Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam
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President Dwight D. Eisenhower understood, as he had always understood, that Geneva had the potential to create all kinds of political problems at home. But he also grasped that staying away presented problems of its own. Hagerty, showing an impressive ability to argue both sides of an issue, spoke in favor of fighting for U.S. aims on the spot in Switzerland, with Dulles or Smith present, lest America look like “a little boy sulking in his tent.” At a cabinet meeting on July 10, the president said he had not yet made up his mind on the matter, but indicated he leaned toward sending one of the two men. Dulles privately recommended against such a course, whereupon Eisenhower agreed to withhold a decision until the nature of the final agreement had been clarified. If it looked like an acceptable settlement was in the offing, Dulles or Smith would head for the airport.12
This was scarcely acceptable to the French government, or to Eden, who continued to apply the pressure for top-level American representation, not later but right away. Eisenhower compromised by dispatching Dulles to Paris to confer with the French and British leaders. He arrived on July 13 and, after dinner at Matignon, proceeded to tell Mendès France and Eden that Washington should remain in the background, as a kind of “wicked partner,” so as to keep the Communists guessing.
“But do you know,” replied Mendès France in English, “that the absence of an American minister in Geneva delights the delegations from the East? Do you know that the mere announcement of your arrival in Paris has sown confusion among them? Your presence in Geneva would strengthen the West’s position.”
Dulles turned to his real objection. “What you sign in Geneva will be bad,” he grumbled. “We do not want, by our presence, to encourage a new Yalta.”
“But we want your presence precisely so that the agreement will not be bad! So that it will conform to your Seven Points of June 29.”13
Dulles had arrived in Paris deeply skeptical that the French in fact would adhere to the Seven Points, but he was impressed by the premier’s assurances. The Viet Minh in recent days had softened their tone in Geneva, Mendès France pointed out; they were now offering (as per Ho Chi Minh’s instruction) a partition line at the sixteenth parallel and gave indications they might budge further. They had also recognized the unity of Laos under the royal government but were holding out for a regroupment zone for the Pathet Lao. They would not accept any U.S. bases or military personnel in Laos, they could live with a French training mission, and they showed a willingness to compromise on the issues of Vietnam elections and the composition of the supervisory commission. France, the premier continued, would press hard for a division at the eighteenth parallel—anything south of the RC9 was unacceptable, he maintained—and would lay preparations for a continuation of the war if the negotiations failed.
Eden, witnessing the scene, marveled that “Mendès France fought his corner brilliantly” while the American “cut a sorry figure” who “kept quoting Yalta.” This last assessment seems harsh, for Dulles showed a keen grasp of the implications of what he heard. After lunch on July 14, Mendès France promised to seek an agreement embodying the Seven Points in exchange for Dulles pledging to send Bedell Smith back to Geneva. Upon his return to Washington, the secretary told colleagues that the administration must avoid any “Yalta business” but also that it must support France. The United States, he now said, could not “withdraw inconspicuously” without generating talk of “too many stiff-necked Presbyterians, of sanctimoniousness, and of invoking lofty moral principles.” He lauded Mendès France for his decisiveness and sincerity.14
With six days to go until the deadline, the French leader felt he had what he needed to land a deal. But the drama was not over. Important disagreements remained. The Paris government had kept Bao Dai’s State of Vietnam largely ignorant of the details of the negotiations, and a big question now was whether the new prime minister, Ngo Dinh Diem, who had made no secret of his steadfast opposition to partition, and to the whole Geneva endeavor, could be persuaded to accept the agreement taking shape—or at least induced to refrain from raising a ruckus against it. On July 12, Donald Heath, the U.S. ambassador in Saigon, gingerly outlined the Seven Points for Diem and said Washington would “respect” a cease-fire that “preserves at least the southern half of Vietnam.” Diem was unimpressed. He instructed his chief negotiator in Geneva, Foreign Minister Tran Van Do, to urge the French not to surrender Hanoi and Haiphong. Do did so in a session with Jean Chauvel the following day, but he struck a moderate tone, perhaps because he was a realist. He seemed prepared to accept a partition deal, Chauvel reported, and, added Mendès France, “did not appear to delude himself greatly regarding the scope of his [Diem’s] demands.” On the fifteenth, Do told Eden that although Diem wanted an enclave in the north, he himself considered the idea naïve in view of the military situation. In restricted session two days later, Do formally rejected the principle of partition—which “takes no account of the unanimous desire for national unity of the Vietnamese people”—but then assured Eden that this was merely for the record.15
An astute observer might say that Tran Van Do’s objections, however halfhearted, were a warning of trouble to come. So they were, especially given Diem’s hostile attitude toward the proceedings. The new premier used every chance in his first weeks in office to denounce the Geneva Conference and to trumpet his determination not to be bound by its results. No less than Ho Chi Minh, he sought a unified Vietnam. For the moment, though, French officials had reason to feel confident that the State of Vietnam would not expend great energy to try to prevent an agreement.
The last days before the deadline witnessed a dizzying array of bilateral encounters and ad hoc meetings, as well as discussions between military representatives of the opposing commands. Pierre Mendès France and Pham Van Dong occupied the starring roles, with Zhou, Eden, and Molotov also seizing the spotlight. India’s foreign minister Krishna Menon was a Zelig-like figure in these final hours, seemingly always there in the background, ready to supply a supportive nod of the head or word of encouragement. Walter Bedell Smith, however, who arrived in Geneva on July 16, remained almost completely aloof from the discussions. His stated excuse was an attack of ulcers, but he also had instructions to avoid associating the United States with the sordid business at hand. “The American delegation was insulated and isolated from what was going on,” recalled a member of his team, “except for what crumbs of information we could pick up from better-informed friends and colleagues in other delegations. Smith himself was in close touch with developments, primarily through phone conversations with Eden. But the general was in an even more forbidding mood than usual during this period, and it was a courageous man who attempted to mix a solicitous call at Smith’s bedside with a quest for information.”16
PIERRE MENDÈS FRANCE AND ZHOU ENLAI IN GENEVA ON JULY 19, 1954, JUST BEFORE THE FINAL BREAKTHROUGH IN THE NEGOTIATIONS. (photo credit 24.1)
Gradually, despite inevitable setbacks (as late as the morning of July 18, Eden could telegraph Churchill that the chances of reaching a deal were only fifty-fifty), the shape of an agreement began to emerge.17 On July 18, Zhou Enlai broke the deadlock over the composition of the commission that would supervise the various cease-fire agreements; he proposed, and won approval for, India, Canada, and Poland. That day and the next there was progress as well on the specifics of the cease-fire agreements for Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.
Still, it was only on July 20, with the clock ticking down, that the main issues were resolved.18 For days, the French and the Viet Minh had been deadlocked on whether the line of partition ought to be at the eighteenth or sixteenth parallel; now, with the encouragement of the Soviets and Chinese, attention focused on a line six miles north of the RC 9 (or roughly 17° N), which would keep Hue and Tourane (Da Nang) in non-Communist hands and give French Union forces—and the Vietnamese troops that would succeed them—a short defensible line as the northern boundary of South Vietnam (as it would thenceforth be called). General elections would be held withi
n two years of the signing of the agreement—the exact date to be determined by representatives of the two Vietnamese governments—and there would be a regrouping of forces within 245 days in order to achieve partition. Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia would be effectively neutralized—none could join alliances or host foreign military bases.
Throughout the day, Pham Van Dong and Mendès France jousted over these terms. By late afternoon, they were in accord that the demarcation line should be the seventeenth parallel and that the elections should be scheduled for no later than July 1956. The French premier had wanted the timetable for the voting to be left open, while Pham Van Dong relaxed his demand for six months, suggesting one year, possibly even eighteen months. Molotov, whose timely intervention had also helped secure the seventeenth parallel as the demarcation, said, “Shall we say two years?” Mendès France agreed; Pham Van Dong, with more hesitation, nodded as well. Anthony Eden could barely hide his satisfaction.
By 5:15 P.M., the news was out: Agreement had been reached! Preparations began for a signing ceremony in the Palais des Nations, so the armistice agreements and the concluding document could be initialed before midnight. Lost in the frenzy was the fact that not everything had been decided, and in particular that the agreements concerning Laos and Cambodia were still barely beyond draft stage. Sure enough, at eight o’clock came word that Sam Sary, head of the Cambodian delegation, objected to the terms and would refuse to sign the agreement. Enforced neutralization represented an intolerable restriction of his country’s freedom of action, he announced, not because Phnom Penh wanted foreign troops, arms, or bases, but because it could not be denied the right to have them if it chose.19 He did not budge when the Big Five, including even Bedell Smith, pleaded with him to come around. The hours passed. Midnight came and went. At two A.M., Molotov, impressed with the Khmer’s determination, tried a new tack. Bases were impossible, the Russian affirmed, but “one might consider certain forms of common defense. Suppose it were said that Cambodia could call for external aid in case of a particular threat, a danger?” Fine, the others replied, too exhausted now to object, though Mendès France won approval for an amendment giving the same right also to Laos. Sam Sary pledged to sign the agreement the following day.20
Accounts differ as to when the three agreements (all dated, to save face for Mendès France, at midnight on July 20) were actually signed, but the American record is probably more or less correct: three-thirty A.M. on July 21 for Vietnam and Laos, eleven A.M. for Cambodia.21
In Hanoi, the French Army radio station interrupted its broadcast of the Tour de France bicycle race. A woman’s breathless voice broke in: “L’armistice vient d’être signé à Genève.” Outside a florist shop in the city, a French lieutenant shook his head: “The armistice will only mean something to me the day I won’t have to buy any more wreaths for my buddies. Today I’m ordering six.” But as he spoke, the rumble of artillery began to taper off.22
Success had come at last—at least as defined by Mendès France. He had met his deadline, more or less. The final cease-fire agreement between France and the DRV provided for partition at the seventeenth parallel, and a demilitarized zone (DMZ) six miles wide (three miles on each side) along that parallel. French forces were to regroup south of that line, and Viet Minh forces to the north. The terms allowed for free movement of populations between the zones for three hundred days, prohibited either zone from joining a military alliance or receiving military reinforcement, and created a commission composed of India (chair), Canada, and Poland to monitor compliance. The cease-fire agreement explicitly recognized that the demarcation line was only “provisional,” as did the Final Declaration, an unsigned document approved by oral statements at the final plenary session on the afternoon of July 21. “The military demarcation line is provisional and should not in any way be interpreted as constituting a political or territorial boundary,” the Final Declaration stated. It also provided for “free general elections by secret ballot” throughout Vietnam, to be held in July 1956, with consultations between representatives of the two zones to begin a year before that, in July 1955.23
Neither the State of Vietnam nor the United States formally associated themselves with the outcome of the conference, but Smith did make a unilateral declaration in which Washington “took note” of the cease-fire agreements bringing the war to an end and declared that it would “refrain from the threat or the use of force to disturb them.” Moreover, the United States would “view any renewal of aggression in violation of the aforesaid agreements with grave concern and as seriously threatening international peace and security.” As for the election provisions, Smith continued, “we shall continue to seek to achieve unity through free elections, supervised by the United Nations to ensure that they are conducted fairly.”24
In his weekly radio address to the French people, Mendès France laid out what had just occurred and what it meant for his country: “Believe me, on that night of the twentieth of July, within an hour of the end of our negotiations, when unforeseen difficulties arose to imperil our efforts, suddenly we felt a presence among us, commanding and imperious, a presence which dominated us, which forces us to conclude because no one could ignore or resist it.”
He paused for a long second, then went on, slowly, his voice laden with emotion. “That force was yours. It was the profound feeling, among both our friends and our adversaries, that there could be no possible doubt about the determination of the French people to make peace or to take whatever measures were necessary to face the alternative. There could be no mistake about it that night. I have seen with my own eyes how overwhelming is the will of a great people, when it is clearly expressed and deeply felt. Yes, I have seen destiny bend to that will.”25
Only later would the grim tallies for France be known. Between September 1945 and July 1954, Paris sent a total of 489,560 soldiers to the Indochinese peninsula: 233,467 French nationals, 72,833 legionnaires, 122,920 North Africans, and 60,340 Africans. In addition, hundreds of thousands of Indochinese troops served with the French forces or in associated armies. By the end of the Geneva Conference, approximately 110,000 troops from the French Union side had been killed in combat or were presumed dead.26
III
THE QUESTION LOOMS: WHY DIDN’T THE VIET MINH GET A BETTER deal? Or, to put it differently, why did the French prove to be better negotiators than fighters? Early in the proceedings, after all, Bidault had complained that he was playing with “a two of clubs and a three of diamonds,” whereas the Viet Minh had several aces, kings, and queens. Dien Bien Phu fell just as the talks got under way, and in the weeks thereafter, the military outlook for French Union forces got steadily grimmer.27 Hanoi was increasingly vulnerable and might be permanently cut off from Haiphong at any moment. Desertions from the VNA were exploding in number, on occasion reaching eight hundred per day, and civilian morale in French-held areas in Tonkin was plummeting. In Laos, the Pathet Lao controlled more than a third of the territory. In supposedly secure southern Vietnam, the French were vulnerable to any incident because their forces were concentrated in the north, while in metropolitan France the public was fed up with the whole endeavor and seeking a swift exit. “Considering all this information,” remarked a member of the French delegation at Geneva, “one is entitled to think that the division of the country at the 13th Parallel would have more accurately reflected the true state of affairs than the partition at the seventeenth parallel which we achieved.”28
But it didn’t happen that way. The old maxim that you can’t win at the bargaining table what you’re unable to achieve on the battlefield failed in this case to apply—as the Viet Minh would remember bitterly in the years to come.
Historians have generally explained this outcome at Geneva by pointing to the pressure placed on the Viet Minh delegation by its Soviet and Chinese allies.29 There’s no doubt this was of paramount importance. Neither Communist power wanted to see an escalation of the fighting; both were eager to avert a direct American military in
tervention and to keep Mendès France’s government from falling on account of his failure to make his deadline.30 Both also saw at Geneva an opportunity to demonstrate their commitments to “peaceful coexistence,” regionally in Asia as well as beyond, and more broadly to make a positive impression on the international stage and thereby enhance their prestige. The Soviets, moreover, hoped to accommodate some of France’s desires on Indochina as a means of reducing the French commitment to the Western alliance in general and to the EDC in particular, while the Chinese wanted to solidify their own influence in Indochina and to check Viet Minh expansionist ambitions.
Zhou Enlai in particular played a critical role in facilitating the ultimate agreement of July 20–21. Content in the conference’s early weeks to maintain a fairly low profile, his more activist posture from mid-June onward proved decisive, as the courteous elegance and diplomatic savvy for which he would in time be heralded came to the fore. “The godfather of the partition solution,” U.S. delegate Chester Cooper would call Zhou, and this seems fair. For although partition had been bandied about as a potential solution for many weeks prior to Geneva, it was the Chinese premier’s subtle but forceful advocacy, coming at a time when many predicted the imminent dissolution of the conference, that made all the difference. As Cooper put it, “once [Zhou] advanced the idea, it achieved enough momentum that by early July, it was not a question of whether there would be a partition, but where the dividing line in Vietnam would be.”31