Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
In the last NSC paper approved before the Indochina situation was totally transformed by the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu and the Geneva Conference, the "successful defense of Tonkin" was said to be the "keystone of the defense of mainland Southeast Asia except possibly Malaya."16 NSC 5405 took some, but probably not sufficient, account of the deterioration in the French position which had occurred since NSC 124/2 was approved eighteen months earlier. It, nevertheless, repeated the domino principle in detail, including the admonition that "such is the interrelation of the countries of the area that effective counteraction would be immediately necessary to prevent the loss of any single country from leading to submission to, or an alignment with, communism by the remaining countries of Southeast Asia and. Indonesia." The document also noted that:
- "In the conflict in Indochina, the Communists and non-Communists worlds clearly confront one another in the field of battle. The loss of the struggle in Indochina, in addition to its impact in Southeast Asia and South Asia, would, therefore have the most serious repercussions on U.S. and free world interests in Europe and elsewhere."
The subject of possible negotiations was broached in NSC 5405, following the observation that political pressures in France may impel the French Government to seek a negotiated, rather than a military settlement. It was noted (before Dien Bien Bhu) that if the Navarre Plan failed or appeared, doomed to failure, the French might seek to negotiate simply for the best possible terms, irrespective of whether these offered, any assurance of preserving a non-Communist Indochina.
In this regard, the NSC decided, the U.S. should employ every feasible means to influence the French Government against concluding the struggle on terms "inconsistent" with the basic U.S. objectives. The French should be told, that: (1) in the absence of a marked improvement in the military situation, there was no basis for negotiation on acceptable terms; (2) the U.S. would "flatly oppose any idea" of a cease-fire as a preliminary to negotiations, because such a cease-fire would result in an irretrievable deterioration of the Franco–Vietnamese military position in Indochina; (3) a nominally non-Communist coalition regime would eventually turn the country over to Ho Chi Minh with no opportunity for the replacement of the French by the United States or the United Kingdom. [Emphasis Added]
7. Conclusion
In conclusion, two comments can be made:
- a. With the growing perception of a Chinese threat to Indochina, and, therefore, to all of Southeast Asia, the U.S. Government tended to concentrate on the military rather than the political aspects of the French Viet Minh struggle. In consequence, American attention focused, on (1) deterring external intervention from China, and (2) assisting the French
