Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
III. C. 2. SINO–SOVIET OBJECTIVES AND STRATEGY
- 1. USSR and China Motivated by Different Objectives
- a. Atmosphere at Geneva is Different from Panmunjom
During the Korean War, the initial communist move toward negotiations came at a time of fairly clear-cut military stalemate. Discussions at Panmunjom extended over two years while UN and communist armies fought over small parcels of strategically valuable terrain. In Indochina, to the contrary, the first communist indications of willingness to negotiate came in September 1953 (from both Peking and Moscow), while the Viet Minh were preparing for the "general counteroffensive," and with the French Union forces constricting their defensive perimeter and desperately seeking to prevent large-scale desertions by the Vietnamese. Moreover, a final settlement was reached after only two months of bargaining. The reasons for this unexpectedly rapid and compromise settlement lie in Moscow and Peking. For reasons that were either the same or complementary, these two communist powers created an atmosphere for serious negotiations.
- b. Soviet Objectives
Unlike the Chinese, the Soviet Union was never explicit about its motivations for working toward a settlement. Nevertheless, there are strong grounds for believing that the Soviets had these goals in view: (1) averting a major war crisis over Indochina that would stimulate Western unity, provide the U.S. with support previously lacking for "united action, and conceivably force Moscow to help defend the Chinese; (2) reducing the prospects for successful passage of the European Defense Community in the French National Assembly; (3) seizing the opportunity to create a communist controlled enclave in Vietnam which could, then be expanded into a new communist state.
- (1) USSR Seeks to Avert a Major International Crisis
On the first point, the Soviets were surely aware that the United States probably would be prepared, under certain conditions, to consider active involvement in the war. Newspaper reports of the time added both credence and uncertainty to American plans for "united action." The Soviets during this period were caught up, moreover, in a full-fledged policy debate over the import of Eisenhower's defense program for Soviet national security. When the debate was resolved, sometime in April 1954, apparently First Secretary Khrushchev's perception of the continued danger of a new world, war that might be touched off by a reckless American nuclear strike won out over the relative optimism of Premier Malenkov. Specifically, Moscow probably reasoned that a failure to settle at Geneva would lead to U.S. involvement and escalation in Indochina, that at one point there might be another direct clash between American and Chinese forces, and that the Soviet Union therefore would be called upon to come to the aid of its Chinese ally.
