Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
- 2. Events Make the Geneva Conference Inevitable
- a. U.S. Plans Initial Geneva Position
Assured that the French would not cease fire prior to the conference, Washington forged ahead in late April and early May in search of a policy that would guide the American delegation. The National Security Council, less than a week before the opening conference session, carefully examined American alternatives.7 The NSC urged the President not to join the Geneva deliberations without assurance from France that it was not preparing to negotiate the surrender of Indochina. Again, the Korean example was foremost: Communist tactics, the NSC said, will likely resemble those at Panmunjom: a cease-fire with lack of compliance by the communists because of ineffective supervision, a wilting French position before the communists' typical dilatory tactics, all resulting in the French accepting almost any terms.
- b. NSC Recommends Strong U.S. Stand
The NSC, therefore, decided that the French had to be pressured into adopting a strong posture in the face of probable communist intransigence. The NSC urged a policy of informing Paris that its acquiescence in a communist takeover of Indochina would bear not only on France's future position in the Far East, but also on its status as one of the Big Three; that abandonment of Indochina would grievously affect both France's position in North Africa and Franco–U.S. relations in that region; that U.S. aid to France would automatically cease upon Paris' conclusion of an unsatisfactory settlement; and, finally, that communist domination of Indochina would be of such serious strategic harm to U.S. interests as to produce "consequences in Europe as well as elsewhere [without]...apparent limitation." In addition, the NSC recommended that the U.S. determine immediately whether the Associated States should be approached with a view to continuing the anti-Viet Minh struggle in some other form, including unilateral U.S. involvement "if necessary."
- c. Dulles Announces Possibility of U.S. Disassociation
The NSC's adamant attitude was reflected in Dulles' extreme pessimism over the prospects for any meaningful progress in talks with the communists. At Geneva on April 25, the Secretary said that the solution of the Indochina problem was the primary responsibility of France, the non-Communist Vietnamese, and the Viet Minh. The U.S. would not normally expect to "interpose [its] veto" except "where we felt that the issues involved had a pretty demonstrable interest to the United States itself." And he went on to say that if highly disadvantageous solutions were proposed at the conference which the U.S. could not prevent, "we would probably want to disassociate ourselves from it [the Conference]."8
