Where the Domino Fell - America And Vietnam 1945-1995

by James S. Olson

  The events at Dong Khe left French military planners with the wrong impression. In their final assault, the Vietminh had attacked in massive human wave assaults, infantry troops literally running into and overrunning the French barricades. The Vietminh sustained staggering casualties, but Giap was less concerned with the number of soldiers lost than with their success in achieving the military objective. From the battle of Dong Khe, the French erroneously concluded that in the future, the Vietminh would again employ human wave infantry assaults, as if that was tactical doctrine. That presumption rested on quicksand. In the future, the Vietminh would prove to be quite flexible in attacking fixed French positions.

  Heads rolled in Hanoi and Saigon. France fired most senior officials and conferred joint military and political command on General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, who in December 1950 became high commissioner and commander in chief of Indochina. A hero of both world wars, de Lattre had an ability matched by his ego. Handsome, confident, and obsessed with victory, he rebuilt French outposts in the Red River Valley, betting that Vo Nguyen Giap, flushed with success, would push too far.

  De Lattre was right. Giap wanted to drive the French back into Hanoi, so he decided to attack Vinh Yen, a reinforced garrison thirty miles northwest of the capital. De Lattre was ready. The Vietminh attacked but failed to overrun the base. Giap tried an attack up the Day River southeast of Hanoi but was repulsed again. He threw the Vietminh against Nam Dinh, a French garrison twenty miles south of Haiphong. Bernard de Lattre, the general’s son, had orders to hold Nam Dinh at all costs. He died obeying his father. By the end of May 1951, 6,000 were dead and Vo Nguyen Giap retreated from Vinh Yen. The general returned to stage two.

  De Lattre was barely able to savor the victories. He was terminally ill with stomach cancer and died seven months later in Paris. General Raoul Salan replaced him, but he was little more than a caretaker. De Lattre had created the Vietnamese National Army, on paper a 115,000-man force, to make it appear at least that Bao Dai’s government was really fighting the communists. In the meantime, Giap replenished his divisions. At the end of May 1953 Salan was relieved of his command.

  By that time the war was a bottomless pit. Since 1945 the war had cost France 3 dead generals, 8 colonels, 18 lieutenant colonels, 69 majors, 341 captains, 1,140 lieutenants, 9,691 enlisted men, and 12,109 French Legionnaires, along with 20,000 missing in action and 100,000 wounded. Saint-Cyr, the French military academy, was not graduating officers fast enough to replace the dead in Indochina. The military situation was even worse. From the Chinese border in northern Vietnam to the Ca Mau Peninsula on the South China Sea, the Vietminh controlled two-thirds of the country. Their army, including regular and irregular troops, numbered in the hundreds of thousands, and in the words of the journalist Theodore White, “has become a modern army, increasingly skillful, armed with artillery, organized into divisions” French control had been reduced to enclaves around Hanoi, Haiphong, and Saigon, as well as a strip of land along the Cambodian border.

  Salan’s replacement was Henri Navarre, a veteran of both world wars who believed French forces could bring the Vietminh to their knees within a year. Navarre had joined the French infantry in 1916 after graduating from Saint-Cyr as a cavalry officer. Except for duty in North Africa during World War II, his career was in army intelligence. Supremely self-confident, dictatorial, and righteously committed, Navarre was an instant celebrity in the French social circuits of Hanoi and Saigon. In both cities he outfitted himself with air-conditioned command posts complete with the best in French wine and cuisine. When he arrived in Saigon to assume his command, Navarre predicted an early end to the war: “Now we can see it clearly—like light at the end of a tunnel”

  Navarre decided that French strategy needed an overhaul. After eight years of fighting, the French were no closer to winning than they had been back in 1946. The Vietminh were steadily growing, and Vo Nguyen Giap was preparing to widen the war into Laos. Navarre believed that France was wasting men and resources fighting scattered guerrillas in a conflict that had no end. The key to victory was conventional war. He would seduce the Vietminh into a major engagement where French firepower could annihilate them.

  What became known as the Navarre Plan was actually an elaborate military scheme devised in Washington and Paris. Because American troops were tied down in Western Europe and Korea, the United States insisted that France, with massive financial and matériel assistance, take care of Indochina itself. The plan called for a large increase in the size of the Vietnamese National Army and nine new French battalions. Navarre proposed removing his troops from isolated outposts, combining them with the new French troops, and taking the offensive. He hoped to be able to use the Vietnamese National Army elsewhere in Vietnam.

  In its first formulation, the Navarre Plan contemplated the Red River Valley as the setting for the massive battle. But in the fall of 1953, Vo Nguyen Giap countered with increased guerrilla attacks throughout the Red River Delta as well as an invasion of central and southern Laos. He also readied three Vietminh divisions for northern Laos. Already at the limits of their economic and military commitment, the French became obsessed with keeping the Vietminh out of Laos, where the Pathet Lao, a guerrilla force backed by the communists, was already causing enough trouble. Navarre began considering a new option—going after the Vietminh in western Tonkin along the Laotian border.

  February 1954—General Henri Navarre (left), commander of French forces in Indochina, reviews the troops at an inspection of the camp Dienbienphu with Colonel Christian de Castries (center), commander of the camp and General René Cogny (right), commander of forces in North Vietnam. (Courtesy, AP/Wide World Photos.)

  Navarre scoured the map looking for the perfect place and found it near Laos at the village of Dienbienphu. There Navarre would establish a “mooring point,” a center of operations from which French patrols could go out into the hills in search of the Vietminh. A large French garrison at Dienbienphu would make it more difficult for Giap to ship supplies through Laos to southern Vietnam or invade Laos. Finally, Dienbienphu, was the center of Vietminh opium production; revenues from the drug traffic financed weapons purchases. Suppressing opium production, Navarre hoped4 would cut Vietminh revenues.

  Navarre was convinced that Ho Chi Minh would not be able to abide the French presence at Dienbienphu. In order to push ahead with his plans for domination of Indochina, Ho would have to destroy the French garrison. Anticipating massive, human-wave assaults like the attack the Chinese had launched in Korea and the Vietminh at Dong Khe and Vinh Yen, Navarre planted the base in the center of the valley, with vast stretches of flat territory separating it from the neighboring mountains, where dozens of howitzers were aimed. Colonel Charles Piroth, the one- armed commander of French artillery, predicted that “no Vietminh cannon will be able to fire three rounds before being destroyed by my artillery” If the Vietminh attacked, they had to cross thousands of yards of open fields where French tanks, machine guns, and tactical aircraft would cut them to pieces. With complete air superiority, the French built an airstrip and thought they could hold out indefinitely, resupplying themselves by air from Hanoi.

  Navarre wanted to double the size of the Vietnamese National Army to relieve the French Expeditionary Corps of its obligations to fight a nonstop war against Vietminh guerrillas. French advisers would remain in the countryside to work with the Vietnamese National Army in suppressing the guerrillas. At the same time, Navarre assembled a new, powerful army corps to occupy Dienbienphu and engage the Vietminh in battle.

  But where would Navarre find the men and the money? In France the Indochina War was increasingly unpopular, swallowing men and matériel with no victory in sight. Conscription was out of the question; there was no way the government could get the necessary legislation through the French National Assembly. Public debate was already at a fever pitch. Instead, Navarre turned to the other colonies, putting together a polyglot army of French Legionnaires and volunteers from France
, Lebanon, Syria, Chad, Guadeloupe, and Madagascar. For money Navarre looked to the United States. Ever since 1950, when Congress appropriated the first $15 million, American assistance had steadily increased. Navarre wanted even more, and the administration of Dwight Eisenhower was quick to agree. By the end of 1953 the United States was supplying Navarre with 10,000 tons of equipment a month, at an annual cost of $500 million. That amount increased to $1.1 billion in 1954, nearly 78 percent of France’s war expenses. Navarre had money and men.

  Navarre placed Colonel Christian de Castries in command of Dien- bienphu. The aristocrat, horseman, and athlete Castries had won several European high jump and long jump championships in the mid- 1930s. During World War II he made the transition from cavalry to armor and was wounded several times. The Germans captured him in 1941, but he escaped in 1944 and rejoined French fighting forces. Known to show off at parties by chewing glass, Castries declared that life was sweet if a man “had a horse to ride, an enemy to kill, and a woman in his bed”

  Beginning in November 1953, Castries supervised the construction of the base at Dienbienphu. He was immediately identifiable by his red cap, flaming red scarf, and riding crop in his hand. He put the main base at the center of the valley and then set up three major artillery bases: one three miles to the south, which he designated Isabelle; another, Béatrice, about a mile to the northeast; and a third nearly two miles to the north, which he called Gabrielle. Castries was supporting three mistresses by these names, and he wanted to immortalize them. Castries named other firebases and French posts after earlier conquests: Anne Marie, Francoise, Dominique, Eliane, Claudine, and Huguette. Castries manned the base with 13,200 paratroopers. In a radio broadcast on January 1, 1954, General Navarre announced that he expected “total victory after six more months of hard fighting”

  Navarre’s commander of the Tonkin theater was not so sanguine. René Cogny came from humble stock, but with scholarships he had graduated from Saint-Cyr in artillery and then earned degrees in political science and law. The Germans captured him in 1940, but he escaped in 1941, only to be captured again in 1943. He spent the rest of the war at the Buchenwald concentration camp, where torture left him with a permanent limp. In the eight years after his release, Cogny enjoyed a spectacular rise through the ranks of the officer corps, from captain to major general. He feared the Navarre Plan. He wanted to avoid battles in the highlands, except for minor skirmishes; maintain a permanent offensive against the Vietminh in the Red River Delta; and frequently raid enemy supply lines and infiltration routes. When he first heard about the plan from Navarre, Cogny remarked to his chief of staff: “Dienbienphu will become, whether we like it or not, a drain on manpower . . . as soon as it is pinned down by a single regiment . . . . The consequences of such a decision may be very serious”

  From his post in the mountains above Dienbienphu, Vo Nguyen Giap was dumbfounded. The Navarre Plan represented a significant shift in French strategy, and he was in a quandary at first about how to deal with the change. His philosophy about such confrontations with the French had always been consistent: “Strike to win, strike only when success is certain. If it is not, then do not strike” Giap’s biggest mistake, trying to overrun the French base at Vinh Yen in 1951, had made him more prudent and deliberate, more willing to wait until victory was certain. But he could not understand why the French had picked Dien- bienphu. The roads were narrow and exposed; the Vietminh would never let supply trucks reach the valley; and Vietminh artillery would prevent supply aircraft from landing at the hastily constructed airfield. The valley was a wet bottomland of the Nam Yum River. After heavy rains the valley turned into mud and drained very slowly. French tanks would be immobilized. Any competent engineer or hydrologist could have taken a look at Dienbienphu and concluded that tank warfare would be difficult at best. Even in dry weather the ground was covered with heavy, vined brush that would clog tank tracks. The French had also assumed that the Vietminh did not have any decent artillery pieces and that even if they did they would not be able to place them in the mountains above Dienbienphu. There were no roads up there for trucks to make deliveries. That was a gross misjudgment on the part of the French.

  When Vo Nguyen Giap calculated the deficiencies of the French position, he concluded that Vietminh victory was certain. The terrain would destroy armor mobility; tanks would become stationary artillery pieces. By assaulting Gabrielle, Isabelle, and Béatrice in sequence, Giap could eliminate French artillery. He was also counting on his own artillery. In Korea the Chinese had captured hundreds of 105-mm howitzers and 120-mm potbellied mortars built by the Americans, and they were on their way. Giap intended to destroy the airfield and put Dienbienphu under siege. Nor was he worried about the vast open spaces between the mountain slopes and the French perimeter. He would dig hundreds of miles of tunnels and trenches from the mountain slopes toward the base, eliminating the French tactical advantage.

  For years the French had waited for the set-piece battle in which their firepower would prevail, assuming, of course, that they would win such a contest. Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, Raoul Salan, and Henri Navarre all prayed for the confrontation. Castries put it best in January 1954: “If he [the Vietminh] comes down, we've got him. It may be a tough fight, but we shall halt him. And we shall at last have what we have always lacked: a concentrated target that we can smash” The French were convinced that if Vo Nguyen Giap attacked Dienbienphu, the Viet-minh would suffer a decisive defeat.

  Navarre had completely underestimated Giap’s ability to relocate the Vietminh. Slowly and steadily he did the impossible—he put four Vietminh divisions into the mountains surrounding Dienbienphu. Even though most of them had only cut-up rubber tires for shoes, he got twenty to fifty miles a day out of them, each carrying a rifle, a large bag of rice, clothing, a shovel, and a water bottle. When French aircraft bombed the small roads heading for Dienbienphu, Giap repaired them. Along Routes 13B and 41, he had 10,000 workers who restored roads within an hour of the attack.

  By early March 1954 Vo Nguyen Giap had 50,000 combat-hardened Vietminh troops and another 50,000 support troops in place, along with 100,000 Vietnamese porters carrying supplies on their backs. General Navarre was confident that Giap would not be able to bring heavy artillery into battle, that French artillery and tactical air support would put him at a tremendous firepower disadvantage. Suddenly 105-mm shells began to rain on the airstrip at Dienbienphu, pockmarking it with craters and rendering it unsafe for supply landings. The French had expected Giap to move the artillery into place the way they did—on large trucks over visible roads. But he had disassembled each artillery piece, organized thousands of porters to carry the elements to Dien- bienphu, and then reassembled the artillery there.

  The shelling on March 12 was just a preview. The main feature started at 5:00 p.m. the next day when Vietminh artillery exploded all over the French artillery bases. By midnight Vietminh troops had seized outpost Béatrice. The bombardment of Gabrielle began at dusk the next day. Nine hours later Gabrielle fell. The Vietminh sustained thousands of casualties, but in less than fifteen hours Castries had lost most of his artillery. Isabelle was so far south of the main base that in order to protect it Castries had to move a large troop contingent there. Instead of attacking, Giap left Isabelle alone, rendering useless the French troops there. The next day the Vietminh bombardment became so heavy that aircraft could no longer land. French soldiers could be supplied only by air, and on March 17, 1954, American and French pilots began flying C-119s and C-47s over Dienbienphu, dropping food, weapons, and ammunition to the besieged soldiers. That same day armed Montagnard tribesmen, allied with the French, realized their plight and fled Dien- bienphu. France needed help.

  On March 20, General Paul Ely, chief of staff of the French armed forces, flew to Washington for a meeting with President Dwight Eisenhower, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, and Admiral Arthur Radford, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. A member of the West Point class of 1915—called the “Cla
ss on Which the Stars Fell” because 59 of its 164 graduates rose to the rank of brigadier general or higher—Ike was perhaps the best of the group. As commander of the European operations in World War II, he had earned a reputation for decisiveness, energy, intelligence, and skill in handling temperamental and egotistical individuals. Said FDR’s press secretary of Ike: “To acquire these characteristics he worked constantly, sleeping only five hours a day . . . and laboring seven days a week and holidays. Chain smoking cigarettes, he had an inexhaustible supply of nervous energy” Once in the presidency, Eisenhower seemed more subdued. White House reporters recall not his energy and precise thinking but rather his mangled syntax and his fondness for golfing and bridge—a very intellectual game: Ike could remember all the cards of each suit as a game was played. But behind the mild facade Ike was still in charge. In foreign affairs, he made all the important decisions. Intellectuals and English teachers could fault his syntax, but as Fred I. Greenstein notes, Eisenhower “had geometric precision in stating the basic conditions shaping a problem, deducing their implications, and weighing the costs and benefits of alternative possible responses” As Ely talked, the geometry of Ike’s mind was calculating.