Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
United States, having failed to interest Britain in united action prior to the start of the Geneva Conference, determined to plunge ahead without British participation as a sine qua non. But, the caveat to the French grew in importance. Conditions which had been given the French before the fall of Dien Bien Phu were now augmented, most importantly by a greater detailing of the process the French government would have to go through before the U.S. would consider intervention.
- 4. French Use Threat of U.S. Intervention at Geneva
- a. French Do Not Intend to Request U.S. Involvement
Even while the French pondered the conditions, urged their refinement and redefinition to suit French policies, and insisted in the end that they saw no political obstacles separating the U.S. and France, Washington foresaw that the French were very unlikely to forward a request for U.S. involvement. Having learned something from the futile diplomatic bargaining in April, Department of State representatives in Paris and Washington saw that what the French wanted was not the military but the political benefits of U.S. involvement; and they thought they could get them by bringing into the open the fact that the U.S. and France were negotiating active American participation in the fighting. Thus, Dillon correctly assessed in mid-May that French inquiries about U.S. conditions for intervention represented a "wish to use possibility of our intervention primarily to strengthen their hand at Geneva."35 Dillon's sensitivity to the French position was proven accurate by Bidault's memorandum to the President: France would, in reality, only call on the United States if an "honorable" settlement could clearly not be obtained at Geneva, for only under that circumstance could the National Assembly be persuaded that the Laniel government had done everything possible to achieve peace.
- b. French Bring Out Possible U.S. United Action as a Lever in Bargaining
Our recognition of the game the French were playing did not keep us from posing intervention as an alternative for them; but by adhering tenaciously to the seven conditions, the U.S. ruled out either precipitous American action or an open-ended commitment to be used or rejected by Paris. "We cannot grant French an indefinite option on us without regard to intervening deterioration" of the military situation, Dulles wrote 8 June.36 As much as the Administration wanted to avoid a sell-out at Geneva, it was aware that events in Indochina might preclude effective action even if the French suddenly decided they wanted U.S. support.
- c. United Action is an Alternative But Not a Subverting Force
The United States, then, did not propose united action with the intention of subverting the Conference. Instead, united action was offered as a palliative if the Conference should become an exercise
