Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
unobligated, participant. The U.S., Dulles cabled him, was to be "an interested nation which, however, is neither a belligerent nor a principal in the negotiation." Its primary aim would be to:
- "...help the nations of that area [Indochina] peacefully to enjoy territorial integrity and political independence under stable and free governments with the opportunity to expand their economies, to realize their legitimate national aspirations, and to develop security through individual and collective defense against aggression, from within and without. This implies that these people should not be amalgamated into the Communist bloc of imperialistic dictatorship."
Accordingly, Smith was told, the U.S. should not give its approval to any settlement or cease-fire.
- "...which would have the effect of subverting the existing lawful governments of the three aforementioned states or of permanently impairing their territorial integrity or of placing in jeopardy the forces of the French Union of Indochina, or which otherwise contravened the principles stated...above."14
- f. U.S. Takes Hard Line for Geneva
The NSC decision of May 8, Smith's comments at the second and third plenary sessions, and Dulles' instructions to Smith reveal the hardness of the U.S. position on a Geneva settlement. The U.S. would not associate itself with any arrangement that failed to provide adequately for an internationally supervised cease-fire and national elections that resulted in the partitioning of any of the Associated States; or that compromised the independence and territorial integrity of those States in any way. Smith was left free, in fact, to withdraw from the conference or to restrict the American role to that of observer.15
- g. French Military Situation Deteriorates
The pessimistic American view of the conference was founded also on the deterioration of the Franco–Vietnamese military effort, particularly in the Tonkin Delta. After the debacle at Dien Bien Phu, the French gradually shifted their forces from Laos and Cambodia into the Delta; but the Viet Minh naturally did likewise, moving several battalions eastward. U.S. Army intelligence reported on May 26, on the basis of French reports, that the Viet Minh were redeploying much faster than anticipated, to the point where only 2,000 of 35,000 troops originally in northwestern Tonkin remained. To thwart the communist military threat, General Ely told General Trapnell (on May 30) that French forces were forming a new defensive perimeter along the Hanoi–Haiphong axis; but Ely
