AS DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER PREPARED to assume the presidency, he and his newly appointed secretary of state John Foster Dulles discussed the “Indochina problem” on board the cruiser Helena in December 1952. Eisenhower and Dulles recognized that the current situation was the “most serious single problem of international relations” facing the United States because of “France’s weakness and the colonial aspects involved,” and the possibility that the “results of loss could not be insulated.”1 Their concern demonstrated that the situation in Vietnam had become a considerable priority to the U.S. government. But the Eisenhower administration, like its predecessor, remained uncertain of the best way to proceed. Thus the issues that had beset the last years of the Truman administration—the search for allied unity, the American desire for Vietnamese independence, and the French unwillingness to commit more resources to European defense while fighting the Vietminh—would plague Eisenhower’s presidency as well.
The nascent EDC further complicated American and French policies toward Vietnam. Following the Truman administration’s lead, Eisenhower and Dulles were determined to bring West Germany into the Atlantic alliance. But in France, memories of German occupation during World War II were still fresh, and many French citizens feared a revival of German military power as much as the Red Army, if not more so. To the French, European security problems were closely connected to the war in Vietnam, where the military situation was rapidly deteriorating in the face of stiff Vietminh resistance. Government officials and the public feared that withdrawing more troops from Europe would weaken French military preparedness, not only with respect to the Soviet Union, but also vis-à-vis growing German power.2
Joseph Stalin’s death in March 1953 and the ensuing Soviet “peace offensive” compounded these problems. By raising the possibility of a relaxation of Cold War tensions, the new leadership in the Kremlin signaled that diplomatic solutions to European and Asian security problems could be found—solutions that would end the war in Indochina and obviate the need for the EDC. Such possibilities widened existing cleavages between France and the United States as the two countries disagreed over the intentions motivating Soviet diplomacy. These diverging views led Paris and Washington to pursue conflicting agendas regarding the EDC, the First Indochina War, and relations with the Soviet Union. In addition, Soviet and American willingness to negotiate an end to the Korean War caused the French to demand a similar diplomatic solution to the Indochina conflict. French officials encouraged Washington to test Soviet intentions through negotiation, while American leaders—Dulles in particular—pressured Paris to pursue a military victory in Indochina, to accept German rearmament through the EDC, and to ignore the fact that the United States was settling the Korean War at the negotiating table. This dynamic within the Western alliance played a key role in determining how East-West and West-West relations unfolded. Rather than capitalizing on Soviet confusion and apparent moderation by presenting a united front to the Soviets, Paris and Washington pursued separate policies in Europe and Asia that obstructed western policy toward the USSR, weakened allied unity, and ultimately increased American intervention in Vietnam.
Eisenhower’s Republican administration entered office in January 1953 determined to defeat the communists in Indochina and to secure French support for the EDC.3 Stalin’s death made both of these goals more difficult, since the possibility of a relaxation of tensions, and hence a diplomatic resolution to the Indochina conflict, appealed to French leaders. The American leadership feared that if France negotiated with the Soviet Union on Indochina, Paris would become less concerned with the communist threat, thereby dooming the EDC.4 As a result, the Eisenhower administration sought to prop up the French war effort with promises of American aid in return for French cooperation in ratifying the EDC.
No one in the Eisenhower administration was more committed to a military victory in Indochina and ratification of the EDC than Dulles.5 Throughout 1953 and 1954, the secretary of state’s hard-line approach was predicated on his belief that no viable alternative to the EDC existed and that, contrary to the belief of the Truman administration, a military rather than a political solution could be found in Vietnam. Stalin’s death did little to change Dulles’s appraisal of the world situation. He remained determined to secure German rearmament through the EDC, and he steadfastly opposed negotiations with the new Soviet leadership on Vietnam. He insisted that negotiations would have to take place after the West had secured German rearmament, if at all.
As the Asian and European theaters became increasingly intertwined, intense Franco-American negotiations regarding the EDC and Indochina took place throughout 1953 and 1954. While the Americans’ desire for the EDC’s success resulted in an ever-increasing commitment to Vietnam, Paris exploited American enthusiasm for linking the two issues by promising, though not delivering, on the EDC in order to receive greater aid for Indochina. The link between European defense and the French war effort had become apparent during Truman’s administration, but under the Eisenhower administration this link grew unmistakable. Franco-American conflict over the EDC thus became an important step in the process of the French exit from, and the American arrival in, Vietnam.
Although eager to shore up western defenses against the Soviets, French officials had assumed that the EDC’s ratification would be a leisurely process, buying France time to win the war in Indochina and build up military forces on the continent to counter German rearmament. To the surprise and annoyance of French policy makers, Eisenhower and Dulles began lobbying the French to ratify the EDC treaty immediately. Dulles believed that furnishing financial and military aid to the French war effort would induce France to ratify the EDC and integrate West Germany into the Western alliance; and it would have the further desired effect of leading to a French victory in Indochina and a noncommunist Southeast Asia. French archival documents suggest that Paris labored to find independent solutions to the EDC and Indochina problems despite Washington’s insistence on linking them.6 At the same time, French officials willingly exploited Washington’s refusal to pursue separate EDC and Indochina policies. With American money, French policy makers intended to buy time in both Europe (to avoid Bonn’s entry into NATO) and Indochina (to avert outright defeat).
The Eisenhower administration understood the risks of connecting the two policies and attempted to avoid an explicit linkage. But Dulles and other American officials erred in drawing implicit linkages that the French exploited. Dulles’s tactic of insisting that the EDC was the only solution to the problem of German rearmament allowed the French to influence American policy significantly. The Eisenhower administration had considered alternatives to the EDC—bringing Germany into NATO, or American-British independent rearming of Germany—that would have limited French influence, but it spent little time assessing the viability of these alternatives because it assumed the French National Assembly would ratify the EDC. This conscious decision kept money flowing into French coffers and created a series of events and miscalculations that increased tensions between the United States and France. The Eisenhower administration’s insistence on the EDC became the Achilles’ heel of Franco-American negotiations, allowing Paris to gain the upper hand over both the Indochina and EDC issues.
As the Republican administration came to power, the French pondered what changes would occur in American foreign policy toward Indochina. When Eisenhower took office, the United States had established American influence in Vietnam but had little desire to take France’s place. But as American aid increased in 1953, so did the American conviction that the United States could run the war effort more effectively than France. Eisenhower and Dulles became increasingly impatient with French military delays and demands for more aid, making it much more difficult for Washington to maintain flexibility in its dealings with Paris.
Initially, the incoming Eisenhower administration had a fairly positive view of the equally new René Mayer government and wanted to work with French officials on both European defense and Indochina.7 Eisenhower and Dulles admired French foreign minister Georges Bidault and thought he had a first-class professional team of experts at his command. They also recognized that the Quai d’Orsay was a major force in the Fourth Republic, understanding that the Quai had taken on an increasingly important role in both European and Asian policy as numerous government crises forced French prime ministers to leave office. In addition, since 1950, the Quai had begun to control decision making on Vietnam. According to Assistant Secretary of State Livingston Merchant, the instability of the French political situation was highly exaggerated in terms of its practical effect on foreign policy, since France had the best civil service in quality and tradition in the world, and, more important, power was divided in ministerial teams among a relatively small number of personalities. Although jobs at the Quai d’Orsay reshuffled frequently, the same men simply moved from one position to another.8 Despite this stability, the Quai was divided into two factions by early 1953—those who saw Indochina as the most important issue facing France and those who insisted that European integration had priority over all other concerns.
As the Eisenhower administration attempted to keep the French fighting in Southeast Asia, many French officials and most of the public sought to escape a humiliating and resource-draining war against the Vietminh. By 1953, government and private French figures demanded an end to what they referred to as the “dirty war.” Concern over the war effort had moved beyond the editorials of communist newspapers and into the mainstream press. Prominent political leader Pierre Mendès France called for negotiations with the Vietminh, as did the influential newspaper Le Monde. The Mayer government feared that withdrawing more troops from Europe to fight a colonial battle would place western European security at risk, and Mayer thus refused to ratify the EDC and commit troops to the European continent before France had resolved the Indochina conflict. Yet French military forces remained unable to launch a successful offensive against the Vietminh. American officials worried that French hopes of the “world situation” entering a period of détente that would benefit Indochina were not conducive to a dynamic approach.9
In 1953, the Franco-Vietminh war was in its seventh year. Neither the French nor the Vietminh had succeeded in breaking the military stalemate. The French-held cities were islands in Vietminh territory. Hanoi, Hue, and Saigon were all under French control, but there were no land communications between them; only by air or sea could the traveler circulate in Vietnam. Continued attacks against French strongholds in the North had ended any possibility of a reduction in size of the FEC for 1953.10 French officials believed that only additional American aid would resolve the stalemate.
And yet, French officials feared that increasing American aid would lead Washington to attempt to control the situation in Vietnam. During a ministerial meeting in early 1953, Minister of the Associated States Jean Letourneau worried that Indochina could shift from being a French affair to a “free world affair, completely escaping French control.” According to Letourneau, no one could “take France’s place,” and France would “not allow the Americans to direct Indochina” as they had directed the Korean War. Bidault acknowledged that the United States might attempt to take control, but concluded that the “risk was acceptable if France could obtain the aid necessary to continue the conflict.” Turning to the EDC, Bidault and Mayer recognized that for many French National Assembly members, one of the biggest arguments against ratifying the EDC was that France would lose its great power status vis-à-vis the United States and Britain. The French position on the Atlantic and world levels would disappear with the EDC, as would certain French sovereignty prerogatives. Before the EDC could be passed, French sentiments would have to change. According to Bidault, “Dulles had failed to understand this point.”11
In the French National Assembly, perspectives on Indochina and the EDC varied dramatically. Supporters of the EDC envisioned it as one step on the path to a European supranational political and military structure. Their vision did not include a divisive war in Indochina. The most nationalist elements remained eager to carry on the war in Indochina but opposed an international vision of Europe, fearing the loss of France’s status as a world power. In keeping with their worldview, they argued that the effort to regain colonial control must continue in order to reestablish France’s “national grandeur.” These nationalists also feared Germany’s resurgence as a military power too much to approve a defense arrangement involving Bonn. As it tried to sell the EDC to the National Assembly and public, the Mayer government also had to take into account increasing demands for an end to the Franco-Vietminh war, which far outweighed national support for the EDC.12
Because of mounting problems with the EDC and Indochina, Paris requested a substantial financial aid increase from the United States. If the United States could guarantee such aid, the Mayer government promised to bring the EDC to a vote while continuing the Indochinese fight against the communists. Mayer intended first to obtain American financial aid and second to ratify the EDC, believing that he could obtain the necessary votes in the French National Assembly. As French officials observed, assurances of American aid that would help France meet its European and Asian responsibilities made a vote on the EDC more likely; otherwise, public opinion and the National Assembly would turn against it.13 But when Dulles asked Bidault to set a specific date for the debate over the EDC’s ratification, Bidault indicated that the National Assembly would not concurrently ratify the EDC and continue the war. After their meeting, Bidault observed that Dulles was “difficult to deal with, had few original ideas, and was narrow minded,” and concluded that Dulles had “an elementary and a Manichean view of the world: between the camps of good and evil there is no possibility for maneuvers or compromise.” French officials also found Dulles “ignorant” of the fundamentals of French policy, and “naive.”14 Such views did not bode well for smooth relations with the new American secretary of state.
Discussions among the Americans, British, and French at the Paris Conference in early February 1953 highlighted the problems the French faced in simultaneously ratifying the EDC and continuing the war. French officials clamored for additional protocols that would tie Britain more closely to the EDC, and for a reaffirmation of Washington and London’s commitment to the Atlantic alliance to quiet domestic discontent. Mayer also emphasized that the defense of Indochina signified security for the West: “the French government assumes, in Asia, the defense of Indochina—a key territory for the security of the western powers.”15 Mayer confirmed his intention to continue on both fronts, but urged the United States to recognize French difficulties, particularly with regard to public opinion.
Meanwhile, the Eisenhower administration attempted to assess the psychological implications of supplying aid to France and why this aid had not ensured French cooperation. U.S. officials concluded that when economic aid became linked to mutual defense, the French recognized that they had something to contribute and bargain with—their strategic position in France and Indochina. As the French increasingly came to feel that U.S. military aid was very much a matter of advancing American strategic interests along with European interests, they also came to doubt that it would be immediately terminated should France fail to meet American stipulations such as Vietnamese independence or ratification of the EDC. Hence the French concluded that a “reciprocal political-military dependence between France and the United States overshadowed economic relationships.” In the French view, if the United States were to drastically reduce military or economic aid to the French, American overall interests would be adversely affected by such possible consequences as a slackening of the French military effort in Indochina or in Europe. Thus, if aid were cut, “both France and the United States would suffer.” Insofar as Washington appeared more interested than France in building up American military bases in French territory, in enlarging the French defense contribution, in ratifying the EDC, and in maintaining or intensifying the struggle in Indochina, the French became more conscious of their strategic position in the Cold War as an “element of bargaining power.”16 This assessment went to the heart of the internal debates in the Eisenhower administration. On the one hand, mid-level American officials recognized the dangers of linking aid to mutual defense. On the other hand, their superiors, Dulles in particular, saw such a link as the best chance for guaranteeing both Asian and European security.
As Washington attempted to define its policy toward France, the deteriorating military situation in Indochina continued to amplify the French public’s hostility toward the war. The military had sustained heavy losses by 1953. The willingness of the French public to sacrifice Frenchmen to a colonial war had weakened after so many years of fighting with no apparent gains. American pressure to ratify the EDC and continue the war placed an added burden on the Mayer government. Fears of a resurgent Germany, as well as the imminent loss of the colonial empire and hence France’s self-conceived view as a great power, limited Paris’s options.
During this period, the French dilemma received significant attention from the international press. French ambassador to the United States Henri Bonnet remarked that “many different [American] articles note that in reality, the Indochina War, which handicaps France in Europe, constitutes one of the biggest obstacles to the realization of the EDC.” British newspapers also remarked on “the ties between French responsibilities in Indochina and the potential decisions on the EDC” and suggested that “the whole defense of Western Europe is imperiled by the fact that France is being bled to death by the Indo-Chinese War.”17 Clearly, news correspondents on both sides of the Atlantic understood that a dual policy of ratifying the EDC and continuing the war in Indochina would prove difficult for France, yet the Eisenhower administration persisted in this very policy.
American journalists urged the administration to either pressure French officials or find alternatives to the EDC. For example, some correspondents seconded Representative James Richards’s (D-SC) suggestion of an explicit quid pro quo: American aid to France in return for the EDC’s ratification.18 Others questioned the Eisenhower administration’s wisdom in refusing to consider alternatives to the EDC. Commenting on Eisenhower and Dulles’s thinly veiled threats to the French to ratify the EDC or lose American aid for Vietnam, one editorial asked, “isn’t it short-sighted to demand both a continuation of the Indochina War and the creation of a European army at the same time?” Another article condemned the Eisenhower administration for not having determined its line of action “in the face of the EDC’s failure [and the] French refusal to continue the war long ago.”19
For the time being, Eisenhower and Dulles decided to back away from placing explicit conditions on American aid to the French war effort. At a White House breakfast meeting in early spring 1953, Dulles recognized that the Indochina situation “probably had top priority in foreign policy, being in some ways more important than Korea because the consequences of loss there could not be localized, but would spread throughout Asia and Europe.”20 Dulles and Eisenhower agreed that the United States would have to step up aid to the French in Indochina if they provided a military plan promising real success. Congress would disperse aid to France through the Mutual Security Act for 1953–1954, then under discussion in the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. On April 16, Eisenhower, in his first major foreign affairs pronouncement, called for a united defense in Southeast Asia. The administration asked for a Congressional appropriation of $400 million earmarked to assist the noncommunist forces in Indochina, and in late April, France secured a package of nearly $1 billion in aid for Indochina and French rearmament in Europe.21
Although Eisenhower and Dulles were willing to supply unconditional aid, Congress was not. Republican senator Barry Goldwater and Democrat John F. Kennedy introduced an amendment that would have made authorization of the $400 million in budgetary aid to the French contingent on an early promise of independence for the Associated States, which the two senators saw as key to warding off communism in Indochina. Kennedy had visited Vietnam for the first time in October 1951 and had been persuaded by American officials there that independence was the only solution. The Goldwater-Kennedy amendment represented a drastic departure from Congress’s actions during the Truman administration, when members had acquiesced to Truman’s requests for additional aid for Indochina. Of course, $400 million was a far larger sum than any amount previously provided to the French war effort. The amendment eventually failed because of Republican Senate leadership and Republicans and Democrats on the Foreign Relations Committee, all of whom wanted to avoid an action that would interfere with executive and diplomatic efforts to influence France on the issue of independence and prevent French withdrawal.22 Another attempt to obtain American foreign policy goals through stipulations on aid was James Richards’s introduction of an amendment to the Mutual Security Act. The amendment proposed withholding military aid from EDC signatories until they ratified the treaty, and was specifically intended to place pressure on the French to ratify the EDC, as Richards had threatened to do earlier.
Other prominent members of Congress supported Richards’s amendment. Senator William Knowland (R-CA) denounced French pleas for American subsidization of the war in Indochina, arguing that Mayer had made little effort to bring the EDC to a debate in the National Assembly. He conceded that France had weakened under the weight of its military efforts in Indochina but wondered why it remained opposed to the incorporation of West Germany into the European defense system. Knowland threatened that if nothing changed by January 1954, the Senate would take the initiative and reappraise the amount of aid Washington gave Paris. Eisenhower and Dulles quickly notified the French that they did not support the Richards amendment, but it lent credence to their warning to the Mayer government that Congress might retaliate against French equivocation on the EDC.23 Richards’s addition to the Mutual Security Act threatened to establish an explicit link between the EDC and Indochina.
From the French perspective, Paris feared that if Congress approved the Richards amendment its options in prosecuting the war would be reduced, since the war effort depended largely on American financial aid. But the Mayer government also recognized that increased American aid could result in American control of French military forces in Indochina. Concerns about an unbalanced budget, continuing hostilities in Indochina, and German rearmament caused the French to worry that they would become dependent on the United States for economic aid in Europe and military support in Southeast Asia. In the long run, this dependency could lead to “France’s diminished position in the Western alliance and a loss of international prestige.”24 Yet the Mayer government could not continue the war without American money.
Senior administration officials believed that substantial financial aid to the French should produce a quick vote on the EDC, but members on both the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs had their doubts.25 The EDC thus once again played a crucial role in March and May Congressional discussions over the amount of financial aid France would receive for the war in Indochina. During a Senate debate over potential means to ensure the EDC’s success, Senator Mike Mansfield (D-MT) proposed cutting through the “Gordian knot” that existed between the EDC and Indochina by bringing West Germany directly into the NATO alliance. In response to Mansfield’s suggestion and other inquiries by Congressional members, Dulles assured them that “no good alternatives to the EDC existed,” without explaining why this was the case.26 Administration officials continued to insist that additional aid would break the deadlock in Vietnam and, at the same time, secure western European defense.
In the end, it was not American aid that broke the deadlock, but a death. Stalin’s demise in March 1953 forced the Eisenhower administration to confront yet another challenge in its attempts to bolster the French war effort against the Vietminh. In the months following Stalin’s death, the Soviet Union proposed a new policy of peaceful economic and political coexistence. Soviet premier Georgi Malenkov advocated a relaxation of tensions that would allow him to concentrate on domestic economic reform while encouraging western Europe to reduce its dependence on the United States.27 This policy was excellent propaganda for the Soviets, as the Americans were aware. The Soviet peace offensive immediately raised French hopes that a negotiated solution could be found to the conflict in Vietnam.
The Soviet peace offensive placed the Eisenhower administration on the defensive, forcing it to reconsider strategies in Asia and Europe. Although Dulles openly doubted any possibility for a serious shift in Soviet policy that could lead to negotiated settlements, there were other voices in the Eisenhower administration. C. D. Jackson, Eisenhower’s psychological warfare adviser, argued for bold diplomatic initiatives to exploit the succession crisis. Believing that the post-Stalin leadership was in a vulnerable position, he advocated moving quickly to embark on a diplomatic offensive that would take advantage of Stalin’s death. In early March, he urged Eisenhower to make a speech proposing a foreign ministers’ conference to discuss a truce in Korea, German unification, an Austrian peace treaty, and disarmament. Jackson dismissed the State Department’s concern that such a conference would raise “false hopes” of a Cold War settlement and ruin the EDC. More than any other American official, he recognized that the United States needed to appear willing to negotiate to win over allied leaders and public opinion. He argued that an American appeal to world leaders could create a unified sense of purpose and address European concerns, thereby hastening, rather than retarding, the creation of the EDC.28 The Soviet peace offensive thus forced the Eisenhower administration to seriously consider the development of a psychological strategy in its European and Asian policies.
Eisenhower understood the importance of psychological warfare. Although the Soviet peace offensive had not changed Eisenhower’s perceptions of the Soviet Union, he eventually forged a middle ground between Dulles’s and Jackson’s views by publicly announcing his willingness to negotiate with Moscow to ease world tensions. He thus countered the Soviet peace offensive with his own, while reassuring American allies of his commitment to negotiations and strengthening western resolve. Eisenhower recognized that the Soviets were engaging in a change of tactics rather than a change in overall strategy, but he, more than Dulles and other State Department officials, wanted to at least investigate the possibility that Malenkov might be sincere in resolving long-standing problems.29 In the end, Eisenhower, along with most other administration officials, remained pessimistic toward the idea that negotiations, disarmament agreements, and other nonconfrontational means could lead to détente. Those officials advocating negotiations, like C. D. Jackson, did so from a concern for allied unity rather than a belief that East-West diplomacy would prove fruitful. The problem, for American officials, was how to convince their French and British allies that the Soviets were engaging in psychological warfare rather than sincere diplomacy.
In preparing for high-level Franco-American talks in March 1953, the Eisenhower administration took the position that alterations in the Soviet government had not transformed the basic nature of the threat facing the West. American officials pointed out that the situation in the Kremlin was unpredictable. If the West did not build its strength, the new Soviet group might well undertake “adventures” of one kind or another. According to one CIA estimate, the new regime would probably find it more difficult to abandon positions than Stalin did and might feel itself “compelled to react more strongly” if the West confronted it with the need for major decisions. Conversely, the new leadership would probably “exercise caution” in the near future in taking action that it thought would force the West to make comparable decisions. Another intelligence report asserted that intra-leadership “intrigues” would probably occur, but that it could not be assumed that these intrigues would lead to serious “weakening” of the regime or to “significant changes” in Soviet foreign or domestic policies.30
American officials thus sought a way to convince the French that Soviet peace gestures were merely attempts to sabotage allied unity.31 Recognizing that Mayer would bring up Indochina and European defense when discussing American assistance for 1953–1954, at least some American officials felt that increased aid should be offered only in the context of an overall package agreement for the purpose of securing French ratification of the EDC. Director of the Office of Philippine and Southeast Asian Affairs Philip Bonsal, a holdover from the Truman administration and familiar with the problems of connected European and Asian defense, objected to this proposal of “placing the Indochina egg firmly in the EDC basket,” insisting that the two issues should be “dealt with separately.”32 By spring 1953, the Eisenhower administration was still undecided on whether aid for Indochina should be directly tied to the EDC’s ratification.
As the talks approached, Washington assumed that Paris would demand significant American economic and military aid for the Indochina effort and that the Mayer government would portray France as “overextended and overcommitted” in order to secure this assistance. While acknowledging that the French government was “in a most difficult position in the face of sorely divided public opinion” on the EDC and Indochina questions, the Eisenhower administration hesitated to provide detailed commitments in Europe and Asia immediately, preferring to engage in preliminary conversations instead. As American officials acknowledged, Franco-American relations had reached an “unhappily low ebb” on these issues.33
The Mayer government did indeed portray itself as “overextended and overcommitted.” In response to domestic turmoil and military losses in Indochina, Mayer appealed to the United States for unconditional economic and military aid. According to Quai officials, it was the Indochina War more than French rearmament in Europe that permitted France to speak to the American government as “associates in a common enterprise and not as debtors in difficulty.” American aid was necessary because of the particularly hard burden the French had to carry in Indochina, but the war was “a French effort and must remain so.”34 The Mayer government thus attempted to frame its requests for aid as coming from a partner rather than a supplicant.
Ultimately, the Eisenhower-Mayer talks did not create closer allied unity on Vietnam; instead, the cracks in the Western alliance grew wider. The Psychological Strategy Board (PSB) thus attempted to put allied unity back on track by resolving the Indochina problem. According to PSB official Charles Taquey, the French and Vietnamese were more concerned with “satisfactions of prestige than satisfactions of substance.” The Joint Chiefs concurred, maintaining that Paris stayed in the Indochina War “solely to uphold French prestige and the colonial empire,” and that France would resist any U.S. policy that encouraged France to disengage itself from the affairs of the Associated States.35 The United States should therefore try to convince the French that they could make symbolic concessions to Vietnamese pride while retaining the substantive factors of power. For instance, France could enhance Bao Dai’s sovereignty while keeping French advisers in key positions and acting discreetly behind the scenes. The PSB recommended that Washington should also reassure the French that the United States appreciated and recognized the international value of their effort and that U.S. help in the economic, financial, and military fields would strengthen the position of the Associated States. To take advantage of psychological warfare in the field, PSB members discussed the situation in Indochina with American ambassador Donald Heath. According to Heath, an interdepartmental committee in the embassy at Saigon—useful for coordinating U.S. psychological warfare activities in French Indochina—was in existence, as was a liaison between the committee and French officials in Saigon. Heath believed that this liaison was crucial, since nothing could be accomplished in French Indochina without French permission and clearance.36
In mid-1953, the Eisenhower administration thus found itself weighing the possibilities for a psychological offensive in Indochina. The obvious need to coordinate American military, paramilitary, and psychological programs with similar French and British programs in the area created the possibility of exerting greatly increased U.S. influence over the French struggle against communism in Indochina.37 The United States thus sought to achieve a new approach on the part of French military and political leaders that would favor aggressive military operations and adroit psychological, political, and guerrilla warfare in the Indochinese peninsula. In addition, the State Department planned to work with officers in the French general staff and at all echelons of the French army who showed the necessary drive and experience to obtain these objectives.
Through informal and formal contacts, Washington planned to create a change in the French attitude by appealing to French military honor, using American instructors to teach guerrilla warfare tactics, fostering French desire for U.S. training of local forces, and assigning U.S. guerrilla warfare and political warfare officer specialists to MAAG. MAAG’s directive would also be revised to enable its members to participate in training and maneuvers as operational advisers, mobilize all nationalist forces in the Indochinese peninsula against foreign communist intervention to “maximize psychological splits” among the Vietminh, and win over the “local fence sitters.” Through the Foreign Operations Administration, American officials intended to coordinate economic support with military operations, assist the national regimes in improving agricultural methods and health practices, draw French and Vietnamese attention to the extent of Chinese communist intervention, secure cooperation between local officials and progressive French officials to improve actual progress toward independence and administrative efficiency, arrange for publication of American or French scholarly articles “extolling benefits” accrued to Britain and the Netherlands from the independence granted to certain dependencies, and select the French target groups susceptible to play a part in this strategy. The American policy was designed to provide for a “discrete and unobtrusive” intervention by the United States.38 Its success was predicated, not on a large number of U.S. personnel, but on the careful selection of targets. Washington thus took a number of significant, albeit quiet, steps to increase American political influence in Vietnam. Some Americans were less discreet. One official, encapsulating the general sentiment in Washington, commented that “everywhere in Asia the age of foreign empire has passed” but “insofar as there is to be any imperialism at all, let it be American imperialism.”39
The Eisenhower administration remained divided as to the importance of psychological warfare. Advocates, such as former chargé d’affaires to Vietnam Edmund Gullion, suggested making use of “psy war” tactics not only in Vietnam but also in France, thus influencing military officers, civilian officials, businessmen, and churches in both countries. By identifying these targets, American officials could “devise psychological methods” of securing their support for U.S. policies without “compromising American interests or showing the U.S. hand.”40 But Philip Bonsal and Donald Heath opposed creating unofficial contacts in France to pursue American objectives in Vietnam. Meanwhile, PBS officials continued to warn that the threat to Southeast Asia was more direct and imminent than it had been at any time during the past eight years. The PBS office had predicted that the first consequence of the devolution of power in the Soviet Union would be a short-term widening of existing cleavages among the nations of the free world, which had been “tragically confirmed” by recent allied disunity. Taquey calculated that America’s “greatest difficulties with France in the future will not be about the EDC but about [the] French colonial posture.”41
Members of the PBS had accurately assessed the situation. The recent Soviet peace offensive had led a large fraction of French opinion—not to mention many civilian and military leaders—to ask whether France should profit from this change in attitude to try to find a basis for solving the Indochina affair at the negotiating table.42 As the French attempted to determine what Stalin’s death signified for the international situation, two primary objectives eventually dominated French policy in Europe and Asia. First, the French saw in Stalin’s death an opportunity for meaningful negotiations on Indochina. Whereas the Eisenhower administration steadfastly opposed negotiations with the new Soviet leadership and sought to capitalize on Soviet confusion to score a Cold War victory, the French were determined to pursue diplomatic solutions to existing problems. Second, French leaders refused to move forward on the EDC’s ratification before the Indochina conflict had been resolved. Paris feared that if the EDC came into being while the Indochina conflict continued to drain French troops from the continent, the Germans would achieve numerical superiority in the EDC and consequently in Europe.
Paris’s first goal was a resolution to the resource-draining war in Indochina. In mid-1953, French military forces remained unable to launch a successful offensive against the Vietminh, and many officials and most of the public were clamoring for an end to hostilities. French leaders had blamed Stalin for encouraging the Vietminh’s war effort, and they viewed Stalin’s death as an opportunity for negotiation. Subsequently, the French eagerly embraced the Soviet peace offensive as a chance to extricate themselves from Indochina in an honorable fashion. Determined to find a negotiated solution, Paris rejected the American proposal for bringing the Indochina issue to the UN and internationalizing the conflict, fearing that the United States and Great Britain would simply fight the war themselves. French leaders felt the best chance for success was not “to internationalize the conflict” but “to internationalize the solution” by holding a peace conference.43 The French were also convinced that the Soviet Union would veto any internationalization measure and that, if such a measure went to the General Assembly, France would have difficulty securing a two-thirds majority The Mayer government recognized that inter-allied cooperation was essential to bring Indochina to the negotiating table, but the Eisenhower administration refused to make such a commitment, instead continuing its pressure on the French to internationalize the conflict by taking it to the UN. In particular, Walter Robertson, assistant secretary of state for Far Eastern affairs, argued that the Vietminh invasion of Laos in April 1953 was a “splendid opportunity” to secure international status through the UN under favorable conditions.44
In part to appease the Eisenhower administration, but also to indicate its intention to grant Vietnamese independence, Paris planned to turn over French leadership in the Associated States to career diplomats and to declare that the Associated States could come and go in the French Union as they pleased. In keeping with this idea, French deputy prime minister Paul Reynaud succeeded in having Maurice DeJean, a close friend and an advocate of genuine Vietnamese independence, replace Jean Letourneau as French minister of the Associated States.45 Edgar Faure, president of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the French Assembly, also championed Vietnamese independence. He claimed that to counter international perceptions that France was acting in “bad faith,” the French government needed to reiterate its intention to leave Indochina after the war and to allow the Indochinese themselves to determine whether Indochina would remain in the French Union when the war was finished. Faure advocated an immediate settlement to the war as well as granting complete independence to the Bao Dai regime.46 The government’s announcement in early July that it was prepared to transfer the powers France still retained to the State of Vietnam, and French president Vincent Auriol and Vietnamese emperor Bao Dai’s communiqué issued at the end of August affirming the French government’s intention to complete Vietnamese independence and free adherence to the French Union, helped persuade the Vietnamese and Americans of French sincerity.
France also began to make a series of substantive gestures—giving the Norodom Palace back to Bao Dai, transferring the headquarters of the Indochina provinces to the Vietnamese, returning to France hundreds of functionaries whose services were no longer needed, creating a judicial convention, and establishing monetary autonomy. According to a French Foreign Ministry report, such initiatives would have a considerable psychological effect on the Indochina population and on Asian world opinion, which were crucial to a negotiated settlement. The French people would rally, as would the attentistes, the Vietnamese fence-sitters who had yet to choose between the French and the Vietminh. The report further suggested that Paris should try to address the Indochina question at a conference on Korea or at a quadripartite conference and entice the Soviet Union and China into playing a role by putting pressure on them to work toward an international resolution of the Indochina conflict. This way, France could test communist claims of peaceful coexistence. These actions demonstrated Paris’s attempt to make use of the psychological element to end the war. But American “psy war” proponents criticized French efforts at psychological warfare in Indochina, calling them “inept and useless.” According to Charles Taquey, “the key to the Indochina situation [was] not in Vietnam but in Paris.”47 Washington had to convince Paris to provide even greater independence to the Associated States.
Meanwhile, the Soviets renewed their offer to talk to the West. Since emerging as a dominant figure following the death of Stalin, Malenkov had made clear his interest in improving relations with the West. In September, he proposed the convening of a five-power conference with the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, France, and China to examine measures for the relaxation of international tensions.48 Chinese foreign minister Zhou Enlai also indicated China’s willingness to work toward peace in the Far East in October. In light of the communists’ perceived good faith, France sought a means of bringing Indochina to the negotiating table. The Americans, however, were still opposed. At the very moment when the communist threat appeared to be ebbing and a genuine possibility for a resolution to Indochina had materialized, Washington insisted on continuing the fight and keeping the pressure on Moscow.49
This divergence became even more pronounced as Washington and Paris continued to clash over the EDC’s future. The second major objective of the French was to avoid making a decision on the EDC until the Indochina conflict ended. The Mayer government had refused to ratify the EDC and commit troops to the European continent before France had resolved the Indochina conflict. On May 21, 1953, the Mayer government collapsed because of the deteriorating financial position in France. As a result, Joseph Laniel became prime minister on June 30. The new government immediately faced American pressure to ratify the EDC and continue the war in Indochina. The proposed Richards amendment, which linked aid for Indochina to the EDC’s ratification, continued to cause concern among French officials, as did the Eisenhower administration’s apparent conviction that the French no longer had the will to fight in Indochina and that American policy needed to be adjusted accordingly.50 French officials thus believed that American aid for both Indochina and Europe was in danger of being reduced.
In the end, the French had little to fear despite Congressional threats. Dulles succeeded in suppressing the Richards amendment by convincing legislators that coercion would not result in the EDC’s ratification. Another piece of positive information for the French was the failure of the Goldwater-Kennedy amendment—tying American aid to independence for the Associated States—by a vote of 64 to 17 in the Senate.51 The French decision to make further concessions toward Vietnamese independence in early July had been at least partially influenced by fears that the amendment would pass. The French also succeeded in favorably impressing Senator Knowland during his visit to Indochina. In an apparent reversal of his earlier sentiments, Knowland returned to the United States convinced of the necessity of absolute cooperation between the United States and France to sustain the Associated States in their fight against communism. The good news from Knowland’s visit was that American aid would not be cut; the bad news was that the Americans expected the French to continue fighting even though American officials were well aware that France wanted to negotiate. The French agreed to intensify the prosecution of the war, leading to an additional $385 million in aid for Indochina, which brought total American aid for Indochina in 1953–1954 to $785 million.
Back in Paris, Bidault continued to provide assurances to American ambassador to France Douglas Dillon that in exchange for the additional American aid of $385 million the French would perfect Vietnamese independence, develop a strategic plan against the Vietminh, and exchange information and views on a continuing basis with American military authorities. Bidault also reassured Dillon that the increased effort that France intended to make in Indochina would not entail any basic or permanent alteration of its plans and programs concerning those forces that were placed under NATO command.52 Still, Washington remained concerned about the war’s progress. During a meeting between French minister counselor Jean Daridan and Undersecretary of State Walter Bedell Smith, Smith stated that he thought the search for negotiations was premature if France was not in a situation of strength, which could take a few months to attain.53 As the French sought to turn their military position around with the $385 million in additional aid, the Eisenhower administration assumed that the Laniel government would respond by hastening the EDC’s ratification. A New York Times article entitled “Aid for France Seen Ending Deadlocks in Europe and Asia” asserted that the additional money “is expected to go a long way toward breaking the political and military deadlocks in Europe as well as in Asia.”54 The French had their money with an implicit understanding from the American government and an explicit one from the American press that the EDC would now make timely progress.
American officials were playing a dangerous game by agreeing to provide aid to the French while simultaneously threatening to decrease or terminate aid altogether if the EDC was not ratified. The Eisenhower administration’s attempt to create a quid pro quo—the EDC’s ratification in return for American aid for Indochina—was ineffective. Because they were already providing aid to the French, the Americans were in a much weaker position to influence French policy than a quid pro quo situation would normally provide. The more the Eisenhower administration refused to consider alternatives to the EDC, the more leverage the French enjoyed as they continued to hold the EDC hostage to attract additional support for Indochina.55
Dulles decided to switch gears by advocating a harsher approach. He insisted that the Laniel government should agree in writing that American economic aid to the French war effort in Indochina depended on the EDC’s ratification. Dillon, a personal friend of Dulles and an important element in the Republican Party, urged him to reconsider, warning that an attempt “to inject written reference to the EDC at this late date into the projected Indochina agreement might delay completion of negotiations and would cost the U.S. a portion of the goodwill we will acquire as a result of this new assistance.” Moreover, Dillon, who hoped to improve Franco-American relations, feared that “a written connection that could only be construed as forced by the U.S. would be resented by French public opinion and might very well do harm to the prospects of ratification in the French Parliament.” He suggested that when the United States formally agreed to increase French aid, American leaders should make the connection verbally in a forceful manner. Dillon himself, however, specifically linked the EDC and Indochina issues by stating that “our desire to help create the necessary preconditions for ratification of EDC was one of [the] principal reasons which decided [the] U.S. to make this additional aid available to Indochina.”56 Dillon’s vacillation suggests the contradictions inherent in Washington’s pursuit of a dual EDC-Indochina policy.
In addition to increased pressure for the EDC’s ratification, the Laniel government encountered the recurring American demand that it continue to fight the Vietminh rather than search for a political solution in Indochina. The Vietminh were in a strong negotiating position because of their continued military offensives, and the Eisenhower administration feared that negotiations would lead to total Vietminh victory. But the Laniel government refused to limit its options: whether by military or political means, the war in Indochina had to end. Bonnet hoped to convince the Eisenhower administration that the French “no longer had the will to fight in Indochina” and that American policy needed “to accept this reality.”57
French sources demonstrate that finding a negotiated solution to the Indochina conflict had become the overwhelming French priority; the EDC remained a secondary consideration. Yet the Eisenhower administration ignored the internal political climate in Paris, making the EDC a symbol of Washington’s ascendancy and Europe’s decline for both the French and the Americans. American pressure on the Laniel government to ratify the EDC reinforced this view, creating a growing resentment among the French, which in turn forced Laniel to delay the debate on the EDC’s ratification.58 As Paris struggled to negotiate its way out of Indochina, Washington attempted to maintain French involvement by increasing the level of American aid in the fiscal year 1953–1954.
From the State Department’s perspective, the French military effort in Indochina was motivated by the Laniel government’s awareness of its political, economic, and military weakness. According to a State Department report, French leaders knew that this weakness made French aspirations for “world power” status dependent on the continued support of the United States and Britain. The report also surmised that the serious financial difficulties France faced were all traceable to the war. Continuation of such an effort would only ensure Germany eclipsing France as more French troops left the continent for Asia.59 Thus, while the Americans seemed aware of French difficulties in Indochina, they still insisted on the EDC’s ratification.
Along with conflict over the EDC and the possibilities of the Soviet peace offensive, the other factor standing in the way of Franco-American unity was the relationship between Vietnam and Korea. Eisenhower had implied during his presidential campaign that he would extricate the United States from the Korean quagmire, and Stalin’s death paved the way for a settlement. The new Soviet leadership appeared just as eager to end the stalemated war as the new American president. On June 27, 1953, the United States and North Korea agreed to an armistice and began the process of establishing a peace conference. The Laniel government was convinced that Stalin’s death had played a significant role in achieving the armistice and planned to attain the same result in Indochina. Although Eisenhower and Dulles recognized that the truce made it more difficult to persuade both the French and Bao Dai’s forces to increase their military efforts, and although they accepted the French argument that the Korean and Indochina battles were part of the same anticommunist war, they were not prepared to end the Indochina conflict at the negotiating table.
The French refused to accept the American position on negotiations, prompting the Quai d’Orsay to begin an assessment of Soviet and Chinese policy regarding an eventual negotiation. Quai officials believed that the new Soviet leadership’s acceptance of a 1952 plan to achieve a Korean armistice indicated a clear break from Stalin’s earlier rejection of the plan. The events since Stalin’s death testified to a “clear evolution” of Soviet general policy and indicated that the Soviets were working toward “conciliation” to avoid risking a general war. And, according to the Quai, the Kremlin was the one making the decisions in Southeast Asia. Thus, it was unlikely that a Chinese intervention would occur in Indochina, although Beijing could still speed up its arms and material deliveries to the Vietminh. The Quai also believed that China would be equally receptive to a peace conference as the Soviets because Beijing wanted to move forward with its plans for industrialization, which were being held back by the Indochina hostilities. But the communist bloc’s new foreign policy orientation did not mean that there had been any “doctrinal change.” French options were still limited. France could insist that China pledge not to interfere in Vietnamese affairs in return for France officially recognizing the People’s Republic of China (PRC), accepting China in the UN, and reestablishing normal commercial relations by ending the economic embargo against China. American opposition to such a plan, however, would be strong. The Quai also believed that the reestablishment of peace in Indochina could be “primed” by the negotiations over Korea, but thus far the Russians and Chinese resisted any linkage between the two, and the British and Americans were also reluctant.60
By July 1953, in direct opposition to the Eisenhower administration’s wishes, French leaders openly pressed for negotiations on Indochina. The war in Indochina was just as unpopular in France as the Korean War had become in the United States—a fact American leaders failed to grasp. French public opinion and a number of leading French officials and military generals, among them General Paul Ely, recommended negotiations. Ely resented the Eisenhower administration’s willingness to resolve the Korean War peacefully while it refused to consider a diplomatic solution to Indochina. Bonnet and Bidault also claimed that “if the United States could reach an agreement on Korea, France could reach one on Indochina.” French officials thus believed that the biggest obstacle to a resolution on Indochina stemmed “not from Moscow, but from Washington.”61
Bidault argued that those who worried about French losses in Indochina affecting France’s world position were wrong, estimating that Indochina was not an “essential element” of French world position and that it had “never been essential.” He saw three possibilities for a peaceful solution. Direct negotiations with the Vietminh could be opened, but Paris could not go this route unless it had Washington’s acquiescence. The French government could negotiate directly with China, but that course would entail officially recognizing the PRC. Or, Indochina could be included in a general negotiation of Far Eastern affairs. This last option provided the only hope, since the United States and Britain would undoubtedly reject the first two.62
The connection between the Indochina and Korean conflicts was critical. The armistice in Korea and the accompanying general relaxation of East-West tensions generated a groundswell of public opinion in France against the continuation of the military effort in Indochina. As State Department officials acknowledged, American willingness to reach a truce in Korea undermined Washington’s claim that the Indochina War was crucial to the free world struggle against communist aggression. French public opinion therefore insisted that the French government hold the United States to previous declarations on the indivisibility of the Korean and Indochina wars: “the policy of negotiating an end to the Korean War likewise must be extended to the Indochina hostilities.” French officials expressed dismay at Washington’s disjointed plan of continuing the war in Indochina while preparing for an international peace conference on Korea. As Bonnet stated to Dulles, “it will be difficult for French public opinion to understand that if an end to the Korean War occurred, why the Indochina war would continue, risking a Chinese invasion.” Bonnet later reported to Bidault that he had convinced Dulles that an “all-out effort must be put forth” to end the war in Indochina. Urging Bidault to say nothing about Dulles’s apparent acceptance of a potential political settlement, Bonnet added that he was “surprised” at the secretary of state’s willingness to resolve the two conflicts at the same time. Most likely Dulles was humoring Bonnet to coax the French toward timely ratification of the EDC.63
Caught in the middle of Franco-American disagreements once again, the British wavered over what policy to take regarding a conference on Indochina. London preferred to hold an Asian conference where such issues as the PRC’s aggressive moves toward the nationalist Chinese government territory, the economic embargo against the PRC, and its entry into the UN could be discussed. British foreign minister Lord Salisbury disclosed to René Massigli that if real progress were made on Korea, the British would not oppose consideration of Indochina at a political conference, but that was as far as they were prepared to go.64
The French remained internally divided on how to negotiate an end to the war. Bidault did not necessarily want to tie Indochina and Korea together at a conference, but Paul Reynaud continued to force the issue. According to Bidault, greater independence for Indochina was unnecessary and direct negotiations with the Vietminh were out of the question. Bidault believed that the July 3 declaration promising to speed up Vietnamese independence should satisfy both the Vietnamese and French allies and that Bao Dai should continue to be the only Vietnamese representative France recognized. Unlike Bidault, Reynaud desired greater independence for Indochina, direct negotiations with the Vietminh, and faster creation of a national Vietnamese army. Reynaud wanted France to leave Indochina entirely, granting complete independence to the Bao Dai government. He saw direct negotiations with the Vietminh as the easiest way of obtaining this objective. In addition, he argued for a policy of Vietnamization, in which a Vietnamese national army would replace the FEC.65 Marc Jacquet, French undersecretary of state responsible for the Associated States, also advocated direct negotiations with the Vietminh. If the Americans were negotiating on Korea, and the British were trading with China, why then, Jacquet wondered, did French allies continue to resist a negotiated solution to the Indochina problem. Indicating how drastically French opinion had changed on these issues was Albert Sarraut’s telling interview with the Swedish daily Expressen. Sarraut, one of France’s greatest colonial promoters, stated that “if he had the Ho Chi Minh of 1946 in front of him he would have negotiated.”66 Such remarks increased the pressure on the Laniel government to find a political solution.
Paris and Washington continued to debate the merits and drawbacks of negotiations throughout the summer. When Bidault raised the issue of an Indochina armistice following the Korean one, Dulles responded that Korea was a UN conflict and that peace would be conducted under UN auspices, whereas the French had refused to bring Indochina to the UN. Dulles insisted that the French should negotiate from a position of strength. Therefore they had to achieve military victories. French leaders received more bad news during a meeting among Jean Daridan, Philip Bonsal, and Walter Bedell Smith. Smith emphasized that the United States could make “no commitment” to enlarge the agenda of the Korean political conference to make a place for Indochina or any other topic. Although, in a subsequent meeting, the Americans did not rule out the possibility that if Korea was successfully resolved, other conferences could follow.67
The French received some hopeful news on this issue when Dulles gave a speech in early September stating that Korea was part of a larger problem, and that “out of the Korean conference could grow an end to aggression and restoration of peace in Indochina if China wanted it.” Daridan noted that this speech marked the first time a member of the American government had publicly acknowledged the possibility of a negotiated settlement in Indochina. In addition, Foreign Office official Selwyn Lloyd announced in front of the UN that there could be no peace in Asia as long as war continued against the three Associated States whom the United Kingdom had recommended for entry into the UN. Lloyd declared that “the ending of the war in Indochina is an essential step along the path of pacification and conciliation in Asia which began with the armistice in Korea.”68
In the interim, the Soviets continued their flexible approach regarding Indochina. Soviet propaganda attacks against French colonialism became less frequent; the Soviet press favorably mentioned the idea of a negotiated settlement; and Moscow announced its intention to send a mission to Hanoi to discuss potential negotiations with the West. Moreover, in July, Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov sent a note to the French Embassy in Moscow suggesting a Franco-Soviet discussion to resolve the Indochina problem. The French ambassador to the Soviet Union, Louis Joxe, postulated that the Soviets had perhaps decided communism could triumph in Indochina through political means as easily as military ones, since the Vietminh would have at least 60 percent of any election vote. Previously, the Soviets had thought war in Indochina useful—it weakened France and slowed the development of the Atlantic alliance in Europe. Stalin, when speaking of Korea in February 1951, had prophesied that war could finish only by crushing the western interventionists. But Joxe noted that “what [had] changed in Korea could also change in Indochina.” The Soviets might now think that by helping in Indochina, they would put France in a stronger position against Germany, and France would decide that the EDC was no longer necessary. Joxe expressed a concern—shared by Washington—that if Paris negotiated directly with Moscow instead of holding an international conference on Indochina, France would have to make a deal with the Soviets: in exchange for peace in Indochina, the French would not ratify the EDC.69
In the meantime, the French had finally begun preparations to retake the offensive against the Vietminh. Paris had urged French general Henri Navarre to find an honorable way out of the war that would allow the government to negotiate and bring the war to an end while keeping French casualties to a minimum. A career army officer, Navarre was appointed commander of French forces in Indochina on May 8, 1953. Although he had little knowledge of the situation in Indochina, he was considered a brilliant strategist. His instructions were to study the situation in Indochina and report back to Paris. Three weeks after his arrival in Indochina, Navarre outlined his plan to his regional commanders, and shortly thereafter he presented his plan to the French government. The Navarre Plan proposed a slow buildup of French and Vietnamese military strength sufficient for large-scale action against Ho Chi Minh’s Vietminh during the 1954–1955 campaign season. The French would use cautious restraint during the 1953–1954 campaign season, reconstituting the FEC. The FEC would maintain a strategically defensive position north of the eighteenth parallel, using mobile units for short engagements and avoiding a general battle. In the South, the FEC would launch an offensive, termed Operation Atlante, which would attempt to eliminate the Vietminh from that region. Once the South had been subdued, the FEC would take the offensive north of the eighteenth parallel. Navarre’s goal was to create a military situation that would permit a political solution to the conflict.
In order to achieve these objectives, the Navarre Plan proposed a major strengthening of the Vietnamese National Army under the command of General Nguyen Van Hinh, the addition of ten new French battalions to the Indochinese theater, and French maneuverable divisions of a size equal to those of the Vietminh but possessing much greater firepower. Navarre would then use the 1954–1955 campaign season to consolidate the French position and develop his battle force, anticipating a full-scale French offensive in the summer of 1955. In the meantime, limited French operations would be carried out in the Red River delta. Navarre recognized that his plan could succeed only if Chinese aid to the Vietminh remained at mid-1953 levels and if he received reinforcements from France. He also noted that the best he could accomplish would be a military stalemate.
The French government approved the Navarre Plan, intending to use it to improve their military situation and either win the conflict or, more likely, attain a better negotiating position.70 However, it did not reach a decision on what to do about Laos. The defense of northern Laos was a major problem. In the spring of 1953, the Vietminh commander, General Vo Nguyen Giap, had sent troops into Laos from the remote village of Dien Bien Phu, located in mountainous northwestern Vietnam just a few miles from the Laotian border. Giap withdrew his forces from Laos, but the French expected that the Vietminh would attack again in 1954. For the French command, the taking of Dien Bien Phu became a critical objective in order to prevent another attack on Laos and to establish a mooring point from which an offensive could be launched to destroy a major part of the Vietminh army.
The Americans, initially skeptical of the French ability to implement all the provisions of the plan with the resources on hand, embraced the Navarre Plan in September 1953 as a means to achieve military victory in Indochina. But by October, public statements by Laniel, Edgar Faure, and Quai spokesmen had persuaded the Eisenhower administration that the recently announced additional American aid and the Navarre Plan were intended not to achieve military victory but to improve France’s negotiating position with the Vietminh.71 The Americans had it half right. Navarre was serious about the plan, thinking that he had convinced key figures in political and military circles that the solution was to maintain an “impasse” in Europe for two years while focusing all the troops in Indochina so that he could win at least a part of the war and negotiate from a position of honor. But Paris once again “decided to cut the pear in half,” refusing to completely deplete French troops in Europe but sending some additional troops to Indochina. Navarre claimed that as a result, Europe was “not well protected” and there would “not be enough French troops” in Indochina.72
Further confirmation of the French desire to negotiate could be seen at a French Assembly debate at the end of October. The National Assembly invited the French government to “develop” the forces of the Associated States; to “reduce progressively” the French military effort; to “put everything in order” to achieve general peace in Asia by negotiation; to ensure, “on an international basis,” a “just distribution of efforts and sacrifices” of the free nations in all the different parts of the globe where they must exercise their solidarity; and to “carry out the defense and independence” of the Associated States “within the framework of the French union.”73 More encouraging news was heard on November 29, when the Swedish daily Expressen published a statement by Ho Chi Minh that the DRV was ready to study every proposal for a cease-fire. These developments, combined with continued French hesitance over the EDC, contributed to a growing sense of uneasiness among the Americans. For Eisenhower, the EDC was still the most important objective, and nothing should be done to endanger its success.74 French determination to negotiate over Indochina led the Eisenhower administration to become more concerned about a breakdown in allied unity. American officials thus looked forward to the scheduled Bermuda Conference in December as a means to put allied unity back on track in both Europe and Asia.
According to C. D. Jackson, the Bermuda Conference was shaping up as something of “great significance and hope.” In fact, it was one of the few really “tremendous” opportunities the United States had to recapture allied unity and to negotiate with the Russians from a position of strength rather than weakness. In order to plan for the meeting, Jackson recommended that it was necessary not only to think as Americans, but also to be “very much aware of what was going on in the minds of U.S. allies.” Regarding Indochina, the United States should accept the Indochina problem as of “equal status” to Korea, and, if necessary, provide a serious increase in allied military assistance to the French. In addition, the French should increase their moves toward eventual independence for the Associated States. Jackson wanted tripartite unity in order to negotiate from a position of strength, but at “the apex of the triangle there must be the U.S.” And, if it was necessary to fund the Indochina effort to arrive at this position, then the United States should do so.75 Jackson’s letter to Eisenhower addressed the issues that would continue to vex Franco-American diplomacy throughout 1953 and 1954 as Washington attempted to achieve policies toward Europe and Indochina amenable to its allies.
When Eisenhower, British prime minister Winston Churchill, and Laniel finally met in Bermuda in early December, the conference disappointed everyone. Instead of providing cohesive western unity, it merely pointed out the differences among the three nations. At the end of the conference, the three powers issued a joint communiqué emphasizing western solidarity, but privately recognized that the conference had been a setback for allied unity. Regarding Indochina, Bidault made clear his plan to discuss the possibility of a five-power conference, including China, at the upcoming four-power foreign ministers meeting at Berlin. Disagreements at the conference led Eisenhower to the conclusion that the French were receiving excessive military, economic, and technical aid from the United States and that they could not possibly use it all, especially if they planned to negotiate. So whereas French officials thought they had too little assistance, Eisenhower thought they had too much.76
The EDC and Indochina linkage once again became more explicit in mid-December. Theodore Streibert, director of American Information Services, told French officials that the Eisenhower administration placed the utmost importance upon the EDC’s ratification. He added that continuation of aid to Europe, and even continuation of aid to Indochina, would cease if France failed to ratify the EDC. This was the most explicit connection an American official had drawn between Indochina and the EDC. Both Dulles and Smith feared the consequences of making such a connection. They immediately rushed to refute Streibert’s claim and to reassure the Laniel government in a formal statement that financial and military aid to Indochina did not depend on the EDC’s success: “Military aid for the war in Indochina is not based on the question of the EDC’s ratification but on the importance the U.S. attaches to Indochina’s maintenance in the Free World.”77 Dulles eschewed an explicit quid pro quo in favor of veiled threats and implicit linkages.
There was also trouble at home. In early 1954, the Eisenhower administration scrambled to defend its unproductive Indochina policy against critics. The president set up a special committee on Indochina to formulate a coherent strategy. Dulles was also coming under fire from Republicans who felt that too many holdovers from Acheson were still involved in Far Eastern Affairs at the State Department. Dulles emphasized that the Truman and Eisenhower policies toward Asia were completely different. He pointed out that Walter Robertson and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs Everett Drumright were the two people now running Far Eastern policy, and that Robertson and Drumright had always been violently opposed to the communists in China.78 Although Dulles insisted that the Eisenhower administration’s commitment to Indochina was much stronger than the one made by the Truman administration, in fact Eisenhower and Dulles were still attempting to define American policy in Vietnam.
As the Eisenhower administration struggled to maintain a coherent policy, American aid to France continued. The American aid effort to France had evolved from a haphazard affair in 1950 to a well-organized business by early 1954. American aid was divided into four categories. First, Washington supplied financial aid to France for military expenditures on behalf of the Associated States—this budgetary support to help French expenditures for NATO and Indochina allowed the simultaneous prosecution of the war and buildup of defense in Europe. Second, the United States provided military end-item assistance, mostly military equipment provided by MAAG. Third, the American military support program supplied items not necessarily military in nature but that would further the military effort and assist civilian recovery by providing, among other things, airfields, roads, and railroads. Finally, STEM provided direct economic aid and continued to help with health, agriculture, transport, industry, and education. In addition, the commercial import program begun under the Truman administration was expanded to make dollars available for importation of equipment and materials for private firms and individuals. Military aid was channeled through France, whereas economic aid went directly to the Associated States. In evaluating American aid, a special Congressional mission to Vietnam advocated that deliveries of military equipment should be accelerated and that less emphasis should be given to long-range technical assistance programs; economic assistance should be confined to producing a military victory.79 This recommendation supported the Eisenhower administration’s goal of finding a military rather than political solution to the Vietnam problem.
Although the Eisenhower administration had assumed, as the Truman administration had, that increased aid entitled the Americans to a bigger role in Indochina policy, the French were of a different opinion. The policy of American expansion had become “the most active agent in the disintegration of the French Empire,” according to Paul Ely. Ely stated that if France did win the war, “it would not be a genuine victory if the Americans were the ones in control.” According to French officials, if the United States wanted to direct events, then American military forces needed to participate. If this was not the case, then France “should not tolerate American intrusion in the war,” and “guarantees should be secured so that France [did] not risk everything for the benefit of the Americans.”80 The French thus sought to clearly define the objectives and limits of American aid in Vietnam as they also struggled to find a way out of their colonial predicament.
A resolution to the “dirty war” finally appeared on the horizon when Dulles, Bidault, Molotov, and British foreign secretary Anthony Eden agreed to meet at a diplomatic conference in Berlin (from January 25 to February 2, 1954). The three issues that governed the discussions were the possibility of a conference held at Geneva to resolve the Korean and Indochina conflicts, German problems (including the EDC), and Austrian problems. The French, Americans, and British had finally agreed to talk directly to the Russians but held very different views on the upcoming conference. The Eisenhower administration was convinced that negotiations with the Russians would not produce results except perhaps on Korea. Eisenhower and Dulles went along with the conference primarily to appease their allies and present a united western front to the Soviets. Churchill, however, wanted to revive his image as a peacemaker and intended to place the British at the center of an effort to bring about an overarching Cold War settlement.81 The Laniel government also accepted the usefulness of the Berlin Conference, especially as it represented an opportunity to place the Indochina conflict on the Geneva Conference agenda—a key goal of the French. French leaders recognized that their best chance to resolve the Indochina crisis diplomatically was to make it part of the program at Berlin.
The conference got off to a rocky start when, after Bidault and Eden’s conciliatory openings, Molotov returned to the standard Soviet line of recriminations against the West in general and against the United States in particular. Apparently, Molotov decided to depart from his more peaceful stance of November 1953, when he had proposed a foreign ministers conference to consider measures for easing international tensions. Molotov was undoubtedly trying to disrupt Atlantic unity to ensure that a five-power conference took place on Korea and Indochina.82 Throughout the conference, Dulles attempted to hold the western front together while trying to stop a five-power conference on Indochina.
Bidault, on the other hand, was under intense pressure to bring about such a conference. In a meeting with Dulles, Bidault stated that he had “very few cards in his hand to play.” Dulles replied that this might be true but that one of those cards was U.S. support and that one he “must not throw away.” Dulles had mentioned to Eisenhower that he would attempt to play a “somewhat inconspicuous role” at the Berlin Conference, allowing the French to lead so they might feel that they had concluded negotiations on their own. In this way, Dulles planned to avoid the accusation that France had been forced to support the United States or that American leaders desired the conference’s failure. Eisenhower, according to Dulles, “fully agreed with these tactics.” At Berlin, Dulles tried publicly to downplay his inflexibility, allowing Bidault to lead negotiations. Privately he continued to press Bidault to stand firm against Soviet pressure to negotiate on Indochina.83
In the end, Berlin was a victory for the French. Most significantly, Bidault succeeded in placing the Indochina problem on the agenda for the forthcoming Geneva Conference—a maneuver the Quai d’Orsay had been attempting since spring 1953.84 The final agreement at Berlin stated that a conference regarding a peaceful settlement of the Korean question would begin on April 26 and that the problem of restoring peace in Indochina would be discussed in May. The final clause of the agreement, which Dulles had insisted upon, was that “neither the invitation to, nor the holding of, the above-mentioned conference shall be deemed to imply diplomatic recognition in any case where it has not already been accorded.” Bidault surmounted Dulles’s efforts to keep such a meeting on Indochina from taking place, and he even persuaded the secretary of state to go along with the Soviet demand that the PRC participate in the Geneva talks.
According to French minister of state for foreign affairs Maurice Schumann, the French had gained on a number of other fronts as well. What appeared to be irreconcilable differences were resolved because of “American concessions” and “even more important Russian ones.” For example, Schumann noted that although Washington had remained wary that the Soviets might insist on diplomatic recognition of China, the Soviets had eventually dropped this demand. The Geneva Conference would include not only the five world powers, but also both North and South Korea and other countries involved in resolving the Korean and Vietnamese conflicts, and the conference would not change China’s international status. For the French, Chinese participation was crucial to successful negotiations on Indochina and Korea. If the PRC was not represented at the conference, one of the major belligerents would not be a signatory to the accords reached at Geneva. Regarding Korea, the USSR was not simply an observer but would be held accountable to any decision reached. Moreover, neutralist countries would not be invited, and the question of formal invitations was avoided because the USSR would invite China and North Korea and the United States would invite South Korea. By establishing a single conference devoted to both conflicts, France had also ensured that the Indochina question would not be subordinated to a favorable progression of the Korean question, and the mode of invitation would serve as a precedent that would facilitate the convocation of the Associated States when the conference turned to Indochina. Schumann pointed out that at no moment did the Soviets try “to link European and Asian affairs” and that western solidarity “had not cracked in the slightest.” The three foreign ministers presented a united front to Molotov, who eventually renounced any attempts at creating a rift among the allies.85 Thus, on the surface, allied unity had apparently been preserved at Berlin.
A number of American observers concurred. According to former American ambassador to France David Bruce, western solidarity was much enhanced because Bidault had not made a deal with the Soviets to sabotage the EDC and because France vowed to continue the fight in Indochina. C. D. Jackson also had a positive outlook on Berlin, claiming that Berlin proved that the Eisenhower-Dulles foreign policy was not just a tougher “me too” to Truman-Acheson foreign policy, but something distinctive. According to Jackson, “virile diplomacy at Berlin under the field generalship of Dulles produced voluntary if not enthusiastic western unity such as has not been seen for one hell of a long time.”86
Dulles disagreed. Worried that a five-power conference could be perceived as a sign of western weakness, Dulles immediately engaged in damage control at a press conference the week after Berlin, emphasizing that the negotiations at Berlin should not be construed as an “Asian Munich.” He also noted that he had only conceded to a five-power conference because he assumed that the EDC would be brought to a ratification vote before the Geneva Conference began. Although Dulles had privately stated to Eisenhower that he saw Berlin as a success and that the Geneva Conference had potential, he clearly did not trust his Gallic allies to persevere against the communists at Geneva. Dulles even discussed the possibility of an Anglo-American joint position vis-à-vis the French, explaining his fears to Merchant and State Department counselor Douglas MacArthur that the French would either “sell out Indochina to the Soviet Union” and that the entire area of Southeast Asia would thereby be “greatly endangered” or that they would sabotage the EDC to obtain peace in Indochina. In the end, observing that French pressure for a political settlement of the Indochina War had increased as a result of Berlin, Dulles somewhat helplessly realized that if the United States stopped financial support or attached impossible conditions to it, “the anti-American reaction in France would be very severe and almost certainly defeat [the] European Defense Community.” He also noted that the United States should, if at all possible, “seek to assure successes both in relation [to] Indochina and [the] European Defense Community.” But American officials “must be on guard lest Indochina also carry [the] European Defense Community down the drain.”87 Dulles’s comments exemplified his concern that events in Indochina would dictate the EDC’s outcome. Yet he did not take concrete steps to break the linkage between the Eisenhower administration’s European and Asian policies. Apparently, neither Eisenhower nor Dulles considered what might have happened if they had halted diplomatic pressure on the French—which might have made the French more amenable both to the EDC and to American suggestions regarding Indochina.
Following Berlin, during the 184th meeting of the NSC, Eisenhower commented on the extraordinary confusion in the reports that reached him from Indochina, stating that “there were almost as many judgments as there were authors of messages.” There were, nevertheless, only two critical factors in the situation. The first was to “win over the Vietnamese population; the other to instill some spirit into the French.” Chairman of the JCS Arthur Radford claimed that the differences in the reports resulted from the different situations of their authors: there were those that came from the service attachés and other semipermanent personnel, and those from visitors such as General John O’Daniel. According to Radford, attachés tended to become frustrated as a result of continuously being on the scene. Eisenhower then stated that he had just about reached the conclusion that it was time for a change of ambassadors in Vietnam and that Heath, although a “good man, well-liked, and doing a capable job,” had stayed too long at his post. Eisenhower felt somebody “a little on the Machiavellian side” was needed.88
This policy of downplaying reports by experienced officials in the field and relying on newcomers’ assessments was a structural flaw in the Eisenhower administration—the incoming top American official would always be more optimistic than the outgoing, which ensured that the United States would always stay in Vietnam just a little longer. For example, after his visit to Vietnam, O’Daniel recommended that the United States organize a small joint staff, assign two officers for psychological warfare attached to the appropriate U.S. organization in Saigon, provide additional funds for STEM to assist in rehabilitation of war-ravaged areas, and employ liaison officers. Such seemingly small and logical recommendations gradually increased the American investment in securing a noncommunist Vietnam.
Throughout 1953 and into 1954, the Eisenhower administration struggled to find the best course of action in Vietnam. The United States committed more aid to the French war effort while continuing to fear that the Soviets’ acceptance of a peaceful settlement of the Indochina conflict would divide the West. The soft line coming from Moscow suggested to the French that a positive approach to negotiations with the Soviet Union might make German rearmament unnecessary while providing a diplomatic solution to the debilitating war in Indochina. But where Paris saw a chance for peace and an opportunity for relaxing Cold War tensions, Washington saw a menacing strategy to weaken the West by preventing German rearmament through the EDC and facilitating a communist victory in Indochina. Officials in the Eisenhower administration concluded that the Soviet call for peaceful coexistence was merely a calculated ploy to win the Cold War through propaganda and psychological warfare rather than through military action by easing western, and especially French, concerns about European and Asian defense.
According to Dulles and others in the administration, continuing political and economic support of the French war effort was the only way to ensure that both the EDC and Indochina were preserved. Despite its recognition of problems in the Western alliance, the Eisenhower administration consistently failed to understand French motivations. The Laniel government’s attempts to cling to its empire, its difficulties in rolling back communist influence in Indochina, its willingness to negotiate with the communist bloc, and its hesitation over ratifying the EDC perplexed American officials, who became increasingly disillusioned with their ally. Increasing Franco-American tensions seemed to prove correct earlier predictions that “the first consequence of the devolution of power in the Soviet Union would be a short term widening of existing fissures among the nations of the free world.”89 The Soviet peace offensive would continue to reverberate as Paris and Washington prepared for negotiations at the forthcoming Geneva Conference and as the Eisenhower administration became more vested in ensuring a noncommunist Vietnam.