George Padmore interviews Ho Chi Minh in Paris (1946)

I was delighted to learn that George Padmore (né Malcolm Ivan Meredith Nurse) interviewed Ho Chi Minh (Nguyễn Sinh Cung, also known as Nguyen Tat Thanh and Nguyen Ai Quoc) while both were in Paris: Ho was there for the Paris Peace Conference (29 July to 15 October 1946), engaged in “confidential negotiations,” and Padmore was covering the conference for the Free India Press. According to James Hooker, one of the articles Padmore wrote “remains a good introduction to Vietnamese affairs,” the piece having been published by the Defender (28 September 1946, with an autographed photo of Ho!). In Black Revolutionary: George Padmore’s Path from Communism to Pan-Africanism (Praeger, 1967), Hooker further describes Padmore’s article as “a concise introduction to the Vietnam tangle, one which holds up surprisingly well after nearly two decades of persistent journalistic rediscovery of the situation in South East Asia” (in this instance, Indochina). We further learn that a portion of the article was reprinted in the December issue of (Dwight Macdonald’s) politics (sic) as “The Story of Vietnam.” It seems the journal’s readers took Padmore to task for “play[ing] down Ho’s communist associations.” Padmore defended his work, decrying the “preoccupation with anti-communism which seemed so tiresomely characteristic” of the American Left. 

Finally, Hooker mentions one consequence of Padmore’s exclusive interview at the private hotel provided Ho by the French government: “Padmore became the unofficial guardian of Viet-Minh interests in London, to which city Ho despatched a representative for English language training.”

Comments

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

Parts of the interview with Ho Chi Minh are likely to be found in the article I referenced above from the Chicago Defender written by Padmore. You would have to access their archives to see if this is available. I'm not sure if there's a full transcript of the interview published anywhere.

As for the documentary, I know nothing about that. There is a YouTube video, which is actually a radio broadcast of an interview on Meet the Press in 1961 (two years after 'our' Padmore died) with one George A. Padmore, the Liberian ambassador to the US, although the video has a photo of Malcolm Ivan Meredith Nurse (who used the pseudonym, George Padmore) and is the Pan-Africanist of our post. I left a comment there hoping they'll remove the photo.

[Edwin S Wilson]

There was a documentary film done on George Padmore in 1959 by the journalist Edward R Marray, probably got his last name wrong might be (Morrow). I actually saw it in my youth around 1961, 62...I believe ABC News had the rights to the film. I tried years ago to get a copy and they wanted $1,500 dollars just to rent it and maybe 7 years ago I contact them and they no longer had the film told me to contact the Exward R Morrow estate, didn't have any luck with them either. Has anyone heard of this film on Padmore and can you get a copy somewhere ? I would like love to see it again; my age when I saw it was probably 8 or 9 years old on televison. I forgot the tile "The Day That Was" ??? Just guessing. Let me know something there got to be sources out there in archives that has the film.

[Edwin S Wilson]

I would like to read the interview George Padmore did with H Chi Ming, how can I access it ?