ABSTRACT
Spring 1945. They were an odd couple. The urbane Tran Van Giau looked a little out of place sitting on a pile of straw in the middle of a deserted rice field, talking politics with Nguyen Thi Thap and trying to persuade her to accept his leadership of the revolutionary movement in the South. It was the third lunar month of the year and the dry rice fields had just been harvested. In the distance, they could sec American planes bombing the town of My Tho. World War II was coming to a close, and the impending defeat of the Japanese occupying forces who had just taken over from the discredited Vichy French colonial administration offered an unprecedented opportunity for Vietnamese independence.1
