In 1957 Fall joined the faculty of Howard University as professor of international relations, and he spent the summer of that year in South Vietnam. As a former French soldier he was allowed to accompany French forces on combat operations in all sectors of the country. In 1953, in order to engage in field research for his doctoral dissertation, he traveled to war-torn Indochina. in political science at Syracuse University. He first came to the United States in 1951 as a Fulbright Scholar, receiving his Master of Arts and Ph.D. With the Allied invasion of Europe, Fall joined the French army, serving in the infantry and pack artillery of the 4th Moroccan Mountain Division.įollowing World War II, Fall worked as a research analyst at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal.
He gained firsthand guerrilla warfare experience while fighting in the French Underground from 1942 to 1944. Both his parents were killed by the Nazis in World War II.
When Viet Minh forces overran Dien Bien Phu on May 7, 1954, it was, according to Fall, the end of French military influence in Asia.įall was born in 1926 and grew up in France. The siege occurred while the 1954 Geneva Conference was ironing out agreements between the major powers, including the future of Indochina. Yet, he said, that is exactly what it was. Bernard Fall wrote that in comparison with other world battles, Dien Bien Phu could hardly qualify as a major battle, let alone a decisive one. A conflict between Communist Viet Minh forces and a French-established garrison, it occurred in a town called ‘Seat of the Border County Prefecture or, in Vietnamese, Dien Bien Phu. Fall is an account of one of the most significant battles to take place in Vietnam.
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