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Between eight and twelve U.S. troopships transported U.S.-equipped French troops and Foreign Legionnaires to Vietnam in late 1945, an action protested by the enlisted crews of the ships, all of whom were members of the U.S. Merchant Marine. [1] It was thus not solely a matter of the United States "chucking the French out of Indochina" that might have demonstrated Washington's commitment to its anti-colonial rhetoric; simply refusing to assist Vietnam's former colonial power in recolonizing the country may have served as a more realistic and meaningful gesture. Scott Laderman NOTE: [1] H. Bruce Franklin, _Vietnam and Other American Fantasies_ (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000), 49-50. Franklin also discussed the U.S. movement of the French in a paper presented at the 2004 AHA annual meeting, "When Did the Vietnam War Begin?" His source on these matters was Michael Gillen, _Roots of Opposition: The Critical Response to U.S. Indochina Policy, 1945-1954_ (Ph.D. Dissertation, New York University, 1991). Eric Bergerud wrote: > Mr. Schwab argues that the best "counterfactual" (heavens I hate that word) > outcome for Indochina would have been a veto by Washington in 1945 to the > French return to a colony it had held for over a century. [...] > [C]hucking the French out of Indochina in 1945 was, at the time, not a > serious policy option in the US whatever a couple of young OSS officers might > have thought.
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