17 Facts About Archimedes Patti

Archimedes Leonidas Attilio Patti was a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army and an Office of Strategic Services officer who headed operations in Kunming and Hanoi in 1945 when he was a Major.

Archimedes Patti was born in The Bronx, New York City, on July 21,1913, to Sicilian immigrants.

Archimedes Patti's father worked as a tailor, his mother as a dress maker.

Archimedes Patti was later transferred to the Office of Strategic Services in China after he had unknowingly volunteered for the mission in January 1944 on an assignment at Anzio with OSS Director William J Donovan.

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 US President Franklin D Roosevelt's belief in the self-determination of all peoples.

Archimedes Patti worked closely with Ho Chi Minh and indeed commented on his early drafts of a Vietnamese constitution.

Archimedes 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.

Archimedes Patti was introduced to Ho Chi Minh by Colonel Austin Glass, the OSS expert in Indochina.

Archimedes Patti met Ho Chi Minh on the Indochinese-Chinese border in late April 1945.

Archimedes Patti met with Ho Chi Minh on August 26,1945, over lunch at his residence in Hanoi.

Archimedes Patti offered some corrections to the wording of the opening sentence, which Ho Chi Minh quoted from the US Declaration of Independence.

Archimedes Patti's 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.

Archimedes Patti 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.

Archimedes Patti left Hanoi in late September 1945 after French allegations that the Americans had been fomenting a revolution.

In 1981, Archimedes 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:.

Archimedes Patti's 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.

Archimedes Patti died on April 23,1998, at the age of 84, and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.