Did I Hear a Call?

INDOCHINA

"You ask him kill bird," said foxy little Annamite Louis Ko. "He no like. He like kill big." Pressagent Louis was speaking of his master, tall, strapping, Paris-educated Bao Dai, who once killed ten elephants in three days and captured a live one singlehanded.

In those brave days, Bao Dai (meaning: The Great Protection) was hereditary emperor of the Annamites in French Indo-China. But in August of 1945 he ran into a bird too big for him--Communist Ho Chih-minh. Elected President of the new Viet Nam Republic, Ho Chih-minh arranged for Bao Dai's prompt abdication, kept him prisoner for some months and then packed him off to China. Since then, the Great Protection has spent his time roaring about Hong Kong on a motorcycle and awaiting a "summons from the Annamite people."

Last week Bao Dai's carefree days in Hong Kong were at an end. Pretty little "Perfume of the South," his empress, had arrived in town with their five children. In her wake came a delegation of 22 Annamites. What the Annamites told Bao was enough to sober him. To the people of Viet Nam he issued a grave proclamation: "To avoid bloodshed, I renounced the throne of my ancestors. Since you wished to entrust the destiny of the country to new rulers, I decided to withdraw. Now in spite of the dictatorship which forbids freedom of speech, you have revealed to me the whole picture of your miseries. In your distress you came to me. Answering your appeal, I accept the mission which you entrust to me and I am ready to contact the French authorities. I shall exert the full weight of my authority to mediate in the conflict which has put you one against the other."

Said Tran Nocg Danh, Viet Nam's unrecognized envoy to Paris: "If he negotiates with the French without the consent of his Government, he will be tried for treason."

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