Ho Chi Minh showed up to the UN general assembly in 1948 with a document quoting the US Declaration of Independence and begging us to recognize Vietnam as an independent country.
We didn’t want to backstab our lovers, the French, so we told him to pound sand.
However a youngish Nikita Khrushchev was in attendance, and felt moved by this warrior poet’s chingy chongy plight. The Soviets offered to recognize Vietnam, and so the Viet Minh movement began.
In 1954, 50,000 troops under General Vo Nguyen Giáp moved artillery to the hill tops surrounding the valley of Dien Bien Phu, where France’s main garrison of 10,000 troops were probably smoking cigarettes, drinking wine and acting angsty.
The French did not win, and Vietnam became an independent, Soviet aligned country
I just typed this all out from memory so don’t bitch if minor details are slightly wrong. I’m getting older