AS THEY WERE BEING “EVICTED” by the Americans in South Vietnam, the French struggled to redefine their relationship with Saigon and, at the same time, maintain a separate presence in North Vietnam. Paris found itself constantly trying to balance between Hanoi, Saigon, and Washington as it clung fiercely to one last bastion—a cultural presence in Vietnam. French officials faced major obstacles in this endeavor as the North Vietnamese, South Vietnamese, and Americans sought to replace the French at every level. Although by 1960 the French had disappeared from North Vietnam, they had made a surprising comeback in the South, and not just in the cultural domain. But this comeback had high costs. As they tried to maintain institutions in both the North and South, the French faced accusations on all sides of conspiring with the enemy.
Although South Vietnam occupied the primary place of importance in Franco-American relations, post-Geneva difficulties in the Western alliance also stemmed from questions of how to deal, or not deal, with Hanoi. The Pierre Mendès France–Pham Van Dong agreements between the French prime minister and North Vietnamese foreign minister of July 21, 1954, which guaranteed the exercise of private rights of the ten thousand French nationals still residing in the North and the continuance of French cultural establishments, ran into enormous obstacles. Jean Sainteny, who had been unofficially appointed as the French delegate general to the DRV in August 1954 by Mendès France, was charged with the almost impossible task of securing safeguards for French businesses and institutions.1 Sainteny had attempted to mediate between Paris and Ho Chi Minh before the First Indochina War, and was recognized for his sympathy toward the North. His job was made even more difficult as a result of North Vietnamese discriminatory practices and interference with personnel that led to the loss of a great number of French commercial and industrial enterprises. In addition, Sainteny had to balance his negotiations with the DRV against increasing American hostility, since Washington fundamentally disagreed with Paris’s policy toward North Vietnam. American officials protested what they viewed as a contradictory French policy; the French were attempting to preserve the présence française in South Vietnam while at the same time appointing the supposedly pro-DRV Sainteny as a French representative in Hanoi. The Eisenhower administration was particularly concerned about a possible French rapprochement with the DRV.2
French officials remained reluctant to forsake their cultural and economic presence in the North, believing that France should keep separate its policies in South and North Vietnam to allow more freedom of action. General Paul Ely, despite his opposition to Sainteny’s appointment, concurred with the Quai d’Orsay that it should convince Washington that American interests would be served by Sainteny’s mission. Paris could then avoid being accused of contributing to the DRV’s progress. The Quai and Ely knew Sainteny’s appointment had spurred rumors that the French would sell out Prime Minister Diem to retain economic and cultural ties with Vietnam when the North took over completely. They also recognized that both the North and South Vietnamese would view close coordination between Ely and Sainteny with suspicion. Ely advocated harmonizing actions with both Sainteny and the Eisenhower administration so that France could bring the United States around to the possibility of coexistence “both within Europe and Asia.”3
In French circles the general feeling was that North Vietnam was not yet “an integral part of the communist orbit,” and that the opportunity existed, however small, to keep North Vietnam out of Soviet and Chinese hands. The DRV, according to Sainteny, was much closer to the Soviets than to the Chinese as the North Vietnamese feared Chinese control, and Ho Chi Minh recognized the importance of keeping an “emergency exit” toward France and the West open. Sainteny thus advocated maintaining relations with the North in the event that Chinese control became too oppressive and Hanoi decided to turn toward the West.4 In the meantime, Sainteny disdained what he called “heavy-handed American tactics” that did not “sit well” with most observers and was convinced that the Eisenhower administration planned “to evict France from Vietnam.” One French observer in South Vietnam saw the Americans maneuvering in Asia the way “elephants would in a China shop. Despite their wealth, they will finish by being detested everywhere.”5
Economic issues in the North also weighed heavily on the French. One problem was the International Consultative Cooperation Committee, which had been created to ensure an embargo of strategic products destined for communist bloc countries. South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos could join the committee or could promise to uphold the embargo without joining. The bigger issue was North Vietnam. An embargo on North Vietnam would cause French products and thus French companies to suffer. The French calculated the best they could hope for from the Americans and British was that they would allow certain needed items for French enterprises through the embargo. The Quai concluded that if it were “forced” by its allies to uphold an embargo against North Vietnam, then it would not be able to continue its current policy and would renounce its presence in the North. French diplomats worked hard to persuade the State Department and Foreign Office that the conditions applied to China should not be applied to North Vietnam as this was a “totally unique situation,” and that there were “advantages” to a continued presence of French industries and cultural and humanitarian agencies in the North. Still, they recognized that the North was continuing to build up its forces with Chinese help, and that they would probably have to go along with the embargo, which was one of the essential elements of American policy in the Far East.6
The biggest concern in Paris was that the DRV would recommence hostilities if France was perceived as violating Geneva. Hanoi worried that France was becoming increasingly tied to American policy vis-à-vis Vietnam. A different fear circulated in Washington. Despite the agreement between Mendès France and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in November 1954 that the Sainteny mission would become an official one and that the United States would not discriminate against French who stayed in the North, the Americans viewed French attempts to stay in North Vietnam with deep suspicion. Sainteny’s mission in the North became official on December 16 when he was recognized by the DRV as the French delegate general. According to high-level American officials, the mission was a major instrument of the French policy to “reach a modus vivendi” with Ho Chi Minh’s government to ensure the security of French cultural and economic interests in the North, “establish a basis for a similar modus vivendi” in the South should the DRV take over, and “break ground for a general coexistence policy with [the communist] Orbit.” Remarks such as former president Vincent Auriol’s claim that the North Vietnamese were “sure to win the 1956 elections” and that the “only chance” for France resided in the strict application of the Geneva agreement served as further proof of French betrayal of the West.7
The French were undoubtedly sending mixed signals, in part because they were confused as to which mission—North or South—offered the greatest prospects for successfully maintaining a French presence. In an internal memorandum, Quai officials tried to make sense of Ely and Sainteny’s respective missions. Ely wanted an end to the Sainteny mission, or at least the removal of Sainteny, and recommended “sticking with the Americans” while trying to persuade them Diem was “not the best horse.” Ely believed that to safeguard France’s position in Southeast Asia it was better to “run the risk of losing the game with the U.S. at our side than to run the risk of winning at the price of a policy that will bring down American reprobation.” He felt that Sainteny’s mission was making his own job impossible, since both the South Vietnamese and Americans thought France was playing a “double game.” In contrast, Sainteny wanted a South Vietnamese government of “concurrence,” neither antagonistic nor collaborationist with the North, and suggested various alternatives to Diem, who would be less antagonistic toward the North. The only point Ely and Sainteny agreed on was that France should keep a significant FEC presence. The Quai adopted a wait-and-see approach, recommending that if Ely made the most progress in safeguarding French interests he should stay, but if Sainteny did, then Ely should be recalled.8 This document illustrates how divided France was on what policy to pursue.
The Franco-American alliance was also divided, as a February 1955 Newsweek article noted. France was in the throes of a government crisis, and Henri Bonnet, now retired ambassador and envoy to the United States, represented France rather than a foreign minister at a Manila Pact meeting six months after the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty had been signed. The meeting was not productive. As the Manila Pact conference opened in late February the United States and France were locked in a bitter wrangle over their respective policies in Indochina. According to Newsweek, “the French are determined to make a deal with the Communists for the preservation of what they like to call France’s ‘economic and cultural presence’ in North Vietnam. This ‘presence’ consists of important French owned industries, including coal mines and cement and textile plants in the Haiphong area.”9
Part of the problem in negotiating with the Americans and North Vietnamese was the issue of American equipment remaining in North Vietnam. The French were once again stuck between Hanoi and Washington. U.S. officials would be angry if the material was not evacuated, thus the French needed to make such an evacuation a sine qua non of negotiations with the DRV regarding other issues. But the Americans were annoyed that, contrary to their earlier categorical assurances, the French would remove U.S.-financed equipment from Tonkin only if the evacuation “does not provoke any grave incident.” USOM officials pushed for high-level pressure to be brought to bear on the French to reconcile the opposing objectives of the Sainteny mission and the French military with respect to the disposition of the Haiphong facilities. The French did begin to cautiously remove equipment, evaluating the North Vietnamese response as they went.10
Trying to counter American hostility, French officials notified Washington and Saigon that preserving a presence in North Vietnam would keep communications open between Hanoi and the West and would allow France to monitor North Vietnamese activities, but Washington periodically accused France of “conspiring with North Vietnam.” The Americans continued to believe that the Mendès France government was hedging its bets and preparing to make a deal with Ho Chi Minh at Diem’s expense to preserve French interests in the North. The British tended to share American fears. British ambassador in Saigon Sir Hugh Stephenson noted the apparent diversity of directives between those of Ely and those of Sainteny, stating that France is “speaking with two voices.” Such claims were warranted. In a memorandum prepared for Edgar Faure at the moment of his investiture as premier, Mendès France again emphasized that French businesses in the North “should be maintained” but recognized the need for “close cooperation with the United States” since France “can’t risk a serious dispute with the American government in bringing to South Vietnam a policy independent of the United States.”11 The French thus held the vain hope that they would be able to accommodate both sides.
But continued relations with the DRV made France’s international position appear too pro-communist in Washington’s eyes. French ambassador Maurice Couve de Murville reported to the Quai on State Department concerns that French plans for North Vietnam would weaken Franco-American cooperation in the South. The Americans emphasized the happy relationship between U.S. special representative to Vietnam J. Lawton Collins and Ely, and wanted such a policy of cooperation to continue “at all costs.” The point for the Americans was that France was “threatening this cooperation through its negotiations with the North,” something that could have “serious repercussions in Congress.”12 Indeed, French entrepreneurs in the North were concerned when American “experts” appeared at their factories asking French business owners about industrialization and capacity of production. French owners wondered whether they should worry about American reprisals for doing business in the North. In addition, the French encountered serious opposition from the American Embassy regarding proposed Franco–North Vietnamese businesses. According to one U.S. official, the United States was primarily concerned with the political and psychological aspects of this issue, seeing it as a contradiction to French policy in South Vietnam. The DRV would get a boost in prestige if the joint businesses went ahead. In particular, such a move, according to French ambassador to Britain René Massigli, could create difficulties in Franco-American relations as a result of Congressional and public opinion. In any case, Washington was insisting that any American equipment in these businesses be evacuated from the North, and that the U.S. government would attempt to punish such businesses by denying them favorable trade agreements. The French pointed out that in keeping with the Geneva Accords and the agreements between Mendès France and Pham Van Dong, the DRV could have confiscated French interests and was actually choosing to be more cooperative.13
The biggest Franco-American fight on this issue occurred over the Société Française des Charbonnages du Tonkin, a large French-owned mining company in the North, which the French desperately tried to keep running. The Americans, however, were categorically opposed to any French government links with the entity because that would mean “official collaboration” of the French government with Hanoi. Collins in particular wanted to be sure that American aid and material, especially aid that went to Charbonnages, would not be used by the DRV. From French documentation, it appears fairly clear that the French were simply trying to maintain an economic presence in North Vietnam. Paris hoped to apply the new communist policy of “peaceful coexistence” to French holdings in that region.14 Such hopes faltered in the face of American and North Vietnamese animosity.
The parallels between Sainteny’s and Ely’s respective missions are most telling. Both men were disillusioned by the end of their missions, in part because of the contradictory nature of the Quai’s policy. Both accepted that their task was to preserve French interests, and both experienced incredible frustration because of their untenable positions of trying to balance against each other, the Quai, American officials in Vietnam, Washington, Hanoi, and Saigon.
Ely accepted his government’s decision that it was politically desirable and financially necessary to work with the Americans, but he continued to criticize Sainteny’s mission and sympathy toward Hanoi. Just as Sainteny grumbled that he was not kept informed about French policy in the South and Ely’s actions, Ely complained that he was completely “out of the loop” with respect to French policy toward the North and Sainteny’s actions and instructions, and that he got most of his information through the press. He also noted that the risk of the Americans replacing the French in cultural and economic domains had increased, and that it was unlikely French business interests in Haiphong could be preserved because of this “dual policy” that “ruined rather than preserved” French interests.15
Sainteny remained unenthusiastic about his mission’s chances for success, although he recognized that a continued French presence could be a very effective obstacle against communism. He wrote to the prime minister that it was entirely Faure’s decision as to whether French enterprises should try to stay in the North, but warned him that the Americans were very vocal and even threatening in their efforts to dissuade France from doing so. He suggested trying to decide as quickly as possible the French attitude toward the DRV, the maintenance or departure of French persons established in North Vietnam, proper indemnization for those who left, guarantees for those who stayed, and positions to try to keep. Sainteny was particularly annoyed how the mission in the North was always referred to as the “Sainteny Mission” or the “Sainteny Policy”; he wanted such references done away with so that the mission would be referred to as the general delegation of the French government.
Despite his growing irritation, Sainteny valiantly tried to keep a French presence in the North, arguing that the French presence in Hanoi “was more effective than several divisions of the South Vietnamese army being trained by the Americans.” His biggest concern remained the virulent American campaign against any French efforts to negotiate with the North, and that Paris’s “allies rather than its adversaries would without hesitation crush any accord reached with Hanoi.” Faure had reassured the Eisenhower administration that France would “not play a double game in Vietnam,” following one policy in the South and another in the North, but most American officials doubted his sincerity.16 What the Americans tended to forget was how many French interests existed in both North and South Vietnam.
Of course the French did not maintain their interests in the North. According to a mid-April 1955 CIA report, France considered its efforts to maintain installations in North Vietnam “a closed book.” The Charbonnages du Tonkin had completed arrangements to sell its plant and equipment to the DRV, with all other French enterprises in North Vietnam expected to follow suit. In addition, in mid-May the last French soldier left North Vietnam. Militarily, France was gone. But, the French stepped up their efforts to ensure their cultural influence in North Vietnamese territory.17 Culturally, according to Sainteny in an interview with Radio Lausanne, France still remained “present” in North Vietnam. As proof, Sainteny pointed to the Pasteur and Cancer Institutes, the Ecole Française d’Extrême Orient (EFEO), clinics, the 575 French students who still attended Albert Sarraut High School as well as 20 French professors and 1,800 Vietnamese students, and a Franco-Vietnamese hospital directed by a French professor who gave medical courses at the Hanoi School of Medicine. Still, Sainteny noted his unhappiness with the lack of instructions from the Quai, claiming he was “completely isolated” without “direction or information.” For example, after waiting “in vain” for a debriefing of the talks with Dulles and British foreign minister Harold Macmillan in May, Sainteny went so far as to threaten to resign unless he received clear instructions. In response, French foreign minister Antoine Pinay informed him that the French, Americans, and British had agreed to a “common policy,” which included complete support of Diem (especially since Congress would cut off aid if Diem was ousted), combating all antiwestern propaganda, and deciding at what level the FEC should be maintained.18 Nothing in this common policy dealt with preserving French interests in the North or accommodating Hanoi.
After a series of Franco–North Vietnamese meetings in August 1955 to determine cultural affairs, especially the statute of the EFEO and the place of French language in Vietnamese establishments, Sainteny believed that France had succeeded in “safeguarding its cultural and economic presence” and “avoiding a total rupture” with the North; therefore, France had accomplished its mission. But the more important long-term goal of maintaining a French presence in Southeast Asia and occupying a “favorable position at the moment when East-West détente is achieved,” which was why Sainteny had accepted the mission to return to North Vietnam in the first place and had “made sacrifices and compromises despite the incomprehension of France’s allies,” seemed much more difficult to achieve. Sainteny feared that all the French sacrifices would come to naught unless France made a gesture of goodwill toward the DRV.
This gesture should be the installation in Paris of a diplomatic representation of the DRV. Sainteny’s reasoning was that after Ho Chi Minh’s “spectacular and productive voyage” to Beijing and Moscow, only a “magnanimous gesture” would “correct” the DRV’s current leaning toward the communist bloc. Following such a move, France should conclude commercial and financial accords and arrange economic and cultural exchanges. Only if France took these actions would his return to Hanoi be justified, otherwise it would be “totally useless.”19 Sainteny had prepared a letter agreeing to the appointment of a personal delegate by Ho Chi Minh in Paris in summer 1955, but Faure never signed the letter, fearing South Vietnamese and American reactions to the arrival of a DRV representative in France. Indeed, the Americans were busy cutting all ties with the North, including evacuating all staff and closing down the U.S. consulate and remaining buildings. Faure allowed only a commercial attaché instead, and Paris reminded the DRV that the French delegation in Hanoi and North Vietnamese commercial representation in Paris did not imply normal diplomatic relations.20North Vietnamese officials retaliated by refusing French entry visas, starting domestic help strikes, and attempting to bribe or coerce French military personnel for espionage purposes. This period represented the lowest point yet in Franco–North Vietnamese relations, as Hanoi was bitterly disappointed in the failure of official representation in Paris.
The North continued to press the issue, with the result that French foreign minister Christian Pineau and Sainteny in spring 1956 seriously considered how to bring about a reciprocal delegation. Subsequently, the French and North Vietnamese proceeded some way in negotiations before deadlocking. The North insisted on an official delegation with all attendant rights—such as diplomatic immunity, a twenty-person delegation, and the head designated as an official delegate general—whereas Pineau indicated that absolute reciprocity was unlikely and would only agree to a delegation with commercial and cultural affiliation. Hanoi tried to use cultural leverage, promising that French cultural institutions could stay in North Vietnam and that the DRV would work to resolve points of contention—such as reopening the Albert Sarraut High School, creating a closer association with the Cancer and Pasteur Institutes, allowing French films into the North, and opening a French library and news press. Sainteny tried to mediate by suggesting more informal missions to France and North Vietnam, but Hanoi wanted an official delegation.21
Another issue causing increased tensions between Paris and Hanoi was the FEC’s disappearance. When Sainteny met with Ung Van Khiem (vice minister of foreign affairs), Pham Van Dong, and Ho Chi Minh, the three Vietnamese made it clear to Sainteny that even though the FEC was withdrawing and South Vietnam claimed it was not accountable to the accords, France was “not excused from its obligations to Geneva.” Khiem also took the opportunity to insist again on a reciprocal North Vietnamese delegation in Paris. Hanoi clearly viewed the FEC’s withdrawal as a betrayal and abdication of French responsibilities. In fact, Sainteny transmitted a letter to Paris in which Pham Van Dong reminded Pineau of article 27 of the cease-fire, which stated that “the signatories and their successors will be held accountable to the provisions of the accord.” Hanoi demanded with increasing venom that France fulfill its obligations.22
Sainteny continued to deplore France’s “missed chance” after Geneva. He fondly remembered when Indian prime minister Nehru had given a reception in October of 1954 and reserved the place of honor for the representative of France in Hanoi. He recognized that the realists in Hanoi had not gotten rid of France completely for fear of “economic asphyxiation,” but he insisted that France “could and should have established normal relations with the North,” especially in economic and cultural matters to safeguard French interests. About the only French success was the agreement to bring French films back to the North, providing they did not offend the “moralizing North Vietnamese regime.”23
An interesting parallel can be drawn here—just as the United States replaced France in South Vietnam, the USSR, with some help from other communist powers, was busy replacing the Gallic nation in the North. For example, at the time of Sainteny’s plaintive letter, the USSR had already given 40 million rubles for economic assistance and development and sent industrial equipment, 275 experts, goods, and food to North Vietnam. The Russians put into operation five industrial enterprises, including a tin mining and processing factory, a tea factory, a hydroelectric power station, and two lines of electricity transmission. They organized geological expeditions for wolfram, zinc, lead, uranium, and other deposits, modernized the port of Haiphong and North Vietnamese hospitals, arranged the production of cement and coal mining, and helped develop the army. And Moscow invited 249 Vietnamese specialists to the Soviet Union for further training.24 Although the Americans were quick to criticize the heavy-handed communist presence in the North, accusing the DRV, and thus Moscow, of iron-fisted party control in every field including administration, justice, police, army, religion, schools, industry, and agriculture, the United States was attempting to assert its own form of control south of the seventeenth parallel.
According to Jacques Soustelle, the rupture with the North could have been justified if it had been “counterbalanced by a favorable French position in the South,” which was not the case. Franco–North Vietnamese tension culminated with the French counselor at Hanoi and the economic, cultural, consular, and press attachés leaving in 1956. Even in late 1956 Sainteny was still convinced that a French presence was needed in the North; other officials also thought that France could still play an important role in both North and South Vietnam, especially as reunification moved forward, helping ensure a reunification without the “inhumane regime” of the North or the “dictatorial one” in the South.25
Paris, however, was unwilling to try any longer to maintain a serious presence in the North, a fact made clear by France’s enthusiastic support of South Vietnam’s attempt to enter the UN in 1957. The UN incident further soured Franco–North Vietnamese relations, with Ung Van Khiem violently protesting French support of South Vietnam’s entry. The DRV was equally concerned about its major ally: in response to the resolution proposing the entries of South Vietnam and South Korea into the UN, the Soviet Union recommended South Vietnam, South Korea, North Vietnam, and North Korea all enter, which would mean de facto recognition of two Vietnamese states. Hanoi had not been consulted before Moscow made this move, and Pham Van Dong protested Moscow’s actions, leading the Soviets to back down from their proposal. If South and North Vietnam had been accepted into the UN it would have been not only the consecration of Vietnam’s division but also a blatant violation of the Geneva Accords. Moreover, the South Vietnamese government had agreed at the Bandung Conference final communiqué of April 24, 1955, that reunification would be a required condition for Vietnam to become a member of the UN. The DRV took French support of South Vietnam’s entry as a clear indication of their turn toward Saigon.26
Indeed, as of April 1957 it was clear France had no hope left that North Vietnam would indemnify private French interests that had been appropriated after Geneva. Another problem was Hanoi’s refusal to allow any more searches for French missing in action because the Saigon government would not allow the North to do searches in the South. The Albert Sarraut High School reopened its doors as a lay mission; the Cancer Institute was controlled entirely by the Vietnamese, as was the Pasteur Institute; and the Saint Paul Hospital functioned under one French doctor. The library and museum of the EFEO were under delicate negotiations since Saigon did not want to “see them pass under Hanoi’s influence.”27 Sainteny left Hanoi in early April 1957, a sad and bitter man. His replacement, Jean-Baptiste Georges-Picot, was a diplomat of much lesser standing.
As the French experienced the familiar sensation of being replaced, they, along with the Americans, had another concern vis-à-vis Hanoi: the DRV’s ongoing diplomatic and propaganda campaigns. According to a CIA intelligence report, a discernable buildup of emphasis on “peaceful means” of uniting the DRV and the South and a downplaying of the threat of military force had been observed in communist propaganda since the summer of 1955, when literature signed by North Vietnam’s “National United Front” was first distributed. The “peaceful unification” line was first announced by Chinese foreign minister Zhou Enlai in June, but it appeared to have taken a period of “selling” within the DRV before it was adopted in September.
Paris and Washington scrambled to respond to the North Vietnamese diplomatic campaign. The United States Information Agency (USIA) recognized that the DRV would continue to emphasize the need for a peaceful settlement of the Vietnam question as well as the need, in the meantime, for an exchange of political, economic, and cultural missions. Covertly, the DRV would concentrate on infiltrating key organizations in the South. The Vietnamese Fatherland Front was created in fall 1955 for the express purpose of rallying and holding public support; Soviet technicians assisted by installing broadcast relay systems in key provinces in the North. The DRV’s most widely used media for propaganda purposes were radio, pamphlets, and postcards, in that order. In addition, since January 1956, Hanoi reported, the Motion Picture Service of North Vietnam had produced four newsreels per month and two instructional films every three months. The DRV also began its first mobile exhibition—interestingly enough on the Vietnamese Catholic Church, demonstrating freedom of worship in North Vietnam. Other innovations of 1956 included the introduction of recreation centers and libraries at key industrial and mining sites, the exchange of Catholic delegations with Soviet satellite countries, and the use of medical teams sent from the Soviet Union.28
North Vietnamese propaganda included claims that the South Vietnamese made “children’s flesh into pie,” that they had “nothing to eat during Tet” (traditional celebrations of the lunar new year), that Diem “lost the fight against the various sects and was forced to flee the country,” and that South Vietnam had experienced “failures at the hands of a corrupt government” while North Vietnam had “many successes.”29 Both French and American officials worried about the negative effects of such propaganda in South Vietnam and feared that their own propaganda was not reaching the North. French and British newsmen and members of the ICC noted that the three main foreign stations in North Vietnam were Radio Saigon, Voice of America (VOA), and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), and that the North Vietnamese favored the VOA and BBC over Radio Saigon.30
More subtle propaganda attempts included the DRV decision to allow a mild opposition press from 1956 to 1957 in accordance with the “One Hundred Flowers Blooming” policy, which also existed in China. “One Hundred Flowers Blooming” referred to a statement by Karl Marx that many flowers had pleasant scents but no one flower had all of them—there were several roads to communism with no one system having a monopoly on it. The North continued its propaganda blitz in early 1958 with its “Spring is Triumphant, but Winter Will Surely Return” campaign, emphasizing that peace existed for the moment but that hard times would surely return given the nature of the Saigon regime. The DRV in 1958 maintained propaganda outlets in Rangoon, New Delhi, and Paris, which distributed literature in French and English throughout much of the western world and Asia.
The first “coming out” of North Vietnamese diplomacy had occurred at Geneva, but the delegation led by Pham Van Dong had looked more like an adjunct to the Chinese communist delegation than a nationalist one. During Bandung, the DRV made its second appearance, but again was completely overshadowed by the formidable presence of internationally known Asian figures such as Nehru, Zhou Enlai, and Filipino diplomat General Carlos Romulo. Moreover, the North Vietnamese were under a cloud because the Laotian government had accused them of aiding and abetting the activities of the Pathet Lao. Even more humiliating was that negotiations on this issue were carried out not between Laos and North Vietnam but between Laos, North Vietnam, and China. The agreement that emerged constituted the first international treaty outside the Geneva cease-fire signed by the DRV and a noncommunist nation. The DRV had hoped to be recognized as the sole legal government at least by neutralist countries as a result, but was bitterly disappointed on that score. Not a single Asian country outside the communist bloc granted it full recognition, and relations with non-Asian countries outside the Soviet bloc had declined. France continued to maintain a delegate general in Hanoi, but commercial exchange was very limited. The DRV thus remained isolated diplomatically. A Canadian observer remarked, “There never were as many white faces in Hanoi under French colonial rule as there are now under the Vietminh.” The faces no longer belonged to the colonialists but to the Russian, East German, Czechoslovakian, Polish, and other “advisers.”31
As early as February 1955 the DRV had proposed restoration of normal relations for post offices, roads, railways, and air and sea traffic between North and South Vietnam, thus launching the first volley in a series of propaganda and diplomatic initiatives aimed at implementing the Geneva Accords. Hanoi recommenced in 1958 when Pham Van Dong sent a letter to Diem proposing the “organization of general elections, free circulation between zones, bilateral reduction of armed forces in the North and South, reestablishment of relations between North and South beginning with commercial exchanges, and a meeting of Northern and Southern officials” to discuss these issues. Dong also deplored SEATO and blamed the failure of peace and reunification on the “policy of intervention of American imperialism,” which led to additional military personnel and war materials in South Vietnam, and transformed South Vietnam into “a military base of American aggression in Southeast Asia.” He noted that the “American imperialists’ policy of military support is linked with their economic and political control of South Vietnam,” and that South Vietnam “cannot join a military alliance as per the Geneva Accords.” Diem agreed to consider the proposal but had a list of six demands designed to be unacceptable to Hanoi. These were that the North (1) allow 92,319 people and 1,995 families who had asked to leave for the South to do so; (2) reduce the North Vietnamese military to the same level as that of the South; (3) renounce terrorism, assassination, and sabotage; (4) stop economic monopoly in the North and allow people to work freely; (5) allow free press; and (6) allow civil rights and better conditions. Even so, the dialogue between Hanoi and Saigon continued.
Hanoi’s actions indicated its commitment to a last-ditch effort to start negotiations with the South before turning to subversion. Hanoi also sent the letter to Pineau, and North Vietnamese officials cherished the hope that the French would become more involved as a signatory to the Geneva Accords. The French found the letter interesting as it implied a weakening of the North Vietnamese position on French responsibilities to the accords. Moreover, the North had “backed away” from general elections or consultations but simply wanted a discussion to create the “necessary conditions” for elections. On April 1, Pineau decided he would have to do more than acknowledge receipt of the letter, but in his response he simply reminded Dong that France no longer had any obligations to the Geneva Accords, and that there was therefore nothing France could do. A month later, Dong sent another letter to Paris, but the French did not respond. And in late December, Dong, in a final attempt at negotiations, sent a letter to Saigon underscoring South Vietnam’s economic, social, and political difficulties, the rearmament of South Vietnam, and American imperialism. He recommended trying to resolve these problems in face-to-face meetings, suggesting as an agenda discussions of no military alliances, reduction of personnel and military budgets, economic trade, no more propaganda, and normal circulation of cultural, scientific, economic, and sportive associations.32
North Vietnamese propaganda appeared to be playing well enough to concern French officials. For example, associations of doctors, rice planters, professors, and other groups in the North sent letters to the corresponding associations in the South to organize an exchange. When there was no response, the Northerners commented on the sad fact that the Southerners must be “under the oppression of the Americano-Diemish clique.” French officials in the South suggested that perhaps the Diem regime should begin some propaganda of its own, inviting northern Boy Scouts, schoolchildren, artists, football players, and workers to the South.33
In general, Paris continued its status quo policy toward the North, much to Counselor Georges-Picot’s despair. He argued that it was critical that France maintain direct intelligence on the North and that French officials in the South could not possibly know what was occurring in the DRV. Georges-Picot also continued to attempt a rapprochement with Hanoi, but was quickly crushed by the Foreign Ministry. When Georges-Picot queried the Quai d’Orsay about French participation in a parade for the “Vietnamese Union for Peace and Unity and for Friendship with France” in commemoration of Ho Chi Minh’s birthday, Pineau quickly announced he was opposed because France did not have normal diplomatic relations with Vietnam.34
In 1959 the DRV increased its propaganda and diplomatic efforts. Demonstrations for unification of North and South became larger and more numerous. In a brilliant propaganda move, Hanoi asked the ICC to request that the Diem regime allow government contact between the North and South so people from both sides could see their families during Tet. The minister of national education suggested to his South Vietnamese counterpart “exchanges of cultural information for professors and students.” A declaration of the Central Committee of the North Vietnam Communist Party in Hanoi signaled the need to “liberate” the South and reunify Vietnam. And on the fifth anniversary of the Geneva Accords, the DRV began a massive propaganda campaign. They launched the campaign at an African-Asian meeting in Cairo, where the permanent secretariat of the Council of Solidarity of African-Asian Peoples announced that July 19 would henceforth be considered the “Day of Vietnam” and would be celebrated in all countries that recognized North Vietnam as the only legitimate government of the entire country. French observers in Hanoi estimated a crowd of 150,000 people, but noted a decided lack of enthusiasm.
From this point forward, Hanoi emphasized the bad faith of the South Vietnamese government and its unquestioning obedience to the Americans. The North Vietnamese population was regularly mobilized for meetings and demonstrations, one of which ended up in front of the ICC’s office. Hanoi even created a stamp depicting a peace column and dove stretching across the Ben Hai river, with a letter containing the words “Enslaved compatriots of the South” in the beak of the dove. The DRV produced a film entitled Only One River, which developed the story of two youths residing on separate sides of the Ben Hai river who could not marry because Diem refused to allow them to see each other. Hanoi, with strong Soviet and Chinese support, also called on twenty-one Afro-Asian countries to support the battle for reunification. It was clear that the DRV was trying to officially restart the problem of reunification in the diplomatic arena and that it only reluctantly gave up hope on political reunification as specified by the Geneva Accords.35
When all of these attempts came to naught, the DRV became much more aggressive in its attacks on Diem, the United States, and the ICC, but less aggressive in blaming France for the current situation. Pham Van Dong, in an interview with a British journalist in 1960, declared the United States “Public enemy number one,” and deplored the fact that French influence in all domains was fading as American influence ascended. French minister to the North Albert Chambon also reported later in the year that the North Vietnamese realized the French appreciated Vietnamese civilization, and that the influence of French professors in the high schools as well as French missionaries, doctors, and businessmen would be felt much longer than the French currently believed. A May 26, 1960, article in Le Figaro ran in the Hanoi-controlled newspaper Nhan Dan, claiming that foreign observers residing in Saigon were unanimous in recognizing that Diem’s prestige continued to “diminish day by day” and that Diem’s army of 150,000 was “maintained entirely by American aid.” Even though he had one of the best-equipped and best-trained armies in the world, it was “absolutely not up to the task in the face of popular opposition.”36
In an insightful letter to his superiors at the Quai, Chambon reflected on the situation south and north of the seventeenth parallel. According to Chambon, France was poised to play a “cardinal role between the adversarial North and South” as Hanoi stepped up its campaign against the Diem regime and the increasing amounts of American personnel and arms arriving in Saigon. He argued that the disorder in the former French states was getting worse as U.S. credibility, which was never strong, was “frittered away by American awkwardness and incomprehension of Vietnamese psychology.” France should thus think about how it should use its influence to preserve the situation. For example, Chambon favored taking advantage of the Sino-Russian split that had become obvious by 1959. Chambon recognized that the Soviet faction had a tendency to conciliate and to achieve unification by peaceful means, but that the pro-Chinese faction saw “plentiful evidence of the failure of peaceful means” in the past six years and wanted action. It was this extremist wing that was in the ascendancy, evidenced by Truong Chinh’s rise to power in the DRV. Regarding French policy, France could be doing useful work if it tried to “reinforce the more moderate faction.” France therefore should work carefully “not to push North Vietnam into the arms of China.” If France adopted a rigid position and refused to grant concessions, it would bring to power a group of men whose very clear purpose was “to chase the West from Southeast Asia.” However, those who wanted a more moderate approach to South Vietnam would like a more liberal regime than the Diem one. If France tried to “push this avenue” it would end up with a less hostile regime but one that was more likely to be “evicted.”37
Chambon saw France as the “only element” that could negotiate between the two parties because it was well placed on both sides to play this role and, as paradoxical as it seems, French credit was not “less grand in Hanoi than in Saigon.” The “political failure of Diem” and the “moral failure of the socialist experience in the North” permitted France, six years after Geneva, to reestablish in the Indochinese peninsula a position that a few years before had been “much more compromised” than that of their allies. Chambon thus urged the Quai to ask the United States to help France avoid putting into place a pro-Chinese wing in the North. Chambon’s thinking demonstrated French willingness to play a major role in negotiations between the two countries, and was perhaps even the precursor to the neutralization path French president Charles de Gaulle started to advocate a few years later.38
Chambon’s letter had an impact on Foreign Ministry officials, who had clearly been thinking along similar lines and agreed that the confusion and instability currently reigning on the Indochinese peninsula appeared at a moment where American credibility was waning. This chaos created a favorable climate at the local level for “all sorts of intrigues,” and, on the international level, “diverging positions were being taken on the part of the western allies as the communist powers benefited.” In this general political context, it appeared that the military policy followed by the United States directly opposed French policy in the region. This state of affairs was “not new.” Since 1955, the United States, in its attempt to assume “the leadership” of the three states of South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, never consented except with great reluctance to share influence with its allies, most notably France.39
France had tried to preserve its influence in North Vietnam without imperiling more significant interests in South Vietnam or aggravating the United States, but such a policy was untenable. With their lack of interest in installing an official DRV mission in Paris and their inability to pressure the South Vietnamese to begin consultations for elections, French relations with the DRV quickly soured. The North Vietnamese themselves later saw as one of their major failings their lack of foresight that the présence française in Vietnam would diminish so quickly. At the time, they blamed the French for choosing Diem and the Americans.
The French did make tiny strides in rebuilding a diplomatic presence north of the seventeenth parallel at the end of the decade, and French observers continued to report on DRV activities. According to Chambon, by 1960 reunification of the country had become the North’s biggest goal. Since peaceful means had not resulted in reunification, the DRV was ready to try more violent tactics. DRV representatives and elements in the South who were disgusted with the Diem regime formed the National Front for the Liberation of Southern Vietnam (NLF) on December 20, 1960. The NLF would resort to various forms of subversion in its attempt to bring down the Diem government. As a result, North Vietnamese cultural initiatives and propaganda began to decline. The propaganda that continued focused almost entirely on South Vietnam becoming an American “colony.” Hanoi continued to send dozens of letters of protest to the ICC regarding U.S violations of the Geneva Accords, and in particular, the reinforcement of American personnel. Paris thus feared that the day of reckoning between North and South Vietnam was fast approaching.40
The amount of work the French put into keeping a presence in North Vietnam was astounding. Perhaps the Americans’ biggest unintended victory against North Vietnam was forcing France to choose between the Atlantic alliance and its interests in North Vietnam. The Eisenhower administration thus eliminated what could have been a powerful French political presence in the North. Such a presence might have served as a successful counterweight to American influence in the South and helped create conditions for a much earlier reunification than the one that would finally occur in 1975. The French came quite close to forsaking the Diem regime and focusing their efforts on maintaining a presence in North Vietnam, which would have greatly complicated matters for the Eisenhower administration. If they had kept their economic and cultural interests in the North, French leaders would have been more interested in implementing the Geneva Accords. In addition, given France’s difficulties with the Diem regime and diminishing presence in the South, a rapprochement with Ho Chi Minh, along the lines Sainteny envisioned, could have occurred. The result? Eisenhower officials would have faced less liberty of action vis-à-vis the two Vietnams and more difficulties in ignoring the Geneva Accords.
But the French did not maintain a presence in the North. Instead, they gambled on maintaining at least some influence in South Vietnam and staked their last hope for control on the cultural front. At first, French attempts to retain cultural influence did not look any more promising than previous efforts to maintain political, military, and economic control. The French had lost their National School of Administration, English rather than French was becoming the most important foreign language, and South Vietnamese students were denied access to education in France. The French presence in South Vietnam had reached an all-time low by 1956, but Diem’s foreign policy successes and improved internal security, along with major French concessions, eventually resulted in more amiable Franco-South Vietnamese diplomatic relations.
In June 1956, the arrival of Henri Hoppenot’s replacement, Jean Payart, indicated the changeover from the French High Command to a normal diplomatic embassy. Whereas Ely and Hoppenot had presided over a period of “liquidation,” the main goal of French policy had become the creation of a “constructive period.” Ambassador Payart was therefore instructed “to try to build up economic and cultural domains,” to reestablish a “climate of confidence” between France and Vietnam, and to “develop collaboration” between the two countries. Payart’s appointment was thus an attempt to appease both the Americans and the South Vietnamese, and it marked an important transition for the French, Americans, and Vietnamese, as the French representative was untainted by colonial associations. In a meeting with the new French ambassador, Diem recognized that there were “valuable aspects” to the French mission in Vietnam. Diem, according to Payart, understood that “American aid always came with a price” and wanted to avoid American control of his country after he had “worked so hard to end French colonialism.” Diem had thus begun to view France as “a counterweight to excessive American influence.”41
Other small steps also eased tensions. In September, the French transferred responsibility for liaison with the ICC to the South Vietnamese. In addition, a French parliamentary mission to Vietnam, led by Edouard Frédéric-Dupont, was also favorably received. Following the mission, a Franco-Vietnamese friendship society began. According to the departing Hoppenot, Diem no longer needed “a scapegoat for South Vietnamese problems” and could thus afford to be more cordial to the French, as evidenced by his warm reception of the Dupont mission.42 A smoother Franco–South Vietnamese relationship had finally materialized. But many French officials continued to complain about the overpowering American presence that forestalled further Franco–South Vietnamese reconciliation.
Ultimately, a breakthrough occurred in Franco–South Vietnamese relations because of a single French political decision. The early 1957 hullabaloo over South Vietnam’s attempt to join the UN began when Pham Van Dong at the end of January sent a note to the General Assembly and to the Security Council demanding that they reject South Vietnam’s proposal. The French chose to support South Vietnam’s claim, and this support went a long way toward improving Franco–South Vietnamese relations. Diem stated that “France had chosen between North and South Vietnam for the first time since the Geneva Conference.”43 Although South Vietnam’s demand to join the UN was ultimately rejected, Franco–South Vietnamese relations continued to improve.
France hoped to capitalize on this improvement by using cultural diplomacy as a way of regaining prestige. The French would make every effort to maintain a presence—through the EFEO, the Alliance Française, the Société des Etudes Indochinoises, cultural centers in Saigon, Dalat, Nha Trang, Da Nang, and Hue, numerous confessional schools, the remaining 40 French professors, 20 university students sent each year in mission, 350 teachers, and 10,000 Vietnamese students. France also continued to operate, with Vietnamese collaboration, the Grail Hospital, the Pasteur Institute in Dalat, Nha Trang, and Saigon, and the Cancer Institute of Saigon. Jean-Pierre Dannaud and his successors were vital forces as the heads of the French Mission of Teaching and Cultural Cooperation.44
Still, the French continued to fight what appeared to be a losing battle between the English and French languages. From 1954 to 1956, the importation of French books to Vietnam dropped by more than 50 percent because the Americans decided that credits for importation of products would cover only technical and teaching books. As a result, in the first half of 1957, French books, journals, and magazines disappeared from bookstores in Saigon and the rest of the country. French officials responded by trying to set up a procedure to allow the financing through French credits of French imports—books and journals—that would complement the buying of books and journals with American aid credits. The South Vietnamese were amenable to renewed cultural exchanges, agreeing to the financing of classic, scientific, technical, and religious books but not modern novels.
According to French official Arnaud d’Andurain, there was no point in insisting on the fact that French literary and scientific production constituted an “incomparable element in the maintenance of French intellectual influence,” especially among the Vietnamese elite, whose experience with French literature “allowed them to know superior joy of spirit.” If France did not “do something” an entire generation would be “ignorant of what French language can give,” Andurain avowed, and the Quai should question whether it would be reasonable to continue to maintain French cultural machinery if the Vietnamese did not have recourse to the “personal and direct richness of France’s intellectual patrimony.”45 Andurain went even further, stating to Vu Van Mau that if the Vietnamese people “renounced” their habit of looking to France for their intellectual formation and decided to “turn” toward the United States, they would lose their “intelligence, subtlety of spirit, and dialectic,” which only existed because of the French administration that “assumed the mission” of instructing those in the administration and government who formed the directing class of the country. He concluded that “nothing from this point forward would differentiate them from the Thai people.”46 Clearly, the civilizing mission was alive and well. Andurain’s remarks were breathtaking in their arrogance but also insightful in demonstrating the importance the French attached to their cultural presence in Vietnam.
Payart worked hard to ensure this presence. During summer 1957, another DRV attempt at establishing economic and cultural representation in Paris had the South Vietnamese “up in arms” and prepared to “have a fit” if Paris agreed. Payart worried that the improved relations with the Diem government—established after the French delegation declarations at New York and Canberra convinced Diem that, between Ho Chi Minh and himself, “France has chosen Diem”—would be lost. Knowing Diem and his “defiance toward France,” Payart feared that “he would respond with retaliatory measures against essential French political, commercial and cultural interests.” Payart reminded the Quai that in 1956, French industry benefited from “23 billion francs of orders, France imported 10 billion francs worth of rubber, and from July 1956–57 French establishments repatriated 10 billion francs, not to mention the importance of France’s cultural positions.” Their maintenance was dependent on Diem’s goodwill.47 Pineau, after a meeting with various officials guiding Vietnamese policy, decided on August 2 that the status quo would be maintained with the North and that there would be no further discussion of the reciprocity requested by the DRV.48
Of the fifteen thousand French remaining in South Vietnam in early 1958, three hundred teachers were still teaching, and five hundred French firms continued to operate in the plantation, industry, commerce, and banking sectors.49 Relations between Paris and Saigon received an additional boost when Christian Pineau arrived in March, marking the first time a French foreign minister had set foot in South Vietnam. His visit raised South Vietnamese opinion of the French and cemented the political choice France had made in favor of Saigon and against Hanoi. Also pleasing to Diem was the move of the ICC headquarters from Hanoi to Saigon that same month. France thus began to lay the foundations for renewed political influence. French enterprises in South Vietnam were maintaining their position and French exports to Vietnam began to increase. Part of this success was due to the increasing amity toward the French and hostility toward the Americans of Diem’s brother and chief political adviser Ngo Dinh Nhu. Although Paris applauded improved Franco-Vietnamese relations, French officials in Saigon cautioned the Quai d’Orsay that “France should not try too quickly to regain a larger political role,” instead letting things take their own course while “trying to work quietly” for more French influence.50
The South Vietnamese, along with most of France, heralded General de Gaulle’s return to power in 1958. De Gaulle had promised to resolve colonial issues, especially the problem of Algerian independence, which had led to a government crisis—just as Indochinese independence had four years earlier. Although de Gaulle had not favored independence for Vietnam prior to Geneva and had encouraged Edgar Faure to oust Diem during the sect crisis, he had apparently changed his tune: he emphasized the importance of South Vietnam as a noncommunist nation in a number of speeches. The South Vietnamese were also drawn to de Gaulle’s idea of France as a third force in Europe that maintained its liberty of action toward the United States and the communist bloc. After a long talk with Diem in March 1959, Payart’s replacement, Roger Lalouette, notified the Quai that Diem felt French policy had “turned around” and that, “just as de Gaulle advocated a third force between capitalism and communism in Europe, Diem hoped to create his own third force in Asia.”51
Cultural issues remained a concern for Paris. Most Vietnamese wanted to learn English, since visitors to Vietnam were primarily American tourists and businessmen, and Diem refused to let South Vietnamese students study in France because they often failed to return after their studies. But Lalouette asserted that the French language and culture could still persevere—the Americans did not have the professors to replace the French ones and the Vietnamese desire to keep “French universities strong” worked in France’s favor. Another example of French concern with preserving a cultural influence included their ensuring that French citizens were eligible for scholarships in France. For example, in 1958, three hundred requests were made by families residing in South Vietnam who wanted grants to send their children to French schools.52
The French were also trying to regain radio territory. According to Sainteny, since France had lost the right to broadcast through Radio France Asie two years ago it had become “practically impossible to find the French language spoken on Asian airwaves.” The few hours designated for French language authorized by the Saigon government were insufficient, and the broadcast was inaudible from medium or long range. Moreover, the emissions from Radio Saigon barely made it past the seventeenth parallel. Sainteny thus advocated establishing a French radio post that could produce a much stronger signal.53
On the economic front, as early as 1956, the French wanted to implement their own agricultural and land reform programs as they discovered the lack of American success in this area; this was one domain where the French could “retake the initiative.” In September 1958, a Franco-Vietnamese agreement was signed providing French aid for the Diem government’s agrarian reform program. Here, then, was an example of the French actually starting to replace the Americans.54
The Americans were finally realizing the role that France could play in Vietnam, as South Vietnamese relations with France became disengaged from their colonial context and improved. France continued to buy 80 percent of South Vietnam’s rubber, providing an economic incentive for Saigon to cooperate with Paris. France still had an important commercial role to play as American aid to South Vietnam was reduced, forcing the Diem government to expand purchases of goods on credit, especially from countries with which it had important commercial and cultural ties. French officials also urged their counterparts in Washington and London to undertake joint studies on trying to guarantee foreign investments, which the South Vietnamese appreciated. Thus, throughout 1959, Franco-Vietnamese relations steadily improved while Vietnamese-American ones declined. This was not a coincidence, according to Lalouette; the Vietnamese were feeling an “overpowering American presence.”55
Three French organizations continued to provide technical and cultural assistance in 1959—the French Cultural Mission, the Mission of Technical and Economic Assistance, and a group of about forty professors from the University of Saigon. Fifty-three French-operated or French-subsidized schools existed in Vietnam, with a total of twenty-four thousand pupils. According to French officials at the University of Saigon, the cultural mission was flourishing—two high schools in Saigon, another at Dalat, colleges at Nha Trang and Tourane, and an overflowing of students in the primary schools in Saigon due in part to “Franco-Vietnamese affinity and superior French teaching.”56 And in 1960, after a three-year suspension of the program, South Vietnamese students were finally allowed to return to France to study.
The strongest French asset remained the cultural one. The Vietnamese intellectual and ruling class was steeped in French culture, and Paris was “Mecca” not only for the sophisticated and rich but also for all aspiring toward a higher education. Most educated Vietnamese spoke French well and could quote Racine or Verlaine, and French influence in education was pervasive. Paris continued to spend a significant amount of its total overseas expenditures for cultural purposes on activities in Vietnam. The French stayed in control of primary education until 1960, with increasing numbers of students attending Catholic schools. The Alliance Française helped with films, expositions of artists, plays, concerts, and conferences. A successful French-produced exposition on French books and journals held in Saigon in December 1960 symbolized the significant progress the French had made in maintaining a cultural foothold in Vietnamese affairs and demonstrated to the French that they had not lost their cultural influence. The triumph of the “Exposition of the French Book” was a shining moment for the French presence in Vietnam.57 It appeared the French cultural role would continue.
Looking back from the vantage point of December 1960, French ambassador to the United States Hervé Alphand noted that three essential elements played against French interests in South Vietnam. First, Diem’s animosity undermined the French presence. Second, the American conception, so favored by CIA operative Edward Lansdale, that a country that achieves independence through the military defeat of a colonizing power should cut all ties with that power even if that means potentially falling to communism, had played a major role. Third, the psychological success of the United States in Korea mitigated against keeping French military forces, perceived as colonial, in place in Vietnam. Etienne Manac’h, minister of Asian affairs at the Quai, agreed with Alphand that, in the political domain, Diem’s presence and the influence of American advisers, especially Lansdale, “played against France.” Moreover, the fact that the Eisenhower administration left Lansdale to his own devices led France to assume that the United States wanted to “compromise France’s military position and accelerate its withdrawal.” For example, Washington had agreed to Ely’s request to recall Lansdale, but a few months later Lansdale was back. Thus, during 1955 and 1956, American military policy was locally influenced by elements clearly hostile to France who had initialized the Vietnamese request that France withdraw its military mission. French official Claude Lebel also recognized that the maintenance in South Vietnam of French military personnel who were not “the best elements of the French army” had not helped the situation. But as early as 1957, and certainly by 1958, Washington recognized its errors in embracing anticolonialism, and Americans on the ground in Vietnam realized the importance of French influence.58
At the same time that the popularity of French cultural initiatives with both the Americans and the South Vietnamese grew, so too did North Vietnamese insurgency in the South. On October 22, 1957, U.S. personnel were injured in a bombing of MAAG and USIS installations in Saigon. On July 8, 1959, communist guerrillas who attacked a Vietnamese military base at Bien Hoa killed and wounded several MAAG personnel. As internal security became more difficult to achieve, French officials considered retaking political initiatives. According to French chargé d’affaires in Saigon René Fourier- Ruelle, “rebel activity had been increasing . . . Diem was completely isolated, and the creation of commandos and increases in MAAG personnel did not resolve the problem.” The French Embassy believed a complete reorganization of command and employment of troops was necessary, contending that “the agrovilles were useless and the population was increasingly restless.” Fourier-Ruelle argued that the time had come “to examine the situation with France’s allies” but that France should have a policy regarding Vietnam before confronting the policies of others. “Close cooperation with the British and Americans, a serious examination of the situation, and permanent contacts with London and Washington” appeared to be the “best way of discreetly attaining France’s goals.” Fourier-Ruelle concluded that France should have a more pro-Diem stance and needed to do more to maintain South Vietnamese stability. In response to Fourier-Ruelle’s letter, Manac’h agreed that France should become more involved, attempting an overall policy for South Vietnam, which the Americans had “failed to provide.”59
French status in South Vietnam continued to rise with the Franco-Vietnamese accords of March 24, 1960, which transferred the last piece of French public property to the Diem government and allowed Paris and Saigon to move forward with economic exchanges. The political relationship between the two countries had also become more stable. France had once again become an important player in South Vietnamese affairs. According to Lalouette, what the United States had not yet accepted was that a “rebirth of amity” toward France existed among the South Vietnamese and that “increasing Franco-Vietnamese collaboration [was] paired with increasing anti-Americanism.”60 French observers in Saigon watched as the South Vietnamese and Americans failed to resolve divisive political, economic, and social problems in the South.
French officials in Saigon had become staunch advocates of reform in South Vietnam. In May 1960, Lalouette suggested to American ambassador Elbridge Durbrow that a tripartite meeting be held to discuss South Vietnamese domestic difficulties. Wary of moving too fast, Paris forbade Lalouette to take the initiative for holding a three-power consultation on the means to remedy the situation in South Vietnam since the French position “could be misunderstood or interpreted as a return to colonialism.” Another attempt at political reform occurred as R. P. Lebret, director of a French research institute, sent a letter filled with suggestions on government reform to Ngo Dinh Nhu. Lebret had been invited by the National Bank of Vietnam to examine South Vietnamese problems, and French officials in Saigon hoped that Lebret’s study would constitute the “psychological shock” needed to revitalize the regime.61
Before the reforms mentioned in Lebret’s study could be discussed, on November 10 a military coup was attempted in Saigon. In a subsequent meeting with Lalouette, Nhu stated that the French had been “totally correct in their actions” during the coup attempt, but that he believed American agents had supported the rebels. Therefore, Nhu wanted “to work more closely with the French since he could not trust the Americans.” A USIS report detailing the coup attempt against Diem noted that the Diem regime expressed its appreciation for “objective reporting of the coup especially by French and British correspondents,” which caused much seething amongst the American correspondents. Diem subsequently promised a freer press and press relations as well as intensified and coordinated psychological warfare programs.62 Among French circles the thought occurred that the American secret services aided the 1960 coup attempt, and that the coup failed because the majority of the army and navy supported Diem. “His sang froid and the timidity of insurgents worked for him.” Any attempt to replace him by a coalition of parties and a parliamentary government would neither rally the army, “which is an essential element in the transition and the only entity actually capable of keeping order in the country,” nor reorganize the state, which is “essential in reestablishing order.” Such a regime would rapidly lead to “disorder, powerlessness, and division,” with the end result that a neutralist government maneuvered by the communists could come to power.63 In the end, the French actually advocated keeping Diem in power, and French officials in Saigon once again became political advisers to a South Vietnamese government.
Diem still complained about Paris, but his complaints had less venom than those of the 1954–1956 period. He felt that Paris favored other countries such as Cambodia and Laos, helping them fight the communists while preferring neutrality for Vietnam. And he believed that French secret services aided the opposition and that Paris listened to Hanoi too often, forgetting that there were “15,000 French privileged” in the South and “30 French tolerated” in the North. Diem also felt that the French economic group in South Vietnam was not sincere in providing reforms. Lalouette feared that Diem’s bad humor would crystallize into action against French positions, which Lalouette was determined to avoid.
In fact, Diem and Nhu also seemed to be looking more and more toward the French for support in their battle against internal subversion and in their difficulties with the Americans. They were also worried about the youth of the country falling into the “Anglo-Saxon orbit.” According to French officials in Saigon, all the Americans, British, Australians, Canadians, and New Zealanders multiplying their attention, gifts, aid, and invitations not only to officials but also to the intelligentsia, workers, towns, peasants, and montagnards were creating a current that could gently wash away French influence. Diem had finally decided that such an outcome, which the French certainly did not desire, might not be in his best interests either.64
According to a 1963 USIA report, the prime motivation of French cultural and information services was to preserve and, if possible, strengthen ties between new states with a French background and metropolitan France. A secondary motivation was the determination to “counteract non-French influences” in areas where French influence was still dominant. The report warrants further discussion, as this was one of the few times that American officials accurately identified French motivations. The authors of the report saw the traditional concept of the civilizing mission assuming “a new facet in recent years with the introduction of scientific and technical overseas training programs,” which were considered of equal importance with cultural affairs. Another change in objectives had been to “integrate” French cultural activities, wherever possible, with existing national systems of education, rather than preserving and multiplying integral French institutions. Authorities realized the advisability of “adapting themselves” to given conditions by catering to the new states and their “sensitivities” in terms of equality and mutuality. The most pressing objective was to “maintain and where possible expand France’s cultural position in the world.” The preferred approach remained the “spreading of French education and above all the French language,” even into areas of other linguistic dominance (i.e., English).65
Although French information and cultural services were global in scope, the countries of “French expression” (i.e., of former French affiliation) were the primary targets. For example, nearly three fifths of the 1962–1963 funds of the Direction Générale des Affaires Culturelles et Techniques (DGACT, formerly Services des Relations Culturelles) were earmarked for Morocco, Tunisia, and the former Indochinese states. The desire for a continued présence française in areas formerly French “provides the basic motivation for extensive efforts of the cultural services and technical aid.” Part of this desire could be ascribed to the “expectation that cultural as well as economic ties may prove more durable than political association.” The realization that, with few exceptions, the leaders and opinion-molding groups in these areas were French trained and that “French as a primary instrumentality of communications and education will prevail long after French political authority has been withdrawn” contributed much to the sustained effort toward preservation and extension of cultural influences.66 American analysts finally had it correct; the French were determined to continue their cultural efforts in South Vietnam simply for the sake of preserving French culture.
At first glance, the evidence seems overwhelming that France had indeed lost all political, military, economic, and cultural influence in both South and North Vietnam in the two years following the Geneva Conference. Difficulties in coordinating Franco-American policy, Diem’s determination to pursue his goals free from French influence, the South Vietnamese and American insistence on a French military withdrawal, French disengagement from the 1956 elections, an ever-smaller economic and cultural mission in South Vietnam, and increasing Franco–North Vietnamese tensions all indicated an end to the French presence. But this apparent withdrawal from Vietnam turned out to be temporary. Despite a diminishing French presence in the North, by 1960, Franco–South Vietnamese relations had undergone a dramatic improvement from their dismal state four years earlier. France was once again making its voice heard as it continued its cultural and economic presence while reestablishing a political one. Although Hanoi continued to blame France for failing to uphold the 1956 elections, Saigon grew more receptive to French diplomats as well as French economic and cultural establishments. French support of South Vietnam’s bid to enter the UN in 1957 went a long way toward easing remaining tensions between Saigon and Paris and caused Diem to view the French presence in Vietnam as a counterweight to the Americans. In the late 1950s, the French continued to make political progress with the Diem government and cultural progress with the South Vietnamese people.
By the early 1960s, then, France had made a miraculous comeback in South Vietnam. To the astonishment of most observers at the time, the French presence endured in Indochina as French officials worked behind the scenes to help reform the Diem government and maintain French cultural and economic institutions. In many ways, the French had come to be more respected by the South Vietnamese than the Americans were. The French did not overtly challenge the Americans in Vietnam, but they worked quietly to rebuild a moderate political presence as Vietnamese disenchantment with the Americans grew. French president Charles de Gaulle warned the United States as early as 1961 against deepening America’s involvement in Vietnamese affairs. By 1963 he had begun to call for the neutralization of Vietnam, whereby the United States would withdraw and the Vietnamese themselves would settle their conflict without external influence. De Gaulle advocated a return to a Geneva-type conference or bilateral deal between Hanoi and Saigon to determine how neutralization would be implemented.67 Paris was clearly trying to move toward a “Vietnamization” of the solution by claiming that the only way to resolve the problem was through the Vietnamese people themselves. Moreover, in a show of support for Diem, French officials announced that “to bring peace in South Vietnam, the government must regain control with the aid of the population.” As a result of de Gaulle’s actions, French officials played at least a partial role in the Diem government’s willingness to reopen discussions with the DRV, until Diem and Nhu were assassinated in 1963.68
These French actions did not go unremarked. A New York Times article in September 1963 suggested that Paris was “pressuring the United States to stop attacking the Diem regime.”69 De Gaulle decided to keep Lalouette in Vietnam after his official tenure as a foil to the anti-French and increasingly anti-Diem American ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge. When Lalouette had met with Diem in early February 1962, Diem, for the first time, indicated he was willing to consider an exchange of views with Hanoi. Subsequently, Lalouette was perhaps too eager to work with Diem and Nhu, as he appeared to be helping Nhu contact the North and was cautioned by his superiors not to intervene in “domestic politics.” According to French foreign minister Couve de Murville, even if reunification was the French goal, France should “not encourage contacts between Nhu and Northern emissaries.”70
Thus the Franco-American competition for influence continued as Paris sought to keep Vietnam at least partially French while Washington insisted on making it American. Diem and Ho Chi Minh had their own plans, which did not include listening to the French or Americans. Still, as a new era unfolded in the early 1960s, the présence française endured in Vietnam despite the ever-growing présence américaine. Franco–South Vietnamese relations thus improved, while the American–South Vietnamese relationship became increasingly strained. Events appeared to have come almost full circle ten years after the Geneva Conference, except that France and the United States had switched roles. Now French officials warned their American counterparts about the risks of increasing involvement in Vietnam, unofficially advised leading South Vietnamese figures, argued for a political rather than a military solution, and advocated Diem’s continued leadership while the Americans plotted to unseat him.