Bernard B . Fall Bernard B . Fall ( November 19 , 1926 – February 21 , 1967 ) was a prominent war correspondent , historian , political scientist , and expert on Indochina during the 1950s and 1960s . Born in Austria , he moved with his family to France as a child after Germany ' s annexation , where he started fighting with the French Resistance at age 16 , and later the French Army during World War II . In 1950 he first came to the United States for graduate studies at Syracuse University and Johns Hopkins University , returning and making his residence there . He taught at Howard University for most of his career and made regular trips to Southeast Asia to learn about changes and the societies . He predicted the failures of France and the United States in the wars in Vietnam because of their tactics and lack of understanding of the societies . Early life . Born in Vienna , Austria , to Jewish parents Leo Fall and Anna Seligman , Bernard Fall and his family migrated in 1938 when he was a child to live in France , when Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany . After France fell to Germany in 1940 , his father Leo Fall aided the French Resistance . Leon Fall was captured , tortured and killed by the Gestapo . His mother was also captured and deported to Auschwitz , where she died . In 1942 at age 16 , Bernard Fall followed in his father ' s footsteps and joined the French Resistance , after which time he fought the Germans in the Alps . As France was being liberated in 1944 , Fall joined the French Army , in which he served until 1946 . For his service , he was awarded the French Liberation Medal . Following World War II , Fall worked as an analyst for the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal , in which capacity he investigated Krupp Industries . Academic career . From 1948 to 1949 , Fall studied at the University of Paris . From 1949 to 1950 , he attended the University of Munich . After completing his studies in Europe , Fall traveled to the United States in 1950 on a Fulbright Scholarship , where he studied at the University of Maryland for a time . In 1951 , Fall enrolled at Syracuse University , where he received a Masters Degree in political science in 1952 . Fall did post - graduate study at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies , where he was encouraged to study Indochina . Fall took the idea to heart . Not content to study Indochina from afar , Fall traveled to Vietnam in 1953 , where the First Indochina War was being waged between the Viet Minh and French Union forces . Due to his French citizenship , Fall was allowed to accompany French soldiers and pilots into enemy territory . From his observations , Fall predicted the French would fail in Vietnam . When the French were defeated in the critical Battle of Dien Bien Phu , Fall claimed the United States was partly responsible for France ' s loss . Fall believed that the United States had not supported France to a sufficient extent during the First Indochina War . In 1954 , Fall returned to the United States and married Dorothy Winer . In 1955 , he earned a doctorate from Syracuse University and became an assistant professor at American University in Washington , D . C . . In 1956 , he began teaching international relations courses at Howard University , also in Washington . Fall became a full professor at Howard in 1962 and taught there intermittently until his death . Never losing his interest in Indochina , Fall returned to the region five more times ( in 1957 , 1962 , 1965 , 1966 , and 1967 ) to study developments firsthand . Fall was given a grant by the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization to study the development of Communism in Southeast Asia . He used it to document the rise of Communist activity in Laos . Fall was particularly interested in the tensions between North Vietnam and South Vietnam . While teaching at the Royal Institute of Administration in Cambodia in 1962 , Fall was invited to interview Ho Chi Minh and Phạm Văn Đồng in Hanoi . Ho Chi Minh told Fall his belief that Communism would prevail in South Vietnam in about a decade ' s time . Fall was a political scientist , but one who had been a soldier and who spoke the soldier ' s language and lived the soldier ' s life at the front line . He obtained his data on the war while slogging through the mud of Vietnam with French colonial troops , with American infantry , and with South Vietnamese soldiers . He combined the usual academic analysis of Indochina with a perspective of the war from the soldier ' s point of view . Vietnam War . Fall supported the American military presence in South Vietnam , believing it could stop the country from falling to Communism . But , he strongly criticized Ngo Dinh Diem ' s American - backed regime and the tactics used by the United States military in Vietnam . As the conflict between the American forces and the Communists in Vietnam escalated throughout the 1960s , Fall became increasingly pessimistic about the U . S . ' s chances of success . He predicted that if it did not learn from France ' s mistakes , it too would fail in Vietnam . Fall wrote extensive articles detailing his analysis of the situation in Vietnam , and lectured a great deal about his ideas on the Vietnam War . Fall ' s research was considered invaluable to many U . S . diplomats and military officials , but his negative opinions were often not taken seriously . By 1964 , Fall concluded that the U . S . forces in Vietnam were losing . Fall ' s dire predictions caught the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation ( FBI ) , which began to monitor his activities . Many have noted Fall ' s accuracy and comprehension in his writing about the Vietnam War . In Colin Powell ' s 1995 autobiography , " My American Journey " , he wrote : Noam Chomsky has called Fall " the most respected analyst and commentator on the Vietnam War " . Death . On 21 February 1967 , while accompanying a company of the 1st Battalion 9th Marines on Operation Chinook II in the Street Without Joy , Thừa Thiên Province , Fall stepped on a Bouncing Betty land mine and was killed , along with Gunnery Sergeant Byron G . Highland , a U . S . Marine Corps combat photographer . He was dictating notes into a tape recorder , which captured his last words : " We ' ve reached one of our phase lines after the fire fight and it smells bad — meaning it ' s a little bit suspicious . . . Could be an amb — " . Fall left behind his wife and three daughters . Legacy and honors . The medical library at the main civilian hospital in Da Nang was named The Bernard B . Fall Memorial Medical Library in his honor . 1966 Winner of the George Polk Award for journalism 1966 Guggenheim Fellowship for further research in Vietnam