Since the departure of Uncle Ho, in the meetings of the Standing Committee, Comrade Nhan1 and the other members regularly exchanged their views on the unfolding of the negotiations in Paris and on the increasingly tense home situation. Our messages to Uncle Ho and the delegation had to pass through the hands of the French. Most of the telegrams sent with reports on the implementation of the Preliminary Agreement were blocked up in Saigon by the French while those of Uncle Ho reached us very late, sometimes after ten days. For us, these were moments of anxious expectation. We had more than once protested to the French against this. Our only means of following the situation was by listening to the radio and reading French and Western newspapers which would give no more than a brief communiqué on the sessions of the talks. However, through the documents left by Uncle Ho and the stories of some comrades who had the good luck to accompany him, we can give an account of his multiple activities during this period and the main lines along which the negotiations developed.
Uncle Ho again took the road he had first taken 35 years ago. Since then the revolutionary current had never ceased to flow. The young Vietnamese who had “lost his fatherland” and had gone to work on board the Latouche-Tréville had become the first President of the free Democratic Republic of Viet Nam.
On May 31, owing to bad weather, the plane carrying President Ho and our delegation had to stop over at Pegu, an airfield near Rangoon.
On June 1, they arrived in Calcutta. The representative of the British Governor-General and the French Consul went to the airport to greet the President and accompany him to the Great Eastern Hotel, the largest hotel in the city. Uncle Ho stayed in this city for two days. Overseas Vietnamese came from every corner of India to meet him, some having covered hundreds of kilometres. Many women cried when leaving him.
On June 4, the delegation arrived in Agra. Uncle Ho and the delegation visited famous monuments and beauty spots.
On June 5, the delegation arrived in Karachi. The Governor told the delegation that the Government in London had informed him of President Ho Chi Minh’s passage and instructed him to greet the President.
On June 6, Uncle Ho arrived in Habbaniya, Irak. The weather in this country was so hot that trees could not grow. To soften the view iron trees painted in green had been erected.
On June 7, the plane was heading for Cairo. It circled over Jerusalem for the President to have a clearer view of the ancient capital of Palestine. The delegation spent three days in Cairo. The Egyptians were then struggling hard to demand the withdrawal of British troops. The city was beautiful, airy, and animated with boats lying at jetties by the river, but the atmosphere was tense. Here Uncle Ho received a telegram from Paris: “President Ho Chi Minh is requested to rest a while in Biarritz until the new French government which will receive him in Paris is formed.”
On June 11, the plane left Cairo for Biskra in Algeria.
On June 12, the plane landed in Biarritz, a very beautiful seaside resort on the west coast of France, not far from Spain. At the airport only representatives of the local authorities were on hand to greet them, for the French government had resigned, and was only taking charge of the day to day business of the State. Uncle Ho stayed in the Carlton Hotel in Biarritz while our negotiating delegation went on to Paris.
On the following day, overseas Vietnamese from every corner of France, some with their families, came to Biarritz to greet our President. They made collections for the delegation to bring home for the public funds. Greeting telegrams were sent to the President from our compatriots who had emigrated to England, the United States, New Caledonia and other countries.
French political organizations such as the French Communist Party, the CGT and the France-Viet Nam Association which had been founded a few days before sent their representatives to Biarritz to meet our President. Uncle Ho met some of his old comrades among the delegates of the PCF. He explained to them the policy applied by our Party in the complicated situation of the past few years and its directives at present.
The French press began to publish news about Viet Nam and discuss the Franco-Vietnamese negotiations.
During his stay in Biarritz, our President made a careful study of the existing situation in France.
Living conditions were still very difficult for the French people after the war. The bread ration was 300 grams a day, the meat ration 100 grams a week and the butter ration 500 gms a month. The hotel staff confided to him that since the first days of war each of them had only been able to buy one suit and one pair of shoes. The French workers were carrying out a fierce struggle for a 25% wage increase.
The new French government was formed ten days after the arrival of Uncle Ho in Biarritz, with Bidault, a leader of the MRP as Prime Minister; Moutet still headed the Department of Overseas France and was responsible for affairs concerning the French Union.
On June 22, the French government invited Uncle Ho to come to Paris.
The President’s plane carried the flags of both Viet Nam and France. The yellow-starred red flag was flying for the first time in French skies.
Before landing, the plane circled over the city of Paris. Uncle Ho could recognize the Eiffel Tower, the grey and white dome of Les Invalides, the Sacré Coeur basilica on Montmartre hillock and the Arc de Triomphe with so many avenues fanning out from it. It was twenty-three years ago, on a summer day, that he had calmly left this city which was so familiar to him. Paris was still as it had been: during World War Two France had declared it to be an open city. People thronged Le Bourget airport to greet the President. A large Vietnamese flag was fluttering from the summit of a great mast and others were to be seen among the Tricolours.
When the plane had taxied to a halt, the Minister of Overseas France and the Head of Protocol representing the French government and accompanied by generals of the French land, naval and air forces, went out to meet President Ho Chi Minh and accompanied him into the air terminal. The fact that the Minister of Overseas France had been appointed to receive the President helped us to sense the attitude of the new government to the Viet Nam problem. However, all the diplomatic formalities were solemnly observed. A red carpet stretched from the air terminal to the car. Representatives of French political parties and mass organizations as well as large numbers of Vietnamese residents crowded round to greet the President. In the name of the French women, a delegate offered him a bouquet and embraced him.
The brass band played the national anthems of Viet Nam and France. Tears welled in the eyes of many Vietnamese nationals on hearing the Vietnamese anthem resound for the first time in France. Ho Chi Minh and the representatives of the French government saluted the flags then reviewed the guard of honour. Thousands of Parisians including children cheered him and tossed flowers into the air. The President stopped a long time to talk to representatives of Vietnamese residents — workers, students, intellectuals — forgetful of the French officials accompanying him. Hundreds of cameras and movie cameras were directed at this Head of State who had come to the French capital in his modest khaki suit.
An agency reporter gave his microphone to the President asking him to say some words to the French people. “I thank the French government and people,” Uncle Ho said, “for offering me this solemn welcome. I hope that in future the Vietnamese and French people may cooperate with each other in an equal, sincere and cordial way.”
A procession of cars and outriders accompanied the President to the Hotel Royal Monceau, a large hotel situated near the Elysée palace. Along the road French people greeted him by waving streamers and shouting words of welcome.
1 Pseudonym of Comrade Truong Chinh, then Secretary General of Indochinese Communist Party.