Death in the Monsoon

INDOCHINA

As it had for weeks, the monsoon rain drummed on the roof of the two-story European-style house which stood (significantly) between Saigon's French and native quarters. Within, tiny (4 ft. 11 in.) Dr. Nguyen Van Thinh, President of Cochin China's Provisional Government, pondered his troubles in the sticky gloom.

His medical studies in France three decades ago, and his French wife, had taught him much of Western culture. When he had returned to Indo-China he had successfully blended two careers: Occidental medicine and Oriental rice-growing. He had labored to preserve the best of both East and West for himself and his fellow Annamites. Even now his wife was in France, where his two fair-skinned daughters, whose photographs stood on his ordered desk, were in school. Dr. Thinh summed up his schizoid philosophy by calling himself a Buddhist Socialist.

For such a one, life was not easy. Leaders of Cochin China's neighbor, obstreperous, independent Viet Nam (new state formed of Annam and Tonkin), urged Thinh's countrymen to throw off Western control, called Thinh a quisling and threatened him with torture. Gentle Dr. Thinh was revolted by stories of extremists disemboweling pregnant women and burying Europeans alive.

Even before the monsoon had started, Thinh got a shock when his French friends seemed to turn their backs on him. They had dealt directly with Viet Nam without Cochin China representation, causing Dr. Thinh's Government to lose face.

The reckoning had come for Dr. Thinh in the last days of the monsoon. At a cabinet meeting two of his ministers had resigned. Dr. Thinh had sighed apologetically: "I am terribly sorry to have led you into this adventure." Later he said: "I am being compelled to play a farce."

Now it was evening. Dr. Thinh took down a French medical book from a row in his small private office, opened it to a chapter on hangings. Then he took a piece of thin copper wire, twisted it into a neat noose. Next morning, Buddhist Thinh, in whose religion suicide is the supreme reproach against unjust criticism, was found dead.

Moscow-trained Viet Nam Leader Ho Chih-minh did not mourn for Thinh, the statesman, or for Thinh, the rich rice grower. Ho said acidly: "The loss of an excellent physician ... is regrettable." But warrior monk Thierry d'Argenlieu, French High Commissioner in Indo-China (who had been granted leave by the Vatican from his duties as head of French Carmelite monks to take a naval command in the first years of the war), knelt at a flag-and flower-draped coffin, solemnly kissed the cold forehead of Dr. Thinh. Said he: "In an Annamite country, it requires infinite patience and many words to advance a foot."

Apparently D'Argenlieu's patience had dwindled after twelve exasperating months in Indo-China. Last week the Vatican announced that he would again become merely Father Louis de la Trinite, retire to a monastery in sylvan Fontainebleau in January.

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