First Indochina War. Her works were considered among the must-read books by respected historians on Vietnam history, as Osborne (1967) wrote: "Indeed, any serious student of Viet-Nam will have either read Devillers, Lacouture, Fall, Hammer and Lancaster's studies already, or will be better served by reading them first hand." To give a historical context within which Nguyen Ngoc Bich fought the French colonists, there is no better English source to begin than Dr. Hammer's Vietnam-history book.

The American dilemma (1-To help the French to re-establish its colony in Vietnam or 2-To help free the Vietnamese from the yoke of French colonialism) was described by Hammer as follows: "The United States has entangled itself in a war in a distant corner of Asia in which it resolutely does not want to participate and from which it equally resolutely cannot abstain. It has committed itself to the cause of France [ French Indochina ] and of Bao Dai, but enough of the old spirit of anticolonialism is left to make this a somewhat unsavory commitment: it cannot bring itself wholly to ignore the fact that the free world looks less than free to a people whose country is being fought over by a foreign army. Aware that a lasting peace can be built only on satisfaction of the national aspirations of the Indochinese, the United States must at the same time conciliate a France reluctant to abandon her colonial past."

Under US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the US policy was to remove the French colonists from Indochina, as the French official Jean Sainteny lamented that he was "face to face with a deliberate Allied maneuver to evict the French from Indochina and that at the present time the Allied attitude is more harmful than that of the Viet-Minh".

"General Wedemeyer's orders not to aid the French came directly from the War Department. Apparently it was American policy then that French Indochina would not be returned to the French. The American government was interested in seeing the French forcibly ejected from Indochina so the problem of postwar separation from their colony would be easier. . . . While American transports in China avoided Indochina, the British flew aerial supply missions for the French all the way from Calcutta, dropping tommy guns, grenades and mortars."

After FDR died on 1945 Apr 12 (cite Langguth, Chronology). I AM HERE 2023.04.29. Egm4313.s12 (talk) 01:48, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

☛  NOT DONE, TO ADD: Egm4313.s12 (talk) 15:17, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Bao Dai's plea to de Gaulle not to return to Vietnam as master. Reference.
 * Americans humiliated French prisoners held captive by the then disarmed Japanese. References.
 * US general sang with the Vietminh. During the ceremony, the French were seated behind unknown Vietminh fighters; as a result, no French accepted the invitation. References.
 * Harry Truman, cold war, anti-communist ideology. The US paid 80% of the war cost by 1954. References
 * French American-made plane (Grumman F8F Bearcat) dropping American-made napalm bombs.
 * The horror of the destruction of napalm bombs, references. Bich's 1962 paper.
 * In the Vietnamese literature, the First Indochina War is referred to as the "French-American War", and the Second Indochina War the "American War". References.

War began

 * The First Indochina War started on 1945 September 23 with the brutal repression of the Vietnamese by some 1,400 French soldiers, who had been imprisoned by the Japanese, then freed and re-armed by British General Gracey, and who went on a rampage, beating, lynching any Vietnamese they saw on the street. ["Thus began, it could be argued, the Vietnamese war of liberation against France. It would take several more months before the struggle would extend to the entire south, and more than a year before it also engulfed Hanoi and the north, which is why historians typically date the start of the war as late 1946 [Dec 19]. But this date, September 23, 1945, may be as plausible a start date as any."]

The situation in Tonkin (North Vietnam) in March 1946 was as follows: "There were some 185,000 Chinese soldiers north of the sixteenth parallel and some 30,000 Japanese, many of them still in possession of their arms. All the French troops in the north were disarmed and held prisoner in the Hanoi Citadel, where the Japanese had left them; there were also some 25,000 Frenchmen living in Hanoi. Only 15,000 French troops were in Saigon and they had to travel several days to get to Haiphong before they could go to Hanoi." Yet, the French hawkish colonists in Cochinchina (South Vietnam)—led by the "warmonger" triumvirate "High Commissioner Admiral Georges Thierry d'Argenlieu (the "Bloody Monk"), Supreme Commander General Jean-Etienne Valluy, and Federal Commissioner of Political Affairs Léon Pignon"—took a "gigantic gamble in dispatching an invasion force to the port city of Haiphong", fell into the "Chinese trap", in which the Chinese with a superior army forced both the French and the Vietnamese to sign the March 6 Agreement, which "was simply an armistice that provided a transient illusion of agreement where actually no agreement existed". Indeed, after a short period following a "modus vivendi", the First Indochina War started on 1946 December 19.

☛  NOT DONE, TO ADD: Egm4313.s12 (talk) 15:17, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Brutal repression by British and French forces in Cochinchina (South Vietnam)
 * Quotations from Tønnesson (2010) and Donaldson (1996)

Resistance
After graduating in 1935 from the École nationale des ponts et chaussées, a civil engineering school, Nguyen Ngoc Bich returned home to work as a civil engineer for the colonial government at the Soc-Trang Irrigation Department until the Japanese coup d'état in Viet Nam (1945 Sep 03). Bich then joined the Resistance in the Soc-Trang base area and was appointed Deputy Commander of the Military Zone 9, established on 1945 Dec 10, and included the provinces of Cần Thơ, Sóc Trăng, Rạch Giá, together with six other provinces. Bich sabotaged many bridges that were notoriously difficult to destroy such as  in Can Tho—where a street was named to honor his feats— in Soc Trang, etc., blocking the advance of French forces directed by General Valluy and General Nyo, who were under the general command of General Philippe Leclerc, commander of the French Far East Expeditionary Corps (Corps expéditionnaire français en Extrême-Orient, CEFEO).

Between 1946 March 6 and 1946 December 19, in Cochinchina, the military situation did not favor the Vietnamese: "Outside Saigon the various nationalist resistance groups, weakened though they were by the months of warfare with the British and French, still controlled large sections of the Cochin Chinese countryside. Ho Chi Minh proposed to General Leclerc the sending of mixed Franco-Vietnamese commissions to establish peace in Cochin China after the signing of the March 6 accord, but the General saw no reason for this in what was supposed to be French territory. When Ho sent his own emissaries to the south, they were arrested by the French who continued to regard Cochin China as a French colony, claiming a free hand there until the referendum could be held. This led to difficult local problems, as in the case of the Vietnamese emissary sent by one Vietnamese zone commander [Nguyen Ngoc Bich] to discuss a cease-fire with the local French commanding officer. The emissary was unceremoniously informed that the French expected complete capitulation—the surrender of arms and prisoners—and that this was an ultimatum. They had until the 31st of March to comply; if they failed to do so, the fighting would begin again. Before the Vietnamese left French headquarters, the French officer took his name and it was soon public knowledge that the French had put a price on his head as well as on that of his commander, Nguyen Ngoc Bich. In this particular region of Cochin China fighting resumed by the end of the month."

Chester L. Cooper was an American diplomat and a key negotiator in many critical agreements in the 1950s and '60s, beginning with his involvement in the Geneva Conference on Indochina in 1954. In his 2005 memoir In the Shadows of History: 50 Years Behind the Scenes of Cold War Diplomacy, "he recounted his association with a constellation of historic figures that included John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Nikita S. Khrushchev and Ho Chi Minh". Dr. Cooper—who acquired a deep knowledge of Vietnam history from his years in Asia, from 1941 to 1954, first working for the Office of Strategic Services in China, then for the CIA in 1947, and subsequently became head of the Far East staff of the Office of National Estimates in 1950—devoted some three to four pages to describe Dr. Bich in his Vietnam-history book The Lost Crusade: America in Vietnam, in particular some aspects of Bich's resistance activities: "As commander of the Viet Minh forces in the Delta during the late 40s, Bich became one of the most popular local heroes. During 1946 the Viet Minh hierarchy became concerned that Bich might pose a threat to the aims of the Viet Minh in the southern part of Vietnam, and by the end of that year Ho apparently decided that Bich had served his purpose in the Delta. He was 'invited' to move North to become a member of the Viet Minh political and military headquarters in Hanoi. Bich was reluctant to leave his command, not only because of his desire to continue the fight against the French, but also because he felt uneasy about leaving his base of power. Nonetheless, he made his way north via the nationalist underground to Hanoi.

A day or two before Bich was to report to the Viet Minh headquarters, the French discovered his hiding place near Hanoi. Since he was on the French 'most wanted' list, he was subjected to an intensive and unpleasant interrogation."

Joseph A. Buttinger was an ardent advocate for refugees of persecution, and a "renowned authority on Vietnam and the American war" in that country. In 1940, he helped founded the International Rescue Committee, "a nonprofit organization aiding refugees of political, religious and racial persecution", and while "working with refugees in Vietnam in the 1950s, he became immersed in the history, culture, and politics of that nation". His scholarship was in high demand during the Vietnam War. The New York Times described his his two-volume Vietnam-history book, Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled, as "a monumental work" that "marks a strategic breakthrough in the serious study of Vietnamese politics in America" and as "the most thorough, informative and, over all, the most impressive book on Vietnam yet published in America". Joseph Buttinger wrote in Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled, Vol. 2

that Dr. Bich was "the resistance hero" whom "Diem had no success" to convince to join his cabinet:

"Diem left Paris for Saigon on June 24, accompanied by his brother Luyen, by Tran Chanh Thanh, and by Nguyen Van Thoai, a relative of the Ngo family and the only prominent exile willing to join Diem's Cabinet. With others, such as the resistance hero Nguyen Ngoc Bich, Diem had no success. He tried unsuccessfully to win Nguyen Manh Ha, a Catholic who had been Ho Chi Minh's first Minister of Economics but who had parted with the Vietminh in December, 1946. These men, and others too, rejected Diem's concept of government, which clearly aimed at a one-man rule. Nor did they share Diem's illusions about the chances of preventing a Geneva settlement favorable to the Vietminh. Diem apparently believed that the National Army, no longer fighting under the French but for an independent government, would quickly become effective and reduce the gains made by the Vietminh."

That Nguyen Ngoc Bich was being hunted by the French colonists was described in Joseph Buttinger's book: "[Note] 9. Miss Hammer cites the case of an emissary sent by Nguyen Ngoc Bich. The French took down his name when he came to their headquarters to negotiate a cease-fire, and 'it was soon public knowledge that the French had put a price on his head as well as on that of his commander, Nguyen Ngoc Bich' (ibid., p. 158)."

National Assembly
While fighting the French colonists in Zone 9, Nguyen Ngoc Bich became a member for Rach-Gia in the first National Assembly (1946–1960) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and important goverment organ established after the declaration of Vietnam independence.

☛ NOT DONE, TO ADD: Egm4313.s12 (talk) 15:20, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
 * importance of the NA.
 * Marr (2013), National Assembly Standing Committee, p.65, pdf p.88, "Two days following adjournment of the National Assembly, the Standing Committee met and elected as chairman vi:Nguyễn_Văn_Tố, a respected historian and minister of social relief in the 28 August 1945 provisional government. A five-person Standing Bureau (Ban Thường Vụ) was selected, also chaired by Tố. Some time later the names of four southern Vidt Minh activists were added to the parent Standing Committee, although it is unlikely any of them attended meetings in Hanoi before October.25 Nguyën Văn Tó attended the extraordinary 6 March expanded meeting of the cabinet, at which Hò Chí Minh presented the text of his preliminary accord with Jean Sainteny and received endorsement (see chapter 4)"
 * Note 24, p.592, pdf p.615: "Nguyễn Tố Uyên, 257. Pham Văn Đòng (ICP) and Cung Đình Qùy (Nationalist Party) were designated vice-chairs of the bureau, while Hoàng Minh Giám (Viet Minh) and Duong Ðúc Hièn (Democratic Party) became secretaries."
 * Note 25, p.592, pdf p.615: "Nguyën Tó Uyên, 257. These individuals were: Tôn Ðúc Thång, Duong Bach Mai, Nguyën Ngoc Bích, and Huynh Tán Phát. None of these persons are on the absentee list of National Assembly members tabled 2 March 1946 (CB 1946, 215), which raises questions about how and when they were elected or appointed as delegates."
 * Nguyen Van To, vi:Nguyễn_Văn_Tố "Tên ông được đặt cho một trường học ở Khu 9 (Nam Bộ) trong những năm kháng chiến chống vi:Pháp (1946 - 1954)."
 * Marr 2013, Vietnam 1945-1946, Good ref on National Assembly, p.68, pdf p.91, "During the summer of 1946, vi:Nguyễn_Văn_Tố still had the ear of newspaper editors. ... In September he protested French capture in the south of Nguyễn Ngọc Bích, a member of the National Assembly Standing Committee.35" Note 35, p.592, pdf p.615: "Doc Lap [Independence] (Hanoi newspaper) 240 (8 Sep 1946)"

Prison and exile
In 1946, a French army patrol arrested him in An Phu Dong near Saigon in a house where he was waiting for a guide to escort him to Da Lat for the Viet Nam-France Preliminary Conference (April and May 1946) in preparation for the Fontainebleau Conference to take place in France (July to September 1946). He was tortured but still hid his real name and profession, until a French colonel who was inspecting the area where he was captured, hearing that he seemed to be more than just a teacher, revealed to him that he graduated from Polytechnique and was looking for a man named Nguyen Ngoc Bich who graduated from the same school. That colonel took him back to be locked up in Saigon, less dangerous. He was sentenced to death by the Military Court because he graduated from École Polytechnique and was a French army officer. Hoang Xuan Han, minister of education and fine arts in Tran Trong Kim's cabinet (17-04-1945), also a graduate of Polytechnique (he entered in 1930), wrote a letter to the alumni of this engineering school urging them to understand Nguyen Ngoc Bich's patriotism and help him in his difficult times. French military officers in Vietnam graduated from Polytechnique, based on the Franco-Vietnamese agreement of March 9, 1946, to put Nguyen Ngoc Bich's name on a prisoner exchange list and organize his exile in France.

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Intellectual and politician
In 1962, as an intellectual in exile in Paris, Dr. Bich published an article, among respected historians at the time such as Philippe Devillers, Bernard B. Fall, Hoang Van Chi etc., presenting an incisive analysis of the economics and politics of the two Vietnams, and proposed an alternative viewpoint to avoid the Second Indochina War; see Section Peaceful negotiation, an independent viewpoint, where a summary of his article is provided.

Chester L. Cooper described Dr. Bich as one among some "genuine nationalists" living in exile in France in the 1950s: "One such patriot was Dr. Nguyen Nhoc Bich. By profession Bich had been an engineer—a graduate of France's prestigious Ecole Polytechnique. He was a consequential and revered figure. His father was one of the founders of a branch of the Cao Dai sect, and his family had long been highly respected in the southern part of Vietnam, particularly in the area of Ben Tre Province. Bich had joined the Viet Minh because he was convinced there was a chance for non-Communist nationalists to band together with the Communists in a broad coalition to establish a genuinely free and independent Vietnam. Bich, as well as many other educated, non-Communist nationalists, was influenced by the French political tactic of alliances between moderate and Communist groups to achieve short-range objectives. The problem in Vietnam, however, was that the non-Communist nationalists had no significant political base of their own and were either swallowed up or destroyed by the Viet Minh's well-organized, politically aggressive Communist leadership."

In Paris, Dr. Bich was a "most popular oppositionist" to Ngo Dinh Diem and his regime, as described in Joseph Buttinger's book: "[Note] 92. [Robert] Scigliano mentions [Nguyen Bao Toan] and Nguyen Ngoc Bich as 'perhaps the two most popular of the Paris oppositionists (op. cit., pp. 23–24, 79–80, and 82)'."

The French suggested Dr. Bich as a serious alternative to Ngo Dinh Diem as prime minister of South Vietnam under Bao Dai in 1954, after the 1954 Geneva Conference: "Diem was not the only candidate for prime minister under Bao Dai, and the French considered him hostile to their business interests, which they expected to survive the change in government. The names the French put forward could be dismissed as collaborators, however, and the one serious alternative to Diem, Dr. Nguyen Ngoc Bich, had his own liabilities. Although not a Communist himself, Bich had fought with the Vietminh, and his father was prominent in the Cao Dai, an eclectic sect that revered Confucius, Buddha, Jesus, Joan of Arc and Victor Hugo. Despite a medical degree, Bich could seem so mystical that Diem looked hard-headed and practical to the Vietnamese colony in Paris and to Foster Dulles, who saw that he would be dependably anti-Communist."

Economic cooperation
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 * Quotations from Asselin (2013) and Nguyen (2012) regarding neutrality or neutralization of South Vietnam.
 * Refer to master biography for details.

Early life and education
Engineer and doctor Nguyen Ngoc Bich was born on 18 May 1911 in An Hoi village, Bao Huu canton, Bao An district, now in Giong Mong district, Ben Tre province. He was the son of Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Tuong (1881–1951), Cao Dai Ban Chinh Dao (Ben Tre), and Ms. Bui Thi Giau.

As a child, he stayed with his father, lived in many places such as Can Tho, Ha Tien, Can Giuoc and mainly studied in Can Giuoc. In 1926, at the age of 15, he went to Saigon to study and graduated with a Baccalaureat at Chasseloup Laubat French School with very high scores, studying abroad in France. In France, he studied and obtained engineering degrees from the École Polytechnique in Paris (he entered in 1931 and graduated in 1933) and later from the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées also in Paris. These are 2 prestigious engineering universities in France, as well as in the world so far, especially Polytechnique because the entrance exam is very difficult and is a military school under the tutelage of the French Ministry of the Army, students when graduating have the rank of a military officer and at that time had to work for the government (civil or military) for a period of time.

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Life in exile
Back in France, he lived with Dr Henriette Bui Quang Chieu, Vietnam's first female doctor, but the two did not marry because they were relatives (his mother, Bui Thi Giau, was a cousin of Bui Quang Chieu, Henriette Bui's father). Back in France, he founded in Paris Minh Tan publishing house ((agents in Vietnam were the two bookstores Truong Thi (Hanoi) and Bich Van Thu Xa (Saigon)) with some friends to publish works of Vietnamese intellectuals to help improve people's knowledge living in Vietnam.

Published books include such as Dao Duy Anh's "Hán-Việt Tự Điển" (Chinese-Vietnamese dictionary) and "Pháp-Việt Tự Điển" (French-Vietnamese dictionary), "French-Vietnamese Scientific Nouns", Hoang Xuan Han's "Danh từ khoa học Pháp-Việt" (Scientific vocabulary French-Vietnamese), "Chinh Phụ ngăm bị khảo" and "La sơn Phu tử", Tran Duc Thao's "Phénoménologie et matérialisme dialectique" (Phenomenology and Dialectical Materialism), doctors Pham Khac Quan and Le Khac Thien's "Danh tử Pháp Việt về thuật ngữ kỹ thuật trong y tế" (French Vietnamese vocabulary on technical terminology in medicine), etc. After graduating from medicine and receiving a doctor's degree, he studied cancer and taught Medical Physics at the Paris Medical School until his death. After he finished composing his Agrégation thesis ("agrégation" (translated into Thạc Sĩ in Vietnamese) is a degree higher than PHD), he could not take the exam because foreigners who want to be enrolled in the exam, must provide a letter of recommendation from their Embassy, at that time the Embassy of the State of Viet Nam with which he refused to have any link. During the French colonial period, French citizenship was given with parsimony to the ones who rendered great service to France and who applied for it. He did not render any service to France, he just had to work as a civil engineer for the colonial government, which was mandatory because he graduated from Ecole Polytechnique.

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Engagement in politics
In 1954, before Diem was selected by Bao Dai, according to the books Our Vietnam: The War 1954–1975 by Arthur John Langguth and The Lost Crusade – America in Vietnam by Chester L. Cooper, he was widely regarded as a possible prime minister of the State of Vietnam.

Along with some Vietnamese in France, he wanted to give the country another way than the one of war: cooperation between North and South that help each other develop to catch up with neighbouring countries and avoid dependence on foreign states: negotiations and economic and trade cooperation while waiting for favourable conditions for the two sides to unite the country. That idea was echoed by him in an article he wrote in the quarterly magazine China Quarterly, March 3–5, 1962. Later, the same idea was proposed by Ho Chi Minh (in 1958 and 1962) and Ngo Dinh Diem and Ngo Dinh Nhu (in 1963) but without success. A member of his group went to Geneva (Geneva Conference in 1954) to meet Phan Van Dong. He was invited by Georges Bidault, French Foreign Minister (until June 16, 1954) to meet and an American professor from Washington came to Paris to see him. But at that time the U.S. policy was to eliminate communism, and Pham Van Dong's side paid attention to the planned reunification elections in 1956.

That group of Vietnamese intellectuals—most of whom were professionals trained and residing in France—kept to be discreet at that time and often met at the headquarters of Minh Tan publishing house, which made them called by some the Minh Tan group. The publisher's logo is a pigeon sandwiched in the beak of an olive branch, symbolizing "Peace".

He sent his candidacy for the 1961 South Viet Nam presidential election, with his partner Nguyễn Văn Thoại, a professor at Collège de France in Paris and a former minister of Ngô Đình Diệm. But his file was dismissed by the Ngo Dinh Diem government because of "technical problems".

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End of life
Suffering from throat cancer, he returned to Vietnam in 1966 when he was very severe and died in Thu Duc on 4 Dec 1966. He was buried in Ben Tre, near the grave of his father Nguyen Ngoc Tuong and his brothers, including his brother martyr Nguyen Ngoc Nhut, who was a member of the Southern Administrative Resistance Committee. But the grave is open because Nhut's remains have been moved by the government to a martyr's graveyard in Ben Tre.

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Peaceful negotiation
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Vietnam-War casualties
How many people died in the Vietnam War? Britannica (accessed on 2023.02.18)

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

The China Quarterly, Vol. 9, Mar 1962
The China Quarterly | Cambridge Core

The China Quarterly: Volume 9 - | Cambridge Core (Mar 1962)

Contributors
Contributors

Vietnam—An Independent Viewpoint
Nguyen-Ngoc-Bich (1962), Vietnam—An Independent Viewpoint The China Quarterly, Volume 9, March, pp. 105–111. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S030574100002525X

Summary of main points
In 1962, Dr. Bich laid out an argument to avoid the subversion war by North Vietnam to conquer rice from South Vietnam to solve its famine problem due to low yields in agricultural production using archaic methods and due to the failed agrarian reform. His main points were (1) South Vietnam should have a truly liberal democratic government, (2) the South should establish commercial relations with the North to help solve the said famine problem, (3) the South should maintain a non-aligned neutrality that would prevent interference from the North, (4) the South would peacefully negotiate with the North toward a progressive reunification. Below is a more detailed summary of his article, looking back from more than 60 years later. As a result, past tense is used in this summary to describe long-past events, instead of the sometimes present tense used in the original article. The full article translated into French is available in the document Nguyen Ngoc Bich (1911–1966): A Biography.

Publication

 * , pp. 105–111. See also the contents of Volume 9, which included the articles of many well-known experts on Vietnam history and politics such as Bernard B. Fall, Hoang Van Chi, Phillipe Devillers (see, e.g., his classic 1952 book Histoire du Viet-Nam in Section References and French Cochinchina, Ref. 40), P. J. Honey,  Gerard Tongas (see, e.g, J'ai vécu dans l'Enfer Communiste au Nord Viet-Nam, Debresse, Paris, 1961, reviewed] by P. J. Honey), among others.

Timeline
Important historical events in Vietnam and in the world that affected directly or indirectly the life of Dr. Nguyen Ngoc Bich, from his birth in 1911 to his death in 1966.

1911

 * MM DD, Nguyen Ngoc Bich was born in LOCATION, Vietnam. Section Early life and education.

1930

 * Feb 9-10, Yen Bai mutiny. Brutal repression by the French colonialists.  Bich at 19 years old.

1931

 * MM DD, began to study at the Ecole Polytechnique, Paris, France. Bich at 20.
 * met Henriette Bui.

1933

 * graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique. Bich at 22.
 * began to study at the Ecole National des Ponts et Chaussees.

Nguyen Ngoc Bich
Images used to illustrate this article.

First Indochina War
Images used to illustrate this article.

Second Indochina War
Images used to illustrate this article.

Nguyen Ngoc Bich Nguyen Ngoc Bich