"the way was open for them to obtain the oil reserves of the Dutch East Indies." The United States responded by restricting the export of high octane gasoline to Japan, which was a factor in the Japanese decision to open hostilities against the United States and its western allies in December 1941. American intelligence officers, who had worked with Ho Chi Minh's guerrillas against the Japanese, were present in Hanoi on September 2, 1945 when Ho, who founded in 1929 the Indochinese Communist Party and the wartime Vietminh, proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The French quickly reasserted their rule in Indochina, resulting in the Indochina War of 1946-1954 between them and the Vietminh.
President Franklin Roosevelt opposed the return of French colonial control over Indochina. He said in 1943: "France has had that country . . . for nearly one hundred years, and the people are worse off than they were at the beginning." After the war, the United States, despite serious reservations about French colonial policy in Indochina, reco
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