To answer my question posed in the title of this essay-probably not. As a matter of fact I only learned about Peter Dewey about a week ago when I watched a YouTube video. A serious student of presidential history will remember Thomas Dewey, the Republican nominee for the presidency both in1944 and 1948 losing first to Franklin Roosevelt and then to Harry Truman. Peter was the nephew of the otherwise successful politician.
Peter's dent in American
history was not his family but Vietnam. Peter Dewey was the first American killed
during the Vietnam War. His death, interestingly enough, was not in 1961 when
President Kennedy began to sent military advisors and special forces to Vietnam
but in 1945. 1945? How can that be?
A perceptive reader of this blog
will recall that I subscribe to the MCN theory of history- history is messy, contradictory,
and nuanced. Vietnamese history was as much MCNed as any other. Prior to World
War ll Vietnam was ruled by France as part of its Indochina colony. Then in
1941 the Japanese took over even though Vicy France was an ally of Nazi Germany
which had conquered France in 1940. Germany divided France into two
parts-German-occupied France and German-sympathized Vicy France. There was also
a French government in exile called the Free French. Vicy France maintained nominal
control of the French overseas territories including Vietnam, So I guess the
Japanese used the principle of the friend of my friend can still be my enemy if
I so desire. So far- Got it? Get it? Good! Because the situation even gets messier
and that is where the YouTube video comes in.
The video deals with Britain’s
secret war in Vietnam. Thinking it was about British assistance to the US in the
1960s I decided to watch. At the conclusion of World War II with the defeat of
Japan the US and UK, in particular, had to disarm and repatriate thousands of
Japanese soldiers. This is where the situation gets even more complicated. The
Vietnamese Communists headed by Ho Chi Min demanded post-war independence for Vietnam from France. And initially
Ho and his party was supported by the US through tis Office of Strategic Services
(OSS).
Forerunner to the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA), the OSS itself was part civilian and part military
and was primarily noted for its exploits against the Nazis in Europe, The OSS
also had assignments in Asia against te Japanese particularly with Detachment 101
with Burma and rescuing Allied POWs held in China. OSS operatives also actively
advised the Vietnamese Communists on how to fight the Japanese and with the
sudden surrender of Japan in August 1945, these operatives supported the Communists
for independence from France. Then the Cold War realities with the Soviet Union
set in and the US position changed to a Europe first mentality. By supporting
France the US fleet it would help stop Soviet expansion in Europe, So far- Got
it? Get it? Good! Because the situation gets even messier!
Britain gets the assignment of
disarming and repatriating the Japanese soldiers in Vietnam. But British forces-
primarily from India- were too few in number to keep public order and keep the
independence movement led by the Communists in check. So the British general in
command armed the newly released POW French soldiers AND also used Japanese volunteers.
So, British Indians, French, and Japanese were soon actively fighting the
Communists and their allies heretofore supported by the US.
Enter Peter Dewey. Dewey was a US
Army officer seconded to the OSS. He was educated in Switzerland, graduated
from Yale (the Ivy League was a fertile recruiting ground for the OSS and later
the CIA), and also studied at the University of Virginia Law School. He was a
newspaper reporter in Chicago before joining the Polish Army fighting the
Germana in France. When France surrendered in June 1940, Dewey escaped through
Spain and Portugal.
After several assignments for the
OSS Dewey was ordered to Vietnam in in September 1945. He protested to the British
commanding general regarding his decisions and was declared persona non
grata by the British commander. Before he could leave Vietnam Dewey was
riding in an unmarked jeep and was caught in a crossfire. He was accidently killed by Communist
soldiers and thus became the first American killed in the Vietnam War. Earlier,
Captain Joseph Coolidge IV, another OSS operative, became the first US casualty
in Vietnam. He was wounded by the Communists, rescued by the Japanese, and
treated at a British field hospital.
And the rest, they say, is history….. messy, contradictory, and nuanced.