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There is nothing about Bao Dai and the State of Vietnam.

And there is nothing about the 1955 southern referendum—a “travesty on democratic procedures,” according to the U.S. ambassador in Saigon—that ousted Bao Dai, elevated Ngo Dinh Diem to president of the newly declared Republic of Vietnam, and apparently justified Diem’s decision to ignore the Geneva accords’ call for a 1956 nationwide election.

A Rolex watch that belonged to the last Emperor of Vietnam, Bao Dai, fetched $5 million at an auction in 2017.

But he resisted calls to join Ho’s Communist Party — “They didn’t respect our religion or traditions,” he later told Ellsberg — and defected in 1949 to join French-backed forces loyal to Bao Dai, the last emperor of Vietnam.

They didn’t know Bao Dai from the man in the moon.