War: Plenty of Bite?

In Paris last week, cabinet ministers and generals of the Supreme War Council decided to end their bureaucratic haggling and fight Ho Chi Minh's Communists on the basis of full-scale war. France would send to Indo-China: 1) 50,000 more troops, 2) more tanks & guns, 3) warships. An appeal would be made to the U.S. to speed up military-aid airplanes. At the same time, General Marcel Alessandri, 65-year-old infantryman, was relieved as commander of the Tonkin area and replaced by General Pierre Georges Boyer de la Tour du Moulin, 63, who has an intimate knowledge of Indo-China and a reputation for...

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