On February 28, 1946, Ho Chi Minh sent this telegram from Hanoi, Vietnam, through the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) station in Kunming, China, to President Harry S. Truman in Washington, DC. In the message the Vietnamese leader asks for American support of Vietnam’s independence from France. He also asks for U.S. help in making negotiations with France comply with the principles of the Atlantic and San Francisco Charters.
Ho Chi Minh’s telegram was one of several left unanswered by Harry Truman. The United States did not support the Vietnamese struggle against the French.
Text adapted from “Telegram from Ho Chi Minh to Harry S. Truman” in the May/June 2000 National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) publication Social Education.
