INDOCHINA
For three years, the French have been fighting a weary, tenacious jungle war against the Communists in Indo-China. To save France's richest prewar colony (and a potentially important anti-Communist base in Southeast Asia), the French government has thrown a third of its small, painstakingly rebuilt army into the fight; so far, it has been unable to achieve anything like a decisive victory over Communist Leader Ho Chi Minh. Last week it looked as if the French chances of licking Ho had improved.
100 Dozen Ping-Pong Balls. Last spring, the French proclaimed IndoChina's autonomy under the French Union (roughly designed as an equivalent of the British Commonwealth).* They also returned to the Indo-Chinese their plump former Emperor Bao Dai ("The Great Protector").
In his exile at La Croisette, near Cannes, Bao Dai lived quietly in a 20-room chateau, occasionally visited a bar (drinking only coffee) and gambled modestly at the Cannes casino, 10,000 francs ($30) being his limit for one night. Early this year, the French government sent bluff Leon Pignon, French high commissioner for Indo-China, to persuade His Majesty that he must return to his country as "chief of state."
Bao Dai did not look like the man to lead his people to independence and victory over the Communists. When he first assumed his Dragon Throne (1932), he was a playboy and a puppet. The French owned him, along with the 7,000 jazz phonograph records and the 100 dozen ping-pong balls with which he moved into his teakwood Palace of Supreme Peace. The young emperor, as "absolute master, father and mother" of his tough, diligent people, seemed only partly to fulfill the requirements of the Imperial Book of Rites which says that "the Emperor's eyes must dwell motionless upon utter vacancy, as his mind is filled with August Thoughts." When Bao Dai returned to his country last June, IndoChina's mother & father was changed. He no longer wanted to be a playboy or a puppet. TIME Correspondent Sam Welles visited the Emperor and his troubled country, cabled:
In the old days, Bao Dai's favorite sport (in addition to chasing chorus girls) was tracking down tigers, elephants and gaur (fierce wild buffalo) on foot through the jungle. That took intelligence and guts. Both traits are needed in the fierce jungle of Viet Namese politics, and Bao Dai is displaying both. The Communist radio had predicted that he would be assassinated; the French authorities were so concerned that at public ceremonies they kept the crowds 100 yards from His Majesty and gave him an armored car. But Bao Dai scorned such protection. At Hanoi, which he proclaimed his capital, he walked down a narrow street, right through 50,000 people, any one of whom could have killed him with a pistol or a grenade. He has done this again & again all over the country, walking as calmly as he did when he was stalking gaur.
"Every statesman should have a sport," he says with a twinkle. Then he adds seriously: "I cannot gain support by bowing from a distant balcony."