OSS
Deer Team members pose with Viet Minh leaders Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen
Giap during training at Tan Trao in August 1945. Deer Team members
standing, l to r, are Rene Defourneaux, (Ho), Allison Thomas, (Giap),
Henry Prunier and Paul Hoagland, far right. Kneeling, left, are Lawrence
Vogt and Aaron Squires. (Rene Defourneaux)
In the mid-1940s, the Viet Minh, under Ho Chi Minh, looked to the West for help in its independence movement and got it.
As U.S. Army Major Allison Thomas sat down to dinner with Ho Chi Minh
and General Vo Nguyen Giap on September 15, 1945, he had one vexing
question on his mind. Ho had secured power a few weeks earlier, and
Thomas was preparing to leave Hanoi the next day and return stateside,
his mission complete. He and a small team of Americans had been in
French Indochina with Ho and Giap for two months, as part of an Office
of Strategic Services (OSS) mission to train Viet Minh guerrillas and
gather intelligence to use against the Japanese in the waning days of
World War II. But now, after Ho's declaration of independence and
Japan's surrender the previous month, the war in the Pacific was over.
So was the OSS mission in Indochina. At this last dinner with his
gracious hosts, Thomas decided to get right to the heart of it. So many
of the reports he had filed with the OSS touched on Ho's ambiguous
allegiances and intents, and Thomas had had enough. He asked Ho
point-blank: Was he a Communist? Ho replied: "Yes. But we can still be
friends, can't we?"
It was a startling admission. In the mid-1940s, the Viet Minh
leadership, under Ho Chi Minh, looked to the West for help in its
independence movement and got it. As World War II ended, the United
States and its allies, most of them former colonial powers, now
confronted a new problem. Independence movements were emerging all over
the East. But former colonial powers had lost their military muscle, and
the Americans simply wanted to "bring the boys home." During the war,
the United States had sought any and all allies to combat the fascist
powers, only to find, years later, it may have inadvertently given birth
to new world leaders either through misconceptions or missed
opportunities. Vietnam's independence leader, Ho Chi Minh, had been only
a relatively minor figure just a few years earlier. In 1945, Ho became
the leader of a movement that would result in revolutionary tumult for
decades to come.
Deer Team Meets a "Mr. Hoo"
Two months before Thomas' farewell dinner with Ho and Giap, he and
six others from Special Operations Team Number 13, code-named "Deer,"
had parachuted into a jungle camp called Tan Trao, near Hanoi, with
directions to proceed to the headquarters of Ho Chi Minh, whom they
naively knew only as a "Mr. Hoo." Their mission, as they understood it,
was to set up a guerrilla team of 50 to 100 men to attack and interdict
the railroad from Hanoi to Lang Son to prevent the Japanese from going
into China. They were also to find Japanese targets such as military
bases and depots, and send back to OSS agents in China whatever
intelligence they could. And they were to provide weather reports for
air drops and U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) operations on an as-needed
basis.
Thomas had parachuted in on July 16, 1945, part of a three-man
advance team that also included radio operator 1st Sgt. William Zielski
and Pfc Henry Prunier, their interpreter. Not knowing who or what to
expect when they reached the drop zone, Thomas and his team soon found
themselves surrounded by 200 guerrilla fighters who greeted them warmly
and showed them to their huts. They then met with Ho Chi Minh, who
called himself "C.M. Hoo," at his headquarters to coordinate operations
with him. Thomas had no idea that Ho was a Communist, spoke Russian or
had visited the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, Ho openly discussed politics
with Thomas, stressing not only the abuses by the French, but also his
desire to work with the French toward a solution.
In his first official report to OSS Director Archimedes L.A. Patti in
Kunming, China, the following day, Thomas noted, referring to Ho: "He
personally likes many French but most of his soldiers don't." This may
have been one of Ho's ongoing ruses to ingratiate himself with potential
but temporary allies. In his mid-50s, Ho apparently thoroughly
convinced the Deer Team commander of his sincerity. In an effort to
further dispel OSS or U.S. government concerns about Ho, Thomas
emphatically wrote in the report: "Forget the Communist Bogy. VML [Viet
Minh League] is
not Communist. Stands for freedom and reforms from French harshness."
On July 30, the remainder of the Deer Team parachuted in, consisting
of the assistant team leader, Lieutenant René Defourneaux, Staff Sgt.
Lawrence R. Vogt, a weapons instructor, photographer Sergeant Aaron
Squires and a medic, Pfc Paul Hoagland. Defourneaux, a French expatriate
who had become a U.S. citizen, had parachuted into France earlier in
the war to help the Resistance before joining the OSS.
The first person that Defourneaux met when he reached the drop zone
was a "Mr. Van," General Giap, who seemed to be in charge. Ho was not
around much, but when Defourneaux saw him, his first impression was of a
sick old man clearly suffering from some disease. In one of the ironies
of history, the Vietnam War, at least with the Communists under Ho Chi
Minh, might never have happened if the Americans hadn't arrived when
they did.
"Ho was so ill he could not move from the corner of a smoky hut,"
Defourneaux said. Ho didn't seem to have much time to live; Defourneaux
heard it would not be weeks but days. "Our medic thought it might have
been dysentery, dengue fever, hepatitis," he recalled. "While being
treated by Pfc Hoagland, Ho directed his people into the jungle to
search for herbs. Ho shortly recovered, attributing it to his knowledge
of the jungle."
In other reports to the OSS, Thomas had raised a number of political
concerns, from Ho's allegiances, to Indochina's struggle with the
French, Vichy, Japanese, Chinese and the British. In a July 27 report,
Thomas had stated that Ho's league was an amalgamation of all political
parties that stood for liberty with "no political ideas beyond that."
Thomas added, "Ho definitely tabooed the idea that the party was
communistic" since "the peasants didn't know what the word communism or
socialism meant—but they did understand liberty and independence." He
noted that it was impossible for the French to stay, nor were they
welcome since the Vietnamese "hated them worse than the Japs….Ho said he
would welcome a million American soldiers to come in but not any
French."
Control of French Indochina During WWII
French Indochina during World War II was a simmering cauldron of
colonial powers on the decline, of colonial powers divided and other
powers on the rise. Comprised largely of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos,
French Indochina had become in the late 19th century the "jewel in
France's crown" in Southeast Asia.
Among the several competing global, regional and internal interests
in French Indochina during World War II were: Vichy France, which
controlled its colony only with permission of its Japanese ally and
German dominator; followed then by the French Republic, which sought to
reclaim its colonial territories; the United States, which was fighting
against Japan; and Japan, which sought to maintain its regional
hegemony. Also involved were the warring Communists and Nationalists in
China, which sought to influence the region to their south; and a
variety of independence-seeking indigenous factions that all wanted to
remove the yoke of any colonial or imperial power.
Vietnam itself was divided into three main regions with their own
factions fighting for control: the northern Tonkin, central Annam and
southern Cochinchina. French control over Indochina was challenged only
when France fell to the Germans in 1940 and was divided into two
governments—occupied France, and to the south the nominally neutral,
German-dominated Vichy government under World War I hero Marshal Henri
Philippe Pétain. Vichy retained control of most of the French overseas
territories during the war, including Indochina. However, the French
remaining in Indochina were less loyal to the German puppet Vichy
government than they were to Pétain.
As Japan expanded into the Pacific and Asia early in World War II, it
ironically found itself hamstrung by its own alliance with Nazi
Germany. For, so long as both the Vichy government and Imperial Japan
were tied to Germany, the French retained de facto control of Indochina,
although Japan was permitted to establish military bases. As the war in
the Pacific wound down, however, the Allied invasion of Normandy and
liberation of Paris resulted in the fall of Vichy France in August 1944
and, with it, any claims on colonial territories.
Throughout most of World War II, the United States was finding and
supporting allies in China and other Southeast Asian regions, including
French Indochina, to pose a threat to the Japanese military wherever
possible. With the liberation of France in 1944, the U.S. government
turned to its primary coordinator of intelligence during the war: the
OSS, created in 1942 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
OSS to Ho: Work With Us Against the Japanese
At the time, the OSS was operating a base in China's wartime capital,
Chungking. With the growing military complications in Indochina, Brig.
Gen. William Donovan, the director of the OSS, instructed his staff to
use "anyone who will work with us against the Japanese, but do not
become involved in French-Indochinese politics." The Viet Minh, a
liberation movement that had emerged under Ho Chi Minh in the early
1940s, was seeking not only Vietnam's independence from France, but also
freedom from the Japanese occupation. In mid-1944 the OSS approached Ho
to help organize an intelligence network in Indochina to help fight the
Japanese and to help rescue downed American pilots. By then, "Ho had
been cooperating with the Americans in propaganda activities," wrote
Captain Archimedes Patti, head of the OSS base in Kunming, China, and
later Hanoi.
The American association with Ho had actually begun in December 1942
when representatives of the Viet Minh approached the U.S. Embassy in
China for help in securing the release of "an Annamite named Ho Chih-chi
(?) [
sic]" from a Nationalist Chinese prison, where he was being
held for having invalid documents. In September 1943, when Ho was
finally released, he returned to Vietnam to organize Vietnamese seeking
independence. An October 1943 OSS memo proposed that the United States
"use the Annamites…to immobilize large numbers of Japanese troops by
conducting systematic guerrilla warfare in the difficult jungle
country." The missive went on to suggest the OSS's most effective
propaganda line was to "convince the Annamites that this war, if won by
the Allies, will gain their independence."
As the Axis retreated in Europe, and what remained of the Vichy
French government fell, Japan was no longer restrained in Indochina by
its ties to Germany. The Japanese quickly made inroads into Vietnam,
staging a coup d'état in March 1945 that dissolved the French government
and established a puppet government. On March 11, Emperor Bao Dai
proclaimed Vietnam's independence and his intent to cooperate with the
Japanese. Ho Chi Minh was surprised by this development, and regarded
another independence movement as a threat to the Viet Minh's. At the
same time, with the Japanese coup against the French, the OSS realized
it was cut off from the flow of intelligence from French Indochina to
its base in Kunming, and it urged Ho to work with the United States.
"The coup has produced many new and perhaps delicate problems which
will demand considerable attention," the OSS officers in China reported
to headquarters. "The French are no longer in power. There are 24
million [Vietnamese] in Indochina [offering] support for the new
nationalistic regime. Militarily, it calls for an alteration of military
plans; we can't count on French and native troops." The Japanese did
not have the military strength to defend all of Vietnam, however, and
the Viet Minh began to organize themselves as the provisional government
in all but the largest towns, where the Japanese had strongholds.
Also in March 1945, Viet Minh guerrillas
rescued a U.S. pilot who had been shot down in Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh
himself escorted the pilot back to the American forces in Kunming, where
the Fourteenth Air Force was based. Rejecting an offer of a monetary
reward, Ho asked only for the honor of meeting Maj. Gen. Claire
Chennault, founder of China's legendary American Volunteer Group, the
"Flying Tigers," and now commander of the Fourteenth Air Force. During
the meeting on March 29, Chennault thanked Ho, who, after promising to
help any other downed American pilots, requested only an autographed
photo of the general. Ho would later cannily show the picture to other
nationalist Vietnamese factions as proof of his warm relations with—and
implied support from—the Americans. At this time, few knew that Ho
(whose real name was Nguyen Ai Quoc) was a long-time Communist who had
been trained in the Soviet Union. Even the Office of War Information
reportedly was impressed by Ho and his "English, intelligence and
obvious interest in the Allied war effort."
On April 27, Captain Patti met with Ho Chi
Minh to ask him for permission to send an OSS team to work with him and
the Annamites to gather intelligence on the Japanese. "Welcome, my good
friend," said Ho in greeting Patti. He agreed to work with an OSS team
and asked Patti for modern weapons. Ho then set up a training camp in
the jungle, at place he called Tan Trao—the former hamlet of Kimlung and
the new location of Viet Minh headquarters—about 200 kilometers from
Hanoi. There he prepared for the Americans' arrival.
Deer Team Begins Training the Viet Minh
Captain Patti's OSS group, the Deer Team, was established on May 16
and made its way from the United States to the OSS station in Kunming,
where it waited two months for permission to enter French Indochina.
Finally the decision was made for Major Thomas and the team's six other
members to parachute to the Tan Trao training camp in July.
Captain Patti had served with Thomas in North Africa and thought he
"was a fine young officer but understandably unsophisticated in the way
of international power struggles." Thomas became quick friends with Ho
and Giap at Tan Trao, often ignoring the rest of the team. Part of the
team's mission was to indicate targets for the USAAF, but Thomas spent
most of his time with Ho and Giap, and even redirected USAAF targets
against the Japanese based on Ho's recommendations, in direct conflict
with orders he had received from the OSS.
Defourneaux, who had assumed the alias of Raymond Douglas, the son of
a Franco-American mother, to protect him from the locals, had a
different experience with Ho. The leader continually probed Defourneaux
and challenged his cover story, wary of him. Ho told Defourneaux he
hoped the United States would handle Vietnam the way it had the
Philippines. "We deserved the same treatment," said Ho. "You should help
us reach the point of independence. We are self-sufficient."
Defourneaux did not believe that Giap and Ho were "on the same
wavelength," and that Giap was doing things independently. At the time,
he did not know that Giap, or "Mr. Van," another of the OSS's "friends
of the forest," was running an indoctrination school on communism.
As Thomas' friendship with Giap and Ho grew, his relationship with
his own men deteriorated, and Defourneaux became wary of them. Ho, and
especially Giap, had "full control over our leader," said Defourneaux.
In his diary, Defourneaux wrote of Thomas: "I stay with the boys and
cannot help hear their conversations. They hate him, personally I hate
him more and more every day." He said that Thomas thought Ho and Giap
were simply agrarian reformers, "but Ho didn't know how to use a shovel
and Giap didn't know how to milk a cow."
Deer Team members supervise small-arms training at Ho's Tan Trao jungle camp in August 1945. (National Archives)
The
members of the Deer Team had to wait a couple of weeks for supply drops
in early August before they could start small-arms and weapons training
for the guerrilla forces. Once the arms arrived, the Americans showed
the Viet Minh (most were recently civilians) how to fire the American
M-1 rifle and M-1 carbine, and how to use mortars, grenades, bazookas
and machine guns. For training, they used U.S. Army field manuals, and
focused on guerrilla warfare.
Japan Surrenders and Ho Declares Vietnamese Independence
Shortly after training began the second week in August, Sergeant
Zielski, the team's radio operator, picked up a broadcast on August 15
announcing the Japanese surrender, following the atomic bombing of
Hiroshima on August 6, and Nagasaki on the 9th.
Realizing its training mission was over, the Deer Team issued arms to
the soldiers and prepared to leave the following day. Under the terms
of Japan's surrender, the British would occupy the south of Vietnam, and
the Chinese would move to the north to disarm Japanese soldiers and
return them to their homeland.
The Americans left camp on August 16 and traveled on foot with Giap
and his troops to Thai Nguyen, the French provincial capital. There, the
guerrillas fought the French and the Japanese until the French governor
capitulated, on August 25, and the Japanese, finally realizing their
homeland had surrendered, accepted a truce the next day. During this
fighting, Giap had arranged for the Deer Team to stay hidden away in a
safe house on the outskirts of town.
Meanwhile, the Viet Minh had planned to hold a conference in Tan Trao
on August 16, the National People's Congress. About 30 delegates from
Vietnam, Thailand and Laos had assembled in the village to discuss their
concerns. Over the next several days, amid political uncertainty,
several of the delegates had attempted to seize control. Ultimately Ho
Chi Minh claimed leadership and was elected president of the provisional
government on August 27. They proposed and voted on a new national
anthem, and a new national flag with a gold star on a red background,
which would become intimately familiar to most U.S. ground troops two
decades later.
A week later, on September 2, the same day General Douglas MacArthur
received the formal Japanese surrender aboard the battleship
Missouri,
Ho Chi Minh was in Hanoi and declared Vietnamese independence from all
colonial powers, using the American Declaration of Independence as his
template. Banners of "Welcome to the Allies" (specifically, the United
States) flew in the city's Ba Dihn Square, the OSS contingent in Hanoi
photographed the occasion and Minister of the Interior Giap recognized
U.S. support in a speech.
Coincidentally, the same day of Ho's declaration of independence, Lt.
Col. Peter Dewey, the nephew of two-time presidential candidate Thomas
Dewey, arrived in Saigon. The colonel was commander of another OSS team
in Indochina, code-named "Embankment," which was overseeing intelligence
in the Saigon area. As the month wore on in Saigon, the British, free
from hostilities with the Japanese, became politically involved, chaos
ensued and civil war raged. Dewey was ordered out of Vietnam by the
British, who suspected him of working with the Viet Minh. Before
leaving, Dewey wrote in a report to the OSS: "Cochinchina is burning,
the French and British are finished here, and we ought to clear out of
Southeast Asia."
On September 26, two days after the Viet Minh led a national strike
in response to British-imposed martial law, Dewey was ready to depart
Saigon. Leaving in an unmarked jeep for the airport, he was ambushed and
killed a few yards from an OSS house, thus becoming the first American
casualty in Vietnam, nearly two decades before full U.S. involvement in
the Vietnam War. Although there was wide speculation on the shooters,
ranging from conspiracies involving allies to cases of mistaken
identities, an investigation failed to produce an answer. Captain Patti
informed Ho Chi Minh of Dewey's death, and Ho expressed his regrets to
U.S. headquarters in Saigon.
OSS Ends Its Mission in Indochina
With the war in the Pacific over, the OSS ended its mission in
Indochina. The Deer Team had stayed in Thai Nguyen for a few days
following the Viet Minh victory there, "getting fat, getting a sun-tan,
visiting the city and waiting for permission [from Patti] to go to
Hanoi," said Defourneaux. "The Viet Minh did everything to make our stay
as pleasant as possible for us." Once they arrived in Hanoi, the
Americans prepared to return to the United States. The night before
leaving, Major Thomas had his private dinner with Ho and Giap.
In the years that followed, Ho Chi Minh continued to write letters of
a diplomatic nature to President Harry Truman, asking for U.S. aid, but
the letters were never answered. Ho didn't break with the United States
until the Americans gradually became involved with the French in
working against the Vietnamese in the 1950s.
Although OSS agents clearly played a role in Indochina during the
World War II, clear causes and effects with regard to the future
U.S.-Vietnamese conflict are far more cloudy.
First, working with individuals or organizations that did not share
American values or interests was not uncommon, particularly during World
War II. Perhaps the best example was the U.S. alliance with the Soviet
Union, specifically with Josef Stalin.
Second, the United States needed to reach out to an established and
recognized organization within Indochina. There was no natural
indigenous U.S. ally in that region, nor was there an embedded colonial
interest because France itself was divided.
Third, through its
in situ OSS team, the United States had
little immediate effective tactical, operational or strategic impact on
Ho Chi Minh, the future General Giap or the Viet Minh.
Was America, through the OSS, responsible for the rise of Ho Chi Minh
and his subsequent war against the United States? No, but neither was
it completely free of such responsibility. Ho manipulated the
inexperienced leader of the Deer Team as well as U.S. diplomatic
officials in Kunming to serve his unstated needs. Having a personal
photo of Chennault or having OSS agents stand by his side demonstrated
his international standing among the Vietnamese. Also, the failure to
identify Ho Chi Minh as Soviet-trained and a Communist ideologue was a
major American intelligence shortcoming that smoothed the way for Ho's
emergence as a national leader and in the end, an enemy of the United
States.
In later years when asked by journalists or historians about his
relationship with Ho, Thomas was defensive: "I was friendly with him and
why shouldn't I be? After all, we were both there for the same purpose,
fighting the Japanese…it wasn't my job to find out whether he was a
Communist or not."
Ultimately, out of the chaotic and momentous conclusion of World War
II—almost imperceptibly—the die was cast for the coming storm that over
the next three decades would pit the world's greatest superpower against
an indigenous movement led by men who, at its birth, sought the
friendship and support of the United States.
Claude G. Berube teaches at the United States Naval Academy and is the co-author with John Rodgaard of A Call to the Sea: Captain Charles Stewart of the USS Constitution
.
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Boundary Representation
is not necessarily authoritative. Names given as 1941 dialect.
International boundaries as of 1941. OSS missions and bases
as of 30 September 1945.
Apart from Detachment 101 in Burma, OSS did not contribute
much to the struggle against Japan until the last year of the war. Early
in the conflict, Army and Navy commanders excluded OSS from their
sectors of the Pacific, thereby forcing Donovan to fight the Japanese in
the only region left open to him, the distant China-Burma-India
Theater. The difficult geography involved and the complicated relations
with America’s British and Chinese allies further delayed OSS’s
deployments. When OSS finally began operating in strength, however, its
operations made an impact on both the Japanese and on the shape of
post-war policies in the region.
OSS had a difficult time winning authority or access to
prosecute operations in China. The Nationalist regime in Chungking was a
government in name only; Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek was more China’s
most powerful warlord than its national leader. He was fighting a war
on two fronts—against the Japanese invaders on one side and against the
Chinese Communists under Mao Zedong on the other. His secret police and
intelligence chief, Tai Li, wanted American aid but had no intention of
allowing Americans to operate independently on Chinese soil. American
efforts to assist Chiang against the Japanese thus had to navigate a
labyrinth of feuds and jealousies in Chungking before any
implementation. Complicating matters still further, Tai Li demanded that
American intelligence operations in China be run—wherever possible—by
the office of Capt. Milton E. Miles, the commander of an unorthodox US
Navy liaison unit.
OSS helped to train and equip Chinese
guerrillas.
Donovan in late 1943 personally told Tai Li that OSS would
operate in China whether he liked it or not, but it still took a measure
of subterfuge for Donovan’s officers to win a role there. The problem
was bigger than Tai Li. At least a dozen American intelligence units
operated in China over the course of the war, all of them competing for
sources, access, and resources. Ironically, Donovan and OSS eventually
“thrived on chaos,” according to historian Maochun Yu. OSS learned to
provide services to American commanders that neither the Chinese nor
other US organizations could match. Access and authorization followed in
due course as OSS analysts and operatives proved that their methods
materially assisted combat operations against the Japanese. For example,
Gen. Claire L. Chennault, creator of the famous “Flying Tigers” and
chief of US air power in China, needed accurate target intelligence. OSS
filled his need through an “Air and Ground Forces Resources Technical
Staff” (AGFRTS), and used this toe-hold to expand well beyond support
for Chennault’s squadrons at Kunming. When a new theater commander, Lt.
Gen. Albert C. Wedemeyer, began cleaning house and asserting his
authority over all US intelligence operations in China, OSS allied
itself with him and transferred AGFRTS from 14th Air Force to theater
headquarters.
Although it never attained Donovan’s goal of full independence
in China, OSS was a key player in operations and analysis there by the
war’s end. On 9 August 1945—the day that Nagasaki was destroyed by an
atomic bomb—Maj. Paul Cyr, leading a team of Chinese guerrillas on
“Mission Hound,” dropped a strategic railroad bridge across the Yellow
River near Kaifeng. Two spans of the bridge collapsed just as a Japanese
troop train was crossing it. As soon as Japan capitulated, additional
OSS teams ran “mercy missions” in Japanese-held territory to locate and
evacuate Allied prisoners captured early in the war.
Maj. Paul Cyr and Team Hound in training (courtesy of Robert Viau).
OSS plans and activities in China sparked inter-office
arguments over US policy. China’s seemingly intractable troubles and the
vast suffering of its people long confounded American policymakers. OSS
officers who came aboard as China experts or sympathized with the
Chinese people while serving there inevitably drew their own conclusions
about the course of American diplomacy. Opinions in OSS ranged across
the political spectrum, from admirers of Chiang in his struggles against
Japanese invaders and Communist insurgents, to unabashed advocates of
Communist leader Mao Zedong and his promise of justice for the peasantry
through social revolution. Most OSS officers adhered to positions
between these two poles, concerned about the dangers of Chinese
Communism, but frustrated at the corruption of Chiang’s regime and its
reluctance to make reforms to increase the effectiveness of American aid
and to broaden its popular base.
Detachment 404 officers in Jessore, India, planning a supply drop, June 1945.
OSS officers in Thailand faced a different set of policy issues
and demonstrated a high degree of teamwork in tackling them. Thailand
had actually declared war on the United States and Great Britain after
Pearl Harbor and was host to several Japanese bases. Washington had
ignored Bangkok’s declaration, however, when it became clear that a
portion of the Thai ruling elite quietly opposed Japan and hoped to keep
their nation from being drawn more deeply into the conflict. For the
rest of the war the British, Americans, and Japanese danced a
complicated minuet around the possibility that the Thai opposition would
rise against Japan and force Tokyo to divert badly needed combat troops
to subjugating the country. Since the United States had no embassy in
Bangkok, OSS officers eventually found themselves in the unlikely role
of diplomats under the very noses of the Japanese troops guarding the
city.
OSS efforts to contact the rumored Thai underground movement
did not bear fruit until late 1944, after moderate opposition leaders in
Bangkok ousted the dictatorship that had declared war on the Allies.
Thai students recruited and trained by OSS (the “Free Thai”) and the
British SOE were able to meet with underground leaders and even to
broadcast reports from secret locations. Encouraged by the sudden surge
of reporting, General Donovan in January 1945 dispatched two OSS majors,
Richard Greenlee and John Wester, on a mission to Bangkok. Hiding in a
spare palace by day and working by night, Greenlee and Wester confirmed
that the Thai underground was secretly led by the de facto head of
state, Prince Regent Pridi Phanomyong (codenamed Ruth). Pridi and his
followers provided intelligence on the Japanese and offered to rise up
in revolt, but they needed arms and training which only SOE and OSS
could provide. To complicate matters, Pridi and the Free Thai (as well
as OSS observers) suspected that the British harbored imperial designs
on Thailand. If Americans could build a Thai guerrilla force, OSS men on
the scene believed, the Thais could harass the Japanese and bolster a
postwar claim to independence from British tutelage.
OSS officers promised American help for the projected Thai
guerrillas. Back in Washington, the Department of State retroactively
endorsed this commitment, which amounted to a change in US policy. In
Bangkok, Greenlee, Wester, and their successors shuttled to meetings
with Pridi and SOE in curtained limousines driven past the Japanese, who
doubled their garrison in the country but dared not tear up the paper
alliance between Thailand and Japan. The war ended in August 1945 before
actual fighting broke out, but the diplomatic maneuvering continued.
OSS officers close to the Thai peace delegation kept Washington informed
of the course of Anglo-Thai peace talks and assisted American diplomats
in advocating a settlement that ultimately helped ensure Thai
independence.
A Royal Air Force Dakota supporting operations in Thailand had to be unstuck the old-fashioned way at a secret air strip in June 1945.
In China and Thailand, OSS graduated from a reporter of events
to a shaper of American foreign policy. In China, OSS demonstrated that
an American intelligence service aiding a foreign government against
internal enemies could not remain aloof from the exhausting policy
debates in Washington over the wisdom and means of backing the incumbent
regime. By contrast, OSS officers in Thailand showed how much could be
done through clandestine means to help a popular movement struggling
against foreign domination.
Both lessons would echo in the Cold War, especially when the
United States became embroiled in the Vietnam War. Even there, the OSS
left a small but significant legacy for US foreign policy. Against the
wishes of America’s French and Chinese allies, OSS “Mission DEER” had
briefly aided Communist insurgent leader Ho Chi Minh in his fight
against the Japanese in northern Indochina. Other OSS officers, such as
Maj. Aaron Bank, arrived in Laos and in southern Vietnam as the war
ended, and tried to make sense of the bewildering and violent
nationalist and colonial rivalries among the French and Vietnamese
factions there. OSS’s Col. Peter Dewey in Saigon tragically became the
first American killed in Indochina when his jeep was ambushed by
Communist guerrillas (apparently in a case of mistaken identity) in
September 1945.
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