Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam

by Fredrik Logevall

  There matters might have rested had it not been for Eden, who now cast himself in the role of the honest broker. He received strong support from Churchill, who was keen to meet the Soviets halfway in furtherance of his personal “peace offensive.”22 With progress on the other agenda items—the German question and the matter of a peace treaty for Austria, still left unresolved from World War II—extremely unlikely, both men were eager to gain something, anything, from the weeks and weeks of speechifying in Berlin; an agreement for a five-power meeting seemed the best bet. That such a deal would come despite American objections didn’t deter Eden and may have added to his motivation. Dulles’s obstreperous refusal to admit China to international society annoyed him, for one thing. More broadly, he resented Britain’s standing as the junior partner in the “special relationship,” and he felt the (largely unspoken) resentment of one whose adult life had seen the gradual replacement of his nation by the United States as the preeminent force in world affairs. Though intellectually Eden knew that his country was a cash-strapped, declining power, he sought ways to assert her strength and independence, which, among other things, could strengthen the government’s as well as his own personal standing with voters at home. Here was such an opportunity.23

  Eden accordingly embarked on a great personal mission to win an agreement for a five-power meeting, to be convened in May or June at a locale to be determined. He had noticed a chink in the Americans’ armor: At a preconference strategy session on January 23, Dulles had allowed that he might be willing to meet with the Chinese concerning one matter, namely Korea, about which many unsettled issues remained. Dulles had suggested that Molotov would never accept such a limited agenda, and he was right; the Soviet diplomat initially refused to consider anything other than an “international” agenda. Little by little, however, over a period of almost three weeks, Eden got the two men to come around. Bidault, at once insistent on negotiations and tempted by his dream of making China cease aiding the Viet Minh as the price of her participation, signed on as well and won approval for his preferred venue: Geneva. On February 18, the Berlin conference agreed that “the problem of restoring peace in Indochina will also be discussed at the Conference [on the Korean question], to which representatives of the United States, France, the United Kingdom, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the Chinese People’s Republic and other interested states will be invited.”24

  ANTHONY EDEN AND GEORGES BIDAULT LEAVING JOHN FOSTER DULLES’S RESIDENCE DURING THE BERLIN CONFERENCE, FEBRUARY 1954. (photo credit 18.1)

  III

  THE FOREIGN SECRETARY HAD ACHIEVED THE SEEMINGLY IMPOSSIBLE. How had he done it? By persistence and shrewdness—and fortuitous timing. “Eden was quick, he was skillful,” an American delegate at the conference later acknowledged admiringly. “His rather languid manner concealed a lively, imaginative, perceptive mind.… He had an almost inbred, instinctive effort, in any conflict, in any collision, great or small, to find a compromise solution.”25

  Molotov and Bidault proved the easiest to convince, the former because he got the essentials of what he wanted—a meeting to which his restive Chinese allies were formally invited, and where more than just Korea would be discussed—and the latter because he ultimately saw no choice. The government in which he served would fall if it emerged that he had passed up a great-power conference on Indochina. Dulles was the tough one to crack, immovable in the early sessions and behind closed doors. It wasn’t one thing that caused the secretary to change, but several interrelated considerations. He came, first, to see what Bidault and Eden saw: that opposition to Molotov’s proposal would bring down the only French government willing to attempt the continued defense of Indochina. Of equal concern, the fall of Laniel would almost certainly kill any chance of gaining French ratification of the European Defense Community, for Laniel’s cabinet was more positively inclined toward the scheme than any successor government was likely to be.

  A letter home to Eisenhower in the second week hinted at Dulles’s agonizing shift: “Last night I urged Bidault to pass over any suggestion of Indochina negotiation, saying that even to initiate discussion put us on slippery ground, and might lead to further decline in morale in Indochina and France. However, he feels that the bottom will fall out of the French home situation unless he does something here to indicate a desire to end [the] Indochina war. I shall do everything here to minimize possible risks, but dare not push Bidault beyond [the] point which he thinks will break his position in France, as he [is] our main reliance for both EDC and Indochina.”26

  Upon his return to Washington, the secretary of state told the National Security Council: “If Bidault had not gone back to Paris with something to show on Indochina, the Laniel government would have fallen at once and would have been replaced by a government which would not only have a mandate to end the war in Indochina on any terms, but also to oppose French ratification of EDC.” To Senator Hubert H. Humphrey in executive session, he was blunt: Either the conference proposal would be accepted, or “our influence would have been zero in France, both in relation to Indochina and in relation to the EDC.”27

  “One cannot help wondering,” a startled British observer remarked a few days later, “whether even Mr. Dulles did not come to the conclusion in Berlin that future prospects in Indochina were not very rosy and that therefore no opportunity of exploring the possibilities of a negotiated way out should be neglected.”28 This was going too far. Dulles had not changed his mind regarding the stakes in Vietnam, and he was nowhere near seeking a “negotiated way out.” His horror at the thought of dealing with Communist regimes remained. He hoped France could hang on militarily until the monsoon rains came, then regroup and be in a stronger position come fall.

  Still, there’s no doubt Dulles in Berlin showed a degree of flexibility that few in the international community thought he possessed. He was not quite the rigid ideologue of legend. Or at least his rigidity could coexist, paradoxically, with a certain dexterity in everyday conduct. Not even his irritation at Eden for putting him on the spot (he talked badly about the foreign secretary with Bidault, not knowing that the Frenchman was meanwhile saying acid things about him to Eden) dissuaded him.29 Nor did the certainty that he would take a beating at home.30 To cover the administration with GOP hard-liners, Dulles secured inclusion in the communiqué of a caveat that the holding of the Geneva meeting should not “be deemed to imply diplomatic recognition in any case where it has not already been accorded.” At his demand, it also made no mention of “five powers,” no reference to hosts and guests, and it welcomed “other interested states” to attend.

  Would that phraseology be enough to satisfy right-wing critics? Upon his return to Washington, Dulles went on the offensive, insisting before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on February 24 that he had had no option at Berlin but to agree to include Indochina in the upcoming conference, lest the Laniel government fall. But he also guaranteed the lawmakers that the United States “will not go into that conference with any obligation to stay there and will not be bound by anybody’s vote other than its own, and we will be in a position to exert a considerable degree of power because of the extent to which the French are dependent, certainly to carry on the struggle, upon our military aid.” That evening, in a nationwide television broadcast titled “Report on Berlin,” he spoke of the “vital importance” of the struggle waged by French Union forces in Indochina and assured viewers that the wording of the communiqué in no way signified a change in America’s China policy.31

  IV

  DULLES UNDERSTOOD, MORE CLEARLY IT SEEMS THAN EITHER BIDAULT or Eden did, that the decision to convene a Geneva conference on Indochina started the clock ticking at Dien Bien Phu. More than they, he worried that the announcement would cause the enemy to intensify his efforts in the valley and elsewhere in order to show the Geneva delegates a flurry of victories, thereby taking the conflict to its climax. The prospect of a peace conference, Dulles warned Bidault on the final day in Germany, in
creased the Communist desire for a “knock out this season.”32 His concern was justified, though it remains hard to assess the counterfactual question of how things would have gone in the absence of a Berlin deal. Certainly the evidentiary record shows plenty of warning signs for the French prior to the February 18 announcement and plenty of French official optimism afterward. But it also shows that DRV leaders did in fact make battlefield decisions in late February and in March with Geneva firmly in mind. Just as Dulles anticipated, Ho Chi Minh and his colleagues wanted to be in the best possible military position when the diplomats descended on the Swiss lakeside city.

  Initially, at least, the Berlin communiqué had little discernible impact on the ground. When French defense minister René Pleven, in the midst of a tour of Indochina, flew into Dien Bien Phu on February 19, he found a garrison brimming with optimism. Everyone, from Colonel de Castries to the lowliest gunner, told him they looked forward to the Viet Minh assault, fearing only, they said, that Giap might abandon the attempt, just as he had done on January 25. This bullish bravado impressed Pleven and his entourage, which included General Paul Ely, the chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, but the sight of the surrounding heights, dominated by enemy troops, filled them with apprehension.33

  Pleven got a similarly upbeat message on his next stop, in Luang Prabang, which was under direct threat from a renewed Laotian offensive that Giap had launched soon after canceling the Dien Bien Phu attack. With Viet Minh forward elements only thirty miles away, French officers assured Pleven they were ready, and the Royal Laotian government indicated it would remain rather than evacuate, suggesting it believed the defenses were sufficiently robust. Then, on February 24, while Pleven was still in the city, the Viet Minh forces suddenly halted, withdrawing soon afterward in the direction of Dien Bien Phu. Some immediately connected the move (rightly, we now know) to the Berlin announcement and Giap’s desire to score a smashing victory prior to the Geneva gathering.

  In his reports to Laniel and to the National Defense Committee, Pleven duly noted these expressions of optimism, but his conclusions were sober. He had set out to determine if time was on the side of France or the Viet Minh, and everything he saw indicated the latter. He considered it doubtful that General Giap would be able to inflict a decisive defeat on the Expeditionary Corps so long as China did not intervene directly and the Viet Minh lacked airpower. In southern Vietnam and in the Red River Delta, the French still held strong cards. All the same, he continued, the balance of forces was not shifting in France’s direction, and Navarre would likely have little to show for his efforts in the present campaign season except increasingly heavy casualties. Notably, Operation Atlante was in February running into all kinds of difficulty. Beijing’s aid to the DRV was growing each day and would present more and more problems. The VNA, meanwhile, showed emerging promise but would not become truly effective until its men felt they had something to fight and die for, something other than merely French interests. As for the Bao Dai government, it inspired little support among ordinary Vietnamese.34

  On Dien Bien Phu, Pleven was even more blunt. Whereas the garrison might look forward with eagerness to the showdown, he said, “Personally, I do not look forward to it.”35

  It all pointed to one inescapable conclusion, as far as the defense minister was concerned: France must use every effort at Geneva to gain an acceptable settlement to the war. Prior to the conference, she should press for military advantage and should work hard to prepare the VNA to be able to take over from the Expeditionary Corps—remote though the latter prospect might be.36 She should also reject bilateral Franco–Viet Minh talks, since such negotiations would be seen as betraying Bao Dai and his supporters. But Geneva, as an international meeting where the Associated States could be represented, was an opportunity that must be seized. The resulting agreement would be far from perfect, Pleven acknowledged, but neither would it necessarily be disastrous. Above all, it would get France off a road that could only lead to her ruin.

  Bidault agreed that direct talks with Ho Chi Minh were out of the question, at least at present, but he was less enchanted with other parts of Pleven’s message. He told aides that the military outlook was rosier now than at the start of the year and that Dien Bien Phu could be the setting for a glorious victory that would allow France to enter Geneva in a position of strength. The fortress, he and Laniel insisted, must be held at all costs.37 Once at the conference, Bidault planned to use the threat of American intervention to extract from Moscow and Beijing an agreement to cease backing the Viet Minh. If they could be persuaded to abandon Ho Chi Minh, as Stalin had abandoned the Greek leader Markos in 1947, Bidault reasoned, France could secure a compromise settlement on favorable terms. Or at least it seems he reasoned as such—with Bidault, it’s hard to be sure, so torn was he, in author Jean Lacouture’s words, “between his rancor and his dreams.”38 Neither the Soviets nor the Chinese had given the slightest hint that they were prepared to play his game, so one may wonder what he really believed. But he stuck to his determined posture. When India’s leader Jawaharlal Nehru, hitherto largely silent on the Indochina war, in late February issued a proposal for a cease-fire prior to Geneva, Bidault waved it off (with Washington’s encouragement).39 There were still several weeks left before the conference, and General Navarre must be given maximum time to do damage.

  V

  IN LIGHT OF WHAT WAS TO COME, IT SEEMS PREPOSTEROUS, THIS idea that France could appreciably strengthen her military position—and therefore her diplomatic position—before Geneva. Yet Bidault was far from alone in believing it. As we have seen, at Dien Bien Phu de Castries struck a tone of serene certitude in these weeks, seemingly out of conviction. Giap, he reasoned, had wisely avoided battle on January 25, knowing his forces could not prevail, and since then the garrison had only become stronger. Sure, Giap had shelled different points in the valley on a regular basis since late January, but these were desultory bombardments, in the late afternoon or early evening, that seldom did real damage; to de Castries, they merely confirmed that the Viet Minh were outmatched. Piroth, the artillery commander, puzzled over his failure to locate the enemy’s guns but nevertheless exuded confidence, even refusing to dig his own guns in to provide shelter for their crews. Who could hit them, after all? Much better to have open emplacements, so as to be able to fire at all angles of the compass. Piroth would go no further than to place his guns in pits with sandbag walls to protect against mortar shells.

  Lieutenant Colonel Jules Gaucher, commander of both the central sector of the camp and of the Thirteenth Demi-Brigade at Béatrice, wrote to his wife in February 22: “For now, the Viets leave us almost in peace. This is a decisive period.… One has to ask oneself if the Viets are really going to attack us. We have created such a defensive system that it would be a big mouthful to swallow, and that gives pause to the gentlemen opposite, who have already countermanded the order to attack [on January 25]. But I still believe that for the sake of prestige they’ll have to come, though we are already causing them heavy loss with our artillery and aircraft.” In another letter, this one dated March 5, the colonel expressed no fear at the prospect of battle: “Things are still calm, but they tell us that a brawl is coming soon. Is it true? It’s true they must wish to do something spectacular before Geneva. But I believe that if they do, they’ll break their teeth.”40

  Visitors to the camp—and there was a constant stream of them in February and early March, as there had been in January; typically they arrived from Hanoi in the morning and departed in the late afternoon—often got caught up in the fervor. The bustling activity, with thousands of men digging and building, hauling and stacking, against the constant droning of C-47s landing and taking off, was reassuring even to the most seasoned military tourist. U.S. General John “Iron Mike” O’Daniel, for example, though troubled by the positioning of some of the strongpoints and the seeming weakness of the bunkers, declared that the base could “withstand any kind of attack the Viet Minh are capable of
launching” and summarized the military situation as one where “the French are in no danger of suffering a major military reverse. On the contrary they are gaining strength and confidence in their ability to fight the war to a successful conclusion.”41 In Saigon, Navarre told Ambassador Heath privately and journalists publicly that he’d be disappointed if no battle developed at Dien Bien Phu, for it was there he saw a golden opportunity to inflict a major defeat on the enemy. The camp, he told Heath on February 21, was “a veritable jungle Verdun” that would cause huge Viet Minh losses and would not fall. The Communists had not achieved their major objectives in the current campaign season, he reminded reporters four days later, having failed to take Dien Bien Phu and having seen their offensive against Luang Prabang blocked.42

  Most of the scribes were skeptical. Robert Guillain of Le Monde, who had just published a series of probing articles on Dien Bien Phu, after traveling by rail through Thailand and Laos to reach Hanoi, reportedly said to some colleagues after Navarre left the room: “Ours is a wonderful profession. The Commander in Chief has just explained everything to us dogmatically, and I, a humble journalist, would stake my life on it that he is either making a terrible mistake or lying to us. I would be ready to swear that the situation he has described has nothing in common with reality. What the Commander in Chief lacks, like his entourage, is our fresh, unbiased view of events.”43