{{c|Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
EISENHOWER ADMINISTRATION
SUMMARY
President Eisenhower took office in the context of negotiations for a settlement in Korea and the portending defeat in France in Indochina. His Administration early faced the crisis surrounding the Geneva Conference of 1954, in which direct U.S. intervention in Vietnam was a distinct prospect. Having pressed diplomatically for a constructive outcome at Geneva, the United States threw its support behind Ngo Dinh Diem and the Government of Vietnam. With U.S. support, that government, despite a series of severe tests, succeeded in consolidating itself and making significant progress. U.S. justification for its policy toward Vietnam in this period included the following:
a. The "domino principle": the loss of Vietnam, the most vulnerable state of Southeast Asia, would imperil the other nations of the region, and ultimately lead to a seriously weakened U.S. strategic position. Vietnam was a key to continued free world access to the human and material resources of Southeast Asia.
b. Communist China was pursuing an expansionist foreign policy relying upon subversive aggression, as well as armaments. China thus continued to reflect the unchanging Soviet objective of conquest of the world, and both had manifest designs on Southeast Asia.
c. The United States proposed, through its aid programs, to help the small and weak nations contiguous with communist powers to maintain their freedom and independence lest aggression and expansion be encouraged, and the world moved thereby toward a third world war.
d. In the words of President Eisenhower, "We gave military and economic assistance to the Republic of Vietnam. We entered into a treaty -- the Southeast Asia Security Treaty -- which plainly warned that an armed attack against this area would endanger our own peace and safety and that we would act accordingly."
e. U.S. aid for Vietnam -- economic and military -- has made possible not only its survival, but also genuine progress toward a stable society, a modern economy, and internal and external security.
B
