Jean Sainteny

Jean Sainteny or Jean Roger (May 29, 1907 in Vésinet - February 25, 1978) was a French politician who was sent to Vietnam after the end of the Second World War in order to accept the surrender of the Japanese forces and to attempt to reincorporate Vietnam into French Indochina. He traveled to Hanoi on August 22, 1945 with American OSS officers, Archimedes Patti and Carleton B. Swift Jr. before being put under house arrest by the Japanese.^[1][2]

Biography

The son-in-law of the prime minister Albert Sarraut, Jean Sainteny was an insurance broker (assureur-conseils). He was in charge of the Normandy sector for the French resistance under the pseudonym ""Dragon". He was captured by the Gestapo, then succeeded in escaping and took part in organising the Normandy landings, passing to General Patton the information which allowed the Allies to reach Paris.

In 1946 he was sent by the French government to Vietnam in order to negotiate with Ho Chi Minh. He reached an agreement with Ho which would have kept Vietnam in the Union française. The agreement became ineffective after the bombing of Haiphong ordered by the High Commissioner Thierry d'Argenlieu and from then he played only a minor role in French-Vietnamese relations. He was wounded in an ambush and after the Geneva Accords he returned to Hanoi as a French envoy.

References

1. ↑ Interview with Carleton Swift, 1981, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/vietnam-9dc948-interview-with-carleton-swift
2. ↑ Interview with Archimedes L. A. Patti, 1981, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/vietnam-bf3262-interview-with-archimedes-l-a-patti-1981