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The Viet Nam nation is a recent French consolidation of three ancient provinces: Tonkin, Annam and Cochin China. The Chinese ruled Tonkin and northern Annam for more than the 1,000 years, until they were expelled in the 10th century by native Annamites who were themselves of part-Chinese stock. About 150 years ago, the Annamites split into warring factions, and French missionnaires and traders moved in along the coast. By 1802, the French were strong enough to install a puppet king on the imperial throne of Annam; by 1870, the French army was ashore to protect French interests; by 1900, the French had all of Indo-China.
In the 80 years before World War II, the French invested $2 billion in Indo-China, almost all of it in Viet Nam. They built 13,800 miles of roads, railroads and canals; they reduced infant mortality by 50%; their irrigation projects brought 13 million more acres under cultivation. But they were frequently overbearing, took excessive profits out of the country, and were slow about granting any kind of independence to the Vietnamese.
In 1949, in the Indo-China war's third year, the French installed Bao Dai, playboy descendant of old Annamite kings, as Viet Nam's chief of state. But Bao Dai usually complied with French demands, and therefore got almost no public support, while Moscow Servant Ho Chi Minh was often admired simply because he was anti-French. Not until last month did Viet Nam get a genuinely nationalist Prime Minister, Ngo Dinh Diem — probably too late to make up for France's long refusal to prepare the Vietnamese for self-government and self-defense, probably too late to save the nation's freedom.