Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
- 8. Implications: DRV and GVN Protests
By the summer of 1955, the unfolding of U.S.–GVN policy prompted the DRV to appeal directly to the Co-chairmen of the Geneva Conference. In a letter of August 17, 1955, Pham Van Dong, DRV Prime Minister, insisted that "the political question in Vietnam should be settled according to the Geneva Agreements," and requested the U.S.S.R. and the U.K. to "take all necessary measures in order to guarantee observance...."111 This request was indorsed by the Chinese on October 31, 1955, and referred in November by the Co-chairmen to other members of the Geneva Conference for comment. The DRV promptly called for reconvening the Geneva Conference; the CPR quickly supported the demand. On February 18, 1956, the U.S.S.R. concurred, and proposed to the U.K. the summoning of a new Conference. The DRV call was based principally upon accusations that the GVN was frustrating execution of the political provisions of the Settlement, but a U.S.S.R. note to the U.K. added the charge that in South Vietnam, "foreign military bases are being set up and attempts are being made to include South Vietnam in a military bloc." The U.K. responses were cool to the idea that a reconvened Geneva Conference "would necessarily provide the quickest or most satisfactory means of reaching agreement," and on April 9, 1956, the U.K. made public a note to the U.S.S.R. rejecting its accusations concerning military bases and blocs, and countercharging "massive military expansion in the North," noting that while French troops had been withdrawn from the South, the army in North Vietnam had been increased from 7 to 20 (sic) divisions since 1954.112 The U.K. further took the position that the GVN was not bound by the Geneva Agreements. The outcome was a letter from the Co-chairmen to the DRV and the GVN enjoining cooperation to keep the peace, and asking notification when the recipients felt the time propitious for consultations preliminary to plebescite.
In July, 1959, the government of South Vietnam published a White Paper, summarizing the "violations of the Geneva Agreements by the Viet Minh communists."113 In it the "authorities of the North" were charged with a "policy of aggression and subversion," in that contrary to their 1954 pledges, they obstructed the movements of refugees, conducted widespread destruction and sabotage in South Vietnam, introduced large quantitites of arms and ammunition into North Vietnam, and with communist cadres in South Vietnam pursued a scheme to overthrow the Republic of Vietnam. The GVN claimed that between September, 1954, and June, 1959, a total of 3,561 caches of arms and ammunition had been discovered in South Vietnam, of which 303 had been reported to the ICC. Although the 303 "most important" caches so reported contained only 679 rifles, 142 machine guns, 182 mortars, 49 pistols, and assorted mines, grenades and other munitions, the government of South Vietnam construed these to convey "the intention of further attacks against the national government...in violation of the Agreements...." It noted that the United Kingdom had cited in 1956 an increase in the DRV armed forces from 7 to 20 divisions and evoked the 1958 denunciation of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs for the DRV’s increasing its military strength from a 1954 total of 200,000 to 550,000. The White Paper castigated Hanoi for "introducing 600 to 700 Chinese instructors" and noted that "the number of Russian and Chinese advisors amounts to several thousand in all echelons of the Army." Noting that the Geneva Accords had proscribed using one zone for conducting of aggression against
