American Chemical Society had asked a colleague to resume contact with French chemistry circles by selecting three men regarded to be the outstanding chemists in France. Hội was one of the three selected by the ACS. At the time he was director of research in organic chemistry at the Radium Institute in Paris. Hội accepted the invitation of the ACS to deliver a series of lectures in the United States, where, in 1951, he traveled to the Maryknoll Seminaries in Lakewood, New Jersey to offer his support to Diệm in his quest to form an independent Vietnamese government.[13] In early 1953, he traveled as a private citizen to the office of the Vietminh in Rangoon, the capital of Burma. Despite leaving the Vietminh three years earlier, his nationalist credentials allowed him to secure an audience. At the time he was the elected president of an association of some 25,000 Vietnamese workers and soldiers stranded in France after the Second World War. He had also been a delegated to the conference at Fontainebleau, the collapse of which had helped to spark the First Indochina War in 1946. Bửu Hội was accompanied by Jacques Raphael-Leygues, a radical socialist politician. Before departing Paris, Hội had been authorised by French President Vincent Auriol to propose the opening of direct negotiations with France. He left a letter in Rangoon to be delivered to Vietminh leaders, prophetically predicting that this would be the last opportunity for them to deal with France directly without third part interference. He predicted that the United States would eventually intervene with force unprecedented in Vietnam if the situation was not resolved. Neither the French nor the Vietminh made further efforts to pursue negotiations. Years later, French officials blamed domestic political feuds and the lack of support from some sections of their government. The Vietminh blamed logistical difficulties for their late, minimal reply. After the French were defeated at Điện Biên Phủ in early 1954, Vietnam was partitioned at the Geneva Conference.[18] In August 1954, Bửu Hội returned to South Vietnam for a visit. Diem had been named Prime Minister of what was then the French backed State of Vietnam. Vietnam was supposed to be reunified after national elections in 1956 following a temporary partition and transitional phase. Diệm was in trouble as the generals of the Vietnamese National Army disobeyed him and the national police were controlled by the Bình Xuyên,