Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
Geneva despite France's unstable domestic politics and its poor military posture in Indochina. The settlements at Geneva were respectable enough for the French Government to stay in power. If anything, the results of Geneva provided a greater measure of internal political cohesion than France had enjoyed in a number of years. It would have been very difficult for any French Government to continue the actual fighting in Indochina — especially when it appeared to many that France was losing.
- b. France Retains a Significant Foothold in Indochina
The results at Geneva also allowed France to hold on to something very tangible — most of Indochina itself. The Viet Minh forces and auxiliaries in Cambodia and Laos were shunted aside, preserving paramount French influence in Vientiane and Phnom Penh. Moreover, in South Vietnam the French maintained clear title to their military, cultural, and economic interests; in North Vietnam, they had some prospect of salvaging their investments.
As early as 26 June, France made it privately clear that its intention was to maintain a viable Vietnamese state in the south. Thus, when in late June the Franco–Viet Minh "underground" talks were elevated to direct discussions between Jean Chauvel and Pham Van Dong, the French gave as one of their objectives the hope of arriving at an equitable territorial settlement "which will assure the State of Vietnam a territory as solid as possible..." Although aware of possible violent GVN reaction against partition, the French considered that arrangement best for the GVN inasmuch as it would enable the country "to consolidate herself in such a fashion as to create in the face of the Viet Mihh an authentically national and independent force."2 In agreeing to partition, the French Government, like Washington, was motivated in part by a desire to assure the State of Vietnam a defensible territory within which the Saigon regime could attempt to construct a stable authority competitive with the DRV.
- 3. GVN Achieves More Than Its Situation Warrants
Considering the fact that the newly independent State of Vietnam was still little more than a figurehead for French authority, that the French by far were carrying the burden of the fighting against the Viet Minh, and that the French and Vietnamese together were not doing well against the Viet Minh, the GVN received much more than they could have realistically expected from the Geneva Conference. Indeed, Geneva opened new opportunity to the GVN. Though territory had been lost, a way was gained for the establishment of governmental authority in the south. Only through consolidation of territory and regroupment of population could Bao Dai have hopes of being able to meet the challenges — whether at the polls or militarily — that the Viet Minh were sure to provide in the future. The GVN delegation at Geneva nonetheless took the view that the Accords were a sell-out to the Communists. While the Saigon Regime did not directly disavow these agreements in the sense that they
