INDO-CHINA: The New Frontier TIME. Monday, May. 29, 1950 The
U.S. now has a new frontier and a new ally in the cold war. The
place is Indo-China, a Southeast Asian jungle, mountain and
delta land that includes the Republic of Viet Nam and the
smaller neighboring Kingdoms of Laos and Cambodia, all parts of
the French Union. For more than three years this land, in prewar
times the rich French colony of Indo-China, has been suffering,
on a lesser scale, the ruinous kind of civil war which won China
for Communism. The Mao Tse-tung of the Indo-Chinese is a frail,
but enduring comrade, who looks like a shriveled wizard; his nom
de guerre is Ho Chi Minh (or One Who Shines). Chiang Kai-shek
has no counterpart in Indo-China. The initial brunt of the Red
attack has been borne by French soldiers. Meanwhile, the job of
rallying native anti-Communist forces falls mainly on the meaty
shoulders of the Emperor Bao Dai (or Guardian of Greatness), who
now bears the official title of Chief of State of Viet Nam.
While the dust o