Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
diplomacy and a potential disaster for U.S. security interests in the Far East. The Operations Coordinating Board (OCB) stated that the Final Declaration of the Conference "completed a major forward stride of Communism which may lead to the loss of Southeast Asia. It, therefore, recorded a drastic defeat of key policies in NSC 5405 and a serious loss for the free world, the psychological and political effects of which will be felt throughout the Far East and around the globe."6 In a separate report, the NSC was somewhat more specific concerning the extent of the damage: the Communists acquired "an advance salient" in Vietnam for use in military and non-military ways; the U.S. lost prestige as a leader in Asia capable of stemming Communist expansion; the Communist peace line gained at America's expense; Communist military and political prestige was enhanced as the result of their ability to exploit unstable situations in Southeast Asian countries without resort to armed attack.7
- c. U.S.–U.K. Seven-Point Program is Mostly Accomplished
The provisions of the Accords, however, should have furnished the U.S. grounds for some satisfaction. Comparing the U.S.–U.K. seven-point memorandum of 29 June with the final settlement nearly one month later, the Conference had very nearly satisfied the minimum U.S. objectives — despite Washington's apprehension over faltering British or French support.
(1) The integrity and independence of Laos and Cambodia were preserved, and Viet Minh forces were, in the main, withdrawn from those two countries.
(2) Southern Vietnam was retained (although without an enclave in the North), and the partition line was drawn somewhat south of Dong Hoi.
(3) Laos, Cambodia, and "retained" Vietnam were not prevented from forming "non-Communist regimes" (in the case of Vietnam, within the two-year pre-election period); nor were they expressly forbidden "to maintain adequate forces for internal security." Vietnam's right to import arms and other war materiel was, however, restricted to piece-by-piece replacement, and a ceiling was fixed on foreign military personnel at the number in the country at the War's close.
(4–5) Recalling Dulles' interpretation of 7 July that elections should "be only held as long after cease-fire agreement as possible and in conditions free from intimidation to give democratic elements best chance,"8 the Accords did not stipulate "political provisions which would risk loss of the retained area to Communist control...[or] exclude the possibility of the ultimate reunification of Vietnam by peaceful means." Although both Dulles and Mendes-France preferred that no date be set for the elections, the compromise two-year hiatus gave the Americans, the French, and the South Vietnamese a significant breathing spell. The
