ABSTRACT
When World War I ended, no Frenchman could yet say what increasing the exposure of the Vietnamese to French higher education would lead to: more talented Vietnamese collaborators or more committed rebels. The consensus among France's colonial specialists and administrators held that higher French education, particularly education in France proper, should be doled out to the Vietnamese and other colonial subjects in carefully regulated doses. The policy towards Vietnamese students that emerged after the war can best be described as a compromise forged on the path of least resistance. To many Americans who grew up during the 1960s the biographical highlights of Ho Chi Minh's early life are more familiar than those of America's own founding fathers; they are related in similar fashion in the many biographies that Ho's life has inspired. Ho's lament over the Vietnamese students in France was echoed by many who did not share his revolutionary hopes.
