Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
III. A. 1. U.S. PRE-CONFERENCE MANEUVERS, JANUARY–APRIL 1954
- 1. U.S. Aims to Keep the Fight on the Battlefield
- a. U.S. Opposed to Geneva Conference
Negotiation of a settlement of the Indochina War was never happily accepted by the United States. Consistently, Washington took the position that France should negotiate only from a posture of clear military advantage which, assuming success of the Navarre Plan, would not come about until some time in 1955. While recognizing strong pressures in the French National Assembly and among the French public for peace, the U.S., clearly influenced by the experience at Panmunjom, hoped to convince the Laniel government against making a premature commitment to talks with the Viet Minh. The U.S. could not prevent Laniel from expressing publicly his administration's desire for peace, but sought to persuade him against actually sitting down at the bargaining table. As late as December 1953, Laniel agreed that Washington's approach was the correct one.1 Two months later, however, the picture had changed. At Berlin, the Big Four decision to convene an international conference on Indochina at Geneva evidenced the irresistible pressure in French government circles for talks with the Viet Minh.
- b. Alternatives to Military Victory Appear Infeasible
Compelled to go along with Anglo–French preference for negotiating with the communists, the U.S. nevertheless did not shake its pessimism over the probable results. Our position remained that nothing short of military victory could settle the Indochina War in a manner favorable to Free World interests. The rationale behind this unequivocal perspective on negotiations was first set out fully by the JCS in March 1954, when the Chiefs examined the alternatives to military victory and found them all infeasible or unacceptable to the U.S. A cease-fire prior to a political settlement, the JCS paper stated, probably would "lead to a political stalemate attended by a concurrent and irretrievable deterioration of the Franco–Vietnamese military position." A coalition government would lead to communist seizure of power from within, with the U.S. helpless to prevent it. Partition, on the other hand, would amount to recognition of communist success by force of arms, cession to the communists of the key Tonkin Delta, and undercutting of our containment policy in Asia.
- c. Elections Would Be Subverted
The Chiefs also commented at some length on the difficult question of elections. They took the position that even if elections in Vietnam could be carried out along democratic lines (which they doubted), a communist victory would almost certainly result because of communist territorial control, popular support, and superior tactics:
