In 1941, he joined the U.S. Army[11][citation needed] and served in Europe, where he was in contact with various anti-Axis resistance organizations including groups in North Africa, Italy, and Yugoslavia.

[12] He 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.

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

[12] However, Patti, from a distance,[citation needed] helped to organize, train, and equip the fledgling Vietnamese forces that Ho Chi Minh was uniting and marshaling against the Japanese, which later became known as the People's Army of Vietnam.

Those things just disappeared, they just went down the dry well.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.

[citation needed] Patti was introduced to Ho Chi Minh by Colonel Austin Glass, the OSS expert in Indochina.

[14] His primary mission was to assist in the repatriation of allied prisoners-of-war, as the U.S. government feared reprisals against them by the Japanese after the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

His 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.

He 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.

On other hand Viet Minh is smart enough to see through Machiavellian attitude French here especially Sainteny and have absolutely refused to deal with him.

On whole Viet Minh has full control of situation not only in Hanoi [unreadable due to punching holes, and could be guessed as "but also the"] whole of 3 provinces.

In 1981, 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:[12] The question rises from time to time as to whether or not the same situation doesn't apply to Iran, to Afghanistan, to El Salvador, to any other trouble spot in the world.

His 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.