Ho Chi Minh Asked America for Help Before He Was the Enemy

Before he became America's enemy, the leader of communist Vietnam quoted the US Declaration of Independence, and asked America for help.

In 1945, Ho Chi Minh stood in Hanoi and declared Vietnam independent. His opening line was borrowed straight from Thomas Jefferson: all men are created equal.

This wasn't an accident. During World War II, Ho's forces had worked alongside American intelligence agents against the Japanese. He admired the United States as a nation born by throwing off a colonial empire, exactly what he wanted for Vietnam.

So Ho wrote to President Truman, again and again, asking America to support Vietnamese independence from France. Washington never even replied. Fearing the spread of communism, the US chose to back France instead, and later took over the fight itself.

The man America spent a decade trying to defeat had once asked to be its friend.

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