Patti was born in The Bronx, New York City, on July 21, 1913, to Sicilian immigrants. His father worked as a tailor, his mother as a dress maker.[citation needed]
He was married to Margaret Telford. They had two daughters.[citation needed]
The 1940 U.S. census lists Archimedes' profession as "Special Agent, U.S. War Department." In 1941, he joined the U.S. Army[11][citation needed] and served in Europe, where he was in contact with various anti-Axis resistance organizations including groups in North Africa, Italy, and Yugoslavia.[12]
OSS Maj. Archimedes Patti and Võ Nguyên Giáp saluted American flag, with a Viet Minh band playing the Star Spangled Banner, 1945 Aug 26, Sunday
During his career in China and Southeast Asia, Patti met Hồ Chí Minh, the then leader of the Việt Minh, who later became the leader and national hero of North Vietnam. In later interviews, Patti explained that his mission in Vietnam was to establish an intelligence network but not to assist the French in any way in their attempt to re-gain control over their former colony, a policy choice that he believed to be linked to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's belief in the self-determination of all peoples.[12]
Võ Nguyên Giáp gave a welcoming parade to US Maj. Archimedes Patti, head of the US Army intelligence team (OSS), 1945 Aug 26, Sunday.
However, Patti, from a distance,[citation needed] helped to organize, train, and equip the fledgling Vietnamese forces that Ho Chi Minh was uniting and marshaling against the Japanese, which later became known as the People's Army of Vietnam. Patti worked closely with Ho Chi Minh and indeed commented on his early drafts of a Vietnamese constitution.[citation needed]
In my opinion the Vietnam War was a great waste. There was no need for it to happen in the first place. At all. None whatsoever. During all the years of the Vietnam War no one ever approached me to find out what had happened in 1945 or in '44. In all the years that I spent in The Pentagon, Department of State in the White House, never was I approached by anyone in authority. However, I did prepare a large number, and I mean about, oh, well over fifteen position papers on our position in Vietnam. But I never knew what happened to them. Those things just disappeared, they just went down the dry well.
— From an interview with Archimedes Patti in 1981[12]
Patti stated that when he arrived in Kunming in March 1945, the French colonials were either unwilling or unable to assist him in establishing an American intelligence network in Indochina and so he turned to "the only source [available]", the Viet Minh.[citation needed]
Patti was introduced to Ho Chi Minh by Colonel Austin Glass, the OSS expert in Indochina.[verification needed] Patti met Ho Chi Minh on the Indochinese-Chinese border in late April 1945. Patti agreed to provide intelligence to the allies if he could have "a line of communication with the allies."[12]
Patti later helped to co-ordinate some small attacks[verification needed] against the Japanese Imperial Army by using a small group of operatives known as the OSS Deer Team under the command of Major Allison K. Thomas, who worked directly with Ho Chi Minh in August 1945.[13]
Patti arrived in Hanoi on a mercy mission with[verification needed] an OSS agent, Carleton B. Swift,[f] and a French government official, Jean Sainteny.[14] His primary mission was to assist in the repatriation of allied prisoners-of-war, as the U.S. government feared reprisals against them by the Japanese after the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. His secondary mission was to gather intelligence.[12]
Patti met with Ho Chi Minh on August 26, 1945, over lunch at his residence in Hanoi. Several days later, Ho Chi Minh read a draft of the Vietnamese Proclamation of Independence to him.
Patti offered some corrections to the wording of the opening sentence, which Ho Chi Minh quoted from the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Ho also quoted the 1791 Declaration of the French Revolution and the motto "Liberty, equality, and fraternity", which "first appeared during the French Revolution."[g] The Vietnam Declaration of Independence has a similar structure as, but different in content from, the US Declaration of Independence since the histories and circumstances of the two countries were clearly different.[g]
Indeed, Ho Chi Minh had requested an actual copy of the U.S. Declaration of Independence from Colonel Austin Glass.[verification needed] On September 2, Ho Chi Minh declared independence, and some hours later, Patti had dinner with him. On the same day, Patti dispatched his Operational Priority communication:
Operational Priority
1945.09.02 Archimedes Patti Operational Priority communication on the same day Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnam's independence.
❝ Have had long conference with Prime Minister, Ho Chi Min and he impresses me as sensible, well balanced, politically minded individual. His demands are few and simple namely limited independence, liberation from French rule, right to live as free people in family of nations and lastly right to deal directly with outside world.
He stated that for many years missionary work of propaganda within party, training of youth and preparation for this day has made them ready not necessarily for complete independence but at least the privilege of dying for their ideals. From that I have seen these people mean business and am afraid that French will have to deal with them. For that matter we will all have to deal with them. French are beginning to recognize this fact and are going to be big about it by offering Viet Minh terms for their independence. On other hand Viet Minh is smart enough to see through Machiavellian attitude French here especially Sainteny and have absolutely refused to deal with him.
Annamese are in unique advantage our position in as much as Japs have given them independence so they consider themselves free of any sovereign power and this includes French who have been hiding behind Jap skirts, vichy tactics and passing themselves off as friends of Americans. On whole Viet Minh has full control of situation not only in Hanoi [unreadable due to punching holes, and could be guessed as "but also the"] whole of 3 provinces. Their organization is well knit, program clear and their demands on outside world few. They ask they be permitted travel particularly to America particularly for education purposes and that America send technical experts to help them establish those few industries Indochina is capable of exploiting. Prime Minister particularly asked me that American exercise some control over Chinese occupation forces and that Chinese purchase materials and food rather than requisitioning it during occupation period. Furthermore he pointed out and this I have confirmed from other sources Jap and French that due to flood this year famine is imminent and should Chinese depended on Indochinese for their subsistence during occupation period they will all starve plus creating situation where Annamese will be forced to wage war upon Chinese to protect his livelihood and family.
Annamese celebrating Annamese independence day tomorrow with high solemn mass by Catholics and special ritual by Buddhists. ❞
Patti retired from the military in 1957. For 13 years, he was a crisis management specialist in the Office of Emergency Planning in Washington, D.C..
In 1981, Patti stated that Julia Child, who had worked at the OSS in 1945, had allegedly submitted his position papers on Vietnam to appropriate authorities, but the way in which he had found them upon his retirement was exactly as she had sent them, and they had never been opened or read:[12]
The question rises from time to time as to whether or not the same situation doesn't apply to Iran, to Afghanistan, to El Salvador, to any other trouble spot in the world. That perhaps there are people who may know the causes that actually led to what followed and have never been approached or asked to give at least, if not their views, at least to give what facts they have. That is a question.[12]
In retirement, he wrote several articles[citation needed] and completed his book on Vietnam. In 1980, he finally published his book Why Vietnam? Prelude to America's Albatross,[15] which described his OSS-assigned activities with Ho Chi Minh, the communist and nationalist Viet Minh leader in 1946. His book grew out of his much-shorter 1946 memoir, which was completed in the 1950s, but on which the Department of the Army had put an injunction to prevent its publication due to the anticommunist fervor of the McCarthy era, and out of concern for perceived adverse criticism of US foreign policy by military members.[h]
^ ab"This [village near Jingxi city, Baise prefecture, Guangxi province, China, near Cao Bằng province, Vietnam] was where Ho had his first meeting with Major Archimedes Patti, Chief of the OSS in Indochina; the two men met again in autumn 1945—but this time in Hanoi."[1]
^ ab"The full group consisted of thirteen OSS officers and enlisted men under Maj. Archimedes L. A. Patti and five French officers, including
Sainteny."[2]
^"The man in charge of the American Mission to Hanoi was Capt. Archimedes Patti, whose team was greeted with the same warmth and respect that had been accorded the Deer Team earlier."[3] So was Patti Captain or Major[a][b] when he arrived in Hanoi in 1945? See Notes on Vietnam History[4] for more extensive references and analysis on this issue.
^On 1945 Aug 26, Ho Chi Minh arrived in Hanoi, invited Patti for lunch, and expressed his concerns about the French and the Chinese in Tonkin. "Patti listened intently. He had met with Ho Chi Minh once before, in April 1945, in southern China, on the subject of potential OSS–Viet Minh cooperation in the struggle against Japan."[6]
^Ho Chi Minh became President of the Provisional Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) on 1945 Aug 28[7] or 29,[8] whereas Patti left Hanoi on 1945 Oct 1 "after sharing one last dinner with Ho Chi Minh".[9]
^"Carleton Swift, a CIA employee, replaced Archimedes Patti as head of the O.S.S mission in Hanoi." In the interview,[14] "Swift recounts why he got involved with Indochina and his experiences after he took the mission over from Patti. Swift recalls his impressions of Ho Chi Minh describing him as a slight man and Swift admits to not understand how Ho Chi Minh gained so much power. Swift discusses the way the Americans dealt with the North Vietnamese and the friendships that developed."
^ abSee the detailed analysis of the US Declaration of Independence (DoI) and the Vietnam DoI in Notes of Vietnam History.[4]
^Patti wrote in his book: "Our nation was embroiled in the era of McCarthyism. Sensitive to adverse criticism of American foreign policy by members of the military establishment, the Department of the Army decreed that any public disclosure of information or opinion by me on the question of American involvement in Viet Nam would be regarded with official displeasure and I would be subject to disciplinary action. Under protest I acceded to the Department's injunction."[16]
Bartholomew-Feis, Dixee (2006), The OSS and Ho Chi Minh: Unexpected Allies in the War against Japan, University Press of Arkansas, Lawrence, Kansas.
Bartholomew-Feis, Dixee (2020), The OSS in Vietnam, 1945: A War of Missed Opportunities, The National World War II Museum, New Orleans, Jul 15, archived from the original on 15 March 2023, retrieved 1 Mar 2023{{citation}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)..
Berube, Claude G. (2011), "Ho, Giap and OSS Agent Henry Prunier", Historynet.com, archived from the original on 2012-10-10, retrieved 2012-12-24{{citation}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link), May 24..
Brocheux, Pierre (2007), Ho Chi Minh: A Biography, translated by Claire Duiker, Cambridge University Press, New York.
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