Dien Bien Phu and the Crisis of Franco-American Relations, 1954-1955 by Lawrense Kaplan, Denise Arraud, and Mark Rubin. This research is certainly a very intriguing collection of American and French academics re-approaching the relationship during the key event that would be driving American foreign policy for a generation.
Published in 1980, these insights offers the west deep new, modern insights into post World War II Asia. Therefore I have embedded an extended series of quotes which highlight the historical, complex, and strained relationship between France and the United States during the siege that would cast aside France from the world’s stage as a power.
Readers can certainly view Japan’s attack of Pearl Harbor, Truman’s betrayal of FDR, and Eisenhower’s failures in a new light. The papers also addresses the domino theory, the deep conflicts between Ely and Radford that ultimately focused on the failed attempt at Operation Vulture. Yet nothing could save France from defeat even with atomic weapons.
Finally, the French 1955 attempted coup d’état reveals the absolute desperation of French attempts to claw back into Vietnam. These topics jumped out as key strains between Franco-American relations that linger into the 1960s. My Dien Bien Phu retrospective is certainly expanding via this research.
Table of Contents:
Prologue: Perceptions by the United States of its interests in Indochina
1. Franco-American conflict in Indochina, 1950-1954
2. The French military and U.S. participation in the Indochina War
3. Britain and the crisis over Dien Bien Phu, April 1954
4. Eisenhower, Dulles, and Dien Bien Phu: “The day we didn’t go to war”
5. Military necessity, political impossibility: French overview on operation Vautour
6. Redefining the American position in Southeast Asia
7. From Geneva to Manila: British policy toward Indochina and SEATO
8. Passage of empire: the United States, France, and South Vietnam, 1954-55
9. Repercussions of the Geneva Conference: South Vietnam under a new protector
10. Spring 1955: Crisis in Saigon
11. The United States, NATO, and French Indochina
12. France between the Indochina War and the European defense community
Even the Prologue: Perceptions by the United States of its interests in Indochina by Richard Immerman will startle readers. Immerman suggests Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor an intentional ploy to divert global interest away from their aims across Indochina. Certainly this appears true today.
Yet for Americans this is a rather stark suggestion. Yet upon reflection there is merit to the Japan’s single strike. Why risk resources in Indochina when a full defensive strategy against America would culminate in the the atomic bombing of their mainland.
Japan had already invaded and conquered China. France surrendered to Japanese troops across Indochina, yet managed to negotiate terms after Japan’s invasion of French Indochina in 1940. At the height of the second French colonial empire, Paris ruled almost 9% of the global population.
Set against Communist China and the Soviet Union, President Eisenhower ultimately shaped a policy leading America to war for a generation. Resource rich Indochina would be providing Japan much needed raw materials to drive their war effort. When American banned oil sales to the Japanese mainland, Indochina became their target.
Truman’s betrayal of FDR
Truman was unaware of the Atomic bomb. Naturally he held no knowledge of FDR’s resistance to Churchill against French efforts to enslave Indochina. FDR’s trusteeship across Indochina infuriated Paris. However Dulles and Francophiles in the State Department persuaded Truman to abandon democracy for Indochina:
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Accordingly, President Franklin D. Roosevelt froze Japanese assets in the United States. More desperate than ever to acquire the riches of Southeast Asia, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Indeed, there is much truth to Russell Field’s generalization that “Pearl Harbor was only an occasion: its objective was to protect Tokyo’s move to the South.” Nevertheless, the fact remains that, by the summer of 1941, Washington had determined Southeast Asia to be sufficiently vital to U.S. interests to warrant provocative action. Moreover, because Indochina had been the catalyst in America’s entry into the war, its overall importance never again would be overlooked.
What seemed logical in 1943, however, horrified the military one year later. These islands would provide the bases required to project American power into the Pacific, and the United States would be foolish to relinquish exclusive control. Roosevelt concurred, but in doing so recognized that he could no longer strip France of its colonies simply on the basis of lofty principles. Washington decided specifically to omit any reference to the future of dependent territories in the UN Charter. Upon succeeding to the presidency, moreover, Harry S. Truman recognized French sovereignty. “As far as he was concerned,” there had been “no discussion” whatsoever of a trusteeship for Indochina.
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Questions lingered regarding the particular character of Ho’s overtures to the Kremlin, but Dean Acheson reflected the prevailing sentiment when he baldly asserted in a cable to the U.S. consul at Saigon: in the “absence evidence recantation Moscow affiliations,” the United States had to concentrate on his “clear record as agent international communism.” Supporting the French in Indochina could prove complicated, the State Department conceded, but the alternative might well permit the “least desirable eventuality”; namely, “establishment Communist dominated Moscow-oriented Indochina.
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France was an integral component of this Europe-first strategy. Not that Harold Isaacs’s claim is accurate: that historically the Franco-American alliance was so strong that the United States would have assisted the French return to Indochina “even if Ho Chi Minh had been a good capitalist nationalist, educated at Princeton.” Indeed, quite the opposite was true. With their pride still smarting from the German occupation, the French people’s resentment over Roosevelt’s attitude toward them ran deep. The trusteeship proposal, although stillborn, remained a painful reminder of the national humiliation. Postwar cooperation required reestablishing harmony; and North Atlanticists such as Dean Acheson would not permit Indochina, with all its discordant connotations, to stand in the way. Hence, any proposals for granting autonomy, which the State Department thought would serve both American and French interests, had to be handled with utmost delicacy. As a department policy statement candidly explained, “This immediate and vital interest [of promoting French cooperation] has in consequence taken precedence over active steps looking toward the realization of our objectives in Indochina.
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As the war in Indochina dragged on, France’s ability to contribute to NATO became more problematic than its willingness to do so. Not only was the war siphoning off troops required to meet the NATO commitment, but it was also swallowing up the “very best instructors.” By 1950 the war was costing nearly half of each graduating class from Saint Cyr, and military expenditures in the Indochina theater were growing commensurately. Even if Paris had not insisted on maintaining adequate forces in Europe to offset proposed German rearmament (which, of course, it had), Indochina was undermining its military capabilities. Maurice Faure thus could set aside the controversial issue of Germany’s inclusion in an integrated European army and explain to Acheson in less emotion-laden terms, “It is becoming more and more apparent that France is not in a position to carry at the same time the burdens imposed by the war in Indo-China and the necessary contribution to defense in Europe.
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Accordingly, France’s economic health had a direct bearing on its military commitments. And, for that matter, its military commitments had a direct bearing on its economic health. The costs of maintaining the war in Indochina confronted the French with a severe obstacle to recovery and fiscal stabilization. The loss of the $2 billion already invested in the colony would exacerbate the problem, and Marshall Plan assistance could only partially compensate for the drain. (Relatedly, Indochina, even after the war, continued to be important to France as a source of foreign exchange.) In sum, the French feared that although they could not afford to keep fighting, they could not afford to lose, while Washington feared that it could not afford to sit by while Paris sought a solution to its dilemma. Americans would have to provide the French with additional support at home and in Indochina, for if France could not get its financial house in order without withdrawing from Vietnam, its government might fall to the Communists, thus undermining both NATO and the European Recovery Program.
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This discussion of Southeast Asia’s relationship to both France and Britain suggests that the United States did not merely stumble into Vietnam along the route toward global containment. Nor for that matter was Indochina simply another piece in the international capitalist puzzle over which U.S. imperialists sought to extend their hegemony. There is some truth to both these contentions, but the fact remains that Washington considered Indochina the key to vitally important Southeast Asia. In addition to Malayan tin and rubber, the various countries produced petroleum, iron, coal, tungsten, zinc, and other strategically critical commodities. Even after the development of substitutes and alternative sources of supply, the United States needed these materials for stockpiling projects and for trading on the global market.
Equally significant, Indochina, Thailand, and Burma accounted for some three quarters of the world’s rice exports essential to feed millions of non-Communist Asians in India, Japan, Hong Kong, and elsewhere. Food shortages bred discontent and agitation, conditions conducive to Communist intervention. Conversely, should these resources become available to the Soviets and, after 1949, to the Chinese, the consequences could be incalculable. Those nations not yet within the Communist camp could be forced to accommodate. The Soviets and, after 1949, to the Chinese, the consequences could be incalculable. Those nations not yet within the Communist camp could be forced to accommodate. The Soviets would be able to industrialize and modernize at an unprecedented rate, and the Kremlin would be in a much better position to wage a prolonged war.
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The Korean War also influenced U.S. policy toward Indochina by helping to elect Dwight D. Eisenhower to the presidency. Although pledged to “go to Korea” to arrange a settlement, Eisenhower was no less convinced than Truman that the conflict epitomized the Communists’ international campaign of aggression.
Eisenhower’s failures
The newly elected US President, choosing Dean Acheson and John Foster Dulles’ advice to support French efforts to re-enslave Indochina as the price for French support of NATO.
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Of equal moment from Eisenhower’s perspective was the likely impact of a Vietminh victory on the principle of collective security. To allow such a victory to follow the China debacle not only would compromise the U.S. commitment to defend against international aggression but also would undermine America’s moral authority as the leader of the free world. As a result weak and hesitant nations would suffer an irreparable loss of confidence in the cooperative system. They would be apt to perceive friendship with the United States as more of a liability than an asset and seek protection by aligning themselves with the Communists. To Eisenhower, even without the economic and strategic considerations outlined above, the need to underscore his administration’s credibility and to show the collective determination of the non-Communist nations to oppose aggression was sufficiently important to warrant drawing the line. As he put it emphatically, “Where in the hell can you let the Communists chip away any more? We just can’t stand it.
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Small wonder, then, that Eisenhower confided to his close friend and comrade-in-arms Alfred M. Gruenther that a Vietminh victory “would be a calamity of the most terrible immediate and eventual consequence.”72 It is remarkable that the president wrote this letter on 8 June 1954, one month following the fall of Dien Bien Phu. The transcendent interests that Eisenhower believed the United States had in Southeast Asia should have dictated, one might think, that his government do whatever necessary to salvage the beleaguered French force. That Eisenhower decided against intervention suggests that, on balance, he concluded that the United States had more of a stake in remaining a noncombatant than it did in saving Indochina. This conclusion appears paradoxical unless one recognizes that Eisenhower always concentrated on strategy, not tactics. According to his way of thinking, the conduct of a campaign as vast as the crusade against international communism required that the United States on occasion bend so that it would not break. The successful strategist must realize when circumstances demand retreat, regardless of costs. To Eisenhower, Indochina was one of those circumstances.
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The United States could expect vehement criticism from nations such as India and Indonesia and from other nonwhite constituencies who suspected Western imperialism. “I think it would be a crippling blow to our position in the Far East, and consequently to the cause we represent, if we became identified in any degree with the colonialist idea,” wrote the U.S. consul in Hanoi. Eisenhower concurred: “We would in the eyes of many Asiatic people merely replace French colonialism with American colonialism.
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Had circumstances been different, the evidence suggests that Eisenhower would have approved military action.81 In the event, however, he had to decide whether the advantages to be gained by intervening outweighed the consequences. He decided they did not, but he still considered Indochina of tremendous significance to American interests. Consequently, he erected in South Vietnam the anti-Communist rampart he thought essential. No longer would the United States have to operate through “a French keyhole.” “We have a clean base there now,” Dulles is reported to have said, “without a taint of colonialism. Dien Bien Phu was a blessing in disguise.’’ For Eisenhower, perhaps it was, but he left a curse for his successors.
Ely versus Radford
There may be no greater example of the the crisis of Franco-American Relations than the positions of France’s Army Chief of Staff General Paul Ely and the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Arthur W. Radford. On the brink of desperation and global humiliation France, reaching out for American intervention to save the garrison yet still refusing to grant freedom to Indochina:
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During a series of conversations in March 1954, while the fate of Dien Bien Phu hung in the balance, French Army Chief of Staff General Paul Ely and Admiral Arthur W. Radford, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, exchanged heated words. The general complained “in great frankness” of the “invading nature of Americans’’ and of their apparent determination “to control and operate everything of importance.’’ He went on to protest that the Americans did not appreciate the extreme difficulties France labored under at home and in Indochina. Some Americans even seemed to favor Germany over France, he added. While attempting to “set the record straight” on these charges, Radford warned that his countrymen were “growing very impatient” with “French tendencies to overemphasize their prestige and sensitivities.
The Radford-Ely exchanges reflected the accumulated tensions of four years of uneasy partnership between their two countries in Indochina. Both nations brought to their collaboration a 150-year legacy of friendship and alliance in war, and for different reasons they shared a fervent desire to contain Communist expansion in Asia.
Although British and congressional opposition are usually cited as the reason for the American refusal to intervene in Indochina in April 1954, the profound differences between France and the United States, so dramatically manifested in the Radford-Ely discussions, were equally important and, indeed, may have been the decisive factor.
The Americans brought to the partnership attitudes perfectly calculated to inflame French sensitivities. Conveniently forgetting or rationalizing away their own imperial past, they could be insufferably self-righteous about what Acheson labeled France’s “old-fashioned colonial attitudes.
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To the beleaguered French, American aid was essential and unsatisfactory. Especially in the first two years, when the Korean War placed enormous strains on Washington’s logistics system, there were chronic shortages and delays, and the French repeatedly protested that the aid was inadequate and too slow in arriving. Later, they complained that the Vietminh were getting from China more modern equipment captured from American forces in Korea than France was getting directly from the United States.
French officials also complained about the administration of the aid program. At U.S. insistence they reluctantly had acquiesced in the establishment of the small Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG) in Indochina to assist in the handling of American aid. They bitterly resented the presence of MAAG, however, and they repeatedly complained that the junior officers staffing it were obstructing the program by requiring excessive justification for requests and refusing to consider or turning down important proposals. General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny complained on one occasion that MAAG’s obstructionism left the impression that the United States was no longer interested in Indochina.
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Other Americans were even more outspoken. “What seemed most needed in Indochina, and what the United States could not offer under our MDAP,” Admiral Radford later snarled, “was guts.” The treatment accorded MAAG provoked even more protest. French insistence that it be kept small made it almost impossible for the program to do its work. The French continued to complain that it was too large, however, and refused to give it adequate housing. They went out of their way to make life difficult for MAAG, even to the point of imposing a luxury tax on the import of amenities such as washing machines for the use of the group. As often as possible, French officials bypassed MAAG in placing orders for equipment, reducing it to little more than ‘’order taking in the commercial sense.
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The Truman administration had rejected repeated proposals to attach strings to aid to France, fearing that it would hinder cooperation with a touchy ally. Despite the generous terms on which this aid was provided, the French refused to ask for American advice. They refused also to keep U.S. representatives informed of what they were doing, and they did not even provide an order of battle. Nowhere “else in the world,” U.S. Ambassador in Saigon Donald Heath complained, “have we been willing to spend the sums and make the effort now required in Indochina without substantial and continuing opportunities to influence [the] directions and course of [the] national enterprises we are supporting.
Domino Theory was literally Ground Zero
Eisenhower authored his “domino theory” that would become the military policy of America around the pending loss of Dien Bien Phu:
Finally, you have broader considerations that might follow what you would call the “falling domino” principle. You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you could have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences.
Eisnerhower’s news conference on April 7, 1954
Looking back, there would be no truth to his theory across Indochina 70 years later. Yet at the time Eisenhower’s domino theory captured the heart of hawks across both sides of the Atlantic:
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During the following week the administration prepared the way for United Action. Dulles conferred with the British and the French ambassadors, and Eisenhower wrote a personal letter to Prime Minister Winston Churchill urging British support for a coalition that would be “willing to fight” to defend Southeast Asia. At a news conference on 7 April the president outlined what came to be known as the “domino theory,” explaining that if Indochina fell the rest of Southeast Asia would “go over very quickly,” with “’incalculable” losses to the free world. A carrier strike force already on station in the South China Sea was moved to within 100 miles of Hainan Island and began air reconnaissance of Chinese airfields and staging areas.
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In a 6 April speech that won praise from both sides of the aisle, Democratic Senator John F. Kennedy warned that victory could not be won so long as the French remained. Echoing Kennedy’s sentiments, Senators Estes Kefauver, Wayne Morse, and Mike Mansfield demanded that France clarify its intentions regarding independence for Indochina. On 7 April, Senator Henry Jackson hit closer to the point bothering many in Congress when he demanded that the administration reveal its own intentions in Indochina.
On the day after Dulles’s return a high administration source, subsequently identified as Vice President Nixon, set that pot boiling again. Speaking before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Nixon, answering a “hypothetical” question about how the United States would respond to a French collapse in Indochina, affirmed that “we must take the risk by putting our boys in.” Regarded at the time and since as a trial balloon, Nixon’s remarks had not been authorized, and Press Secretary James Hagerty deemed them “foolish.” Some administration officials rationalized that at least they might keep the Communists guessing, but the State Department, acting on instructions from Eisenhower, hurriedly put out an ambiguous statement to “clarify” U.S. policy without ‘’cutting the ground from under Nixon.
Operation Vautour (Vulture)
French Prime Minister Georges Bidault, deeply shaken by his garrison’s pending defeat requested American air power straif the Viet Minh in the surrounding hills. However Eisenhower chose to withhold a nuclear attack on Dien Bien Phu.
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With the administration’s strategy threatened from several directions, Dulles hastened back to Europe for a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) council session. The issue of U.S. air intervention at Dien Bien Phu immediately emerged. The situation of the French fortress had become perilous. Efforts to retake the inner hill positions had failed, costing France all its reserves. The beleaguered garrison had been reduced to about 3,000 able-bodied fighting men, and resupply was virtually impossible. On 22 April, Bidault, whom Dulles described as “totally exhausted mentally,” hinted at French willingness to internationalize the war and warned that nothing short of “massive air intervention by the U.S.” could save Dien Bien Phu. On the following day the foreign minister showed Dulles an “urgent” cable from Navarre, indicating that in the absence of an air strike Navarre would have no choice but to order a cease-fire. Bidault’s later claim that at that point Dulles offered him the loan of two atomic weapons seems highly implausible. No other evidence of the alleged offer exists in available French or American sources. Dulles did not have the authority to take such a step, and for him to have so exceeded his prerogatives would have been inconsistent with his usual conduct and with the caution he displayed throughout the Dien Bien Phu crisis. Dulles had shown little interest in JCS contingency plans that called for atomic bombs should the United States intervene. Eisenhower did discuss the possibility of lending France “new weapons” but not until 30 April, while Dulles was in Europe. Shocked when he learned of the charges, the secretary could only surmise that as a result of Bidault’s highly agitated state of mind or of problems of translation, Bidault had interpreted as an offer a random statement that U.S. policy now treated nuclear weapons as conventional.”
On the day after Dulles’s return a high administration source, subsequently identified as Vice President Nixon, set that pot boiling again. Speaking before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Nixon, answering a “hypothetical” question about how the United States would respond to a French collapse in Indochina, affirmed that “we must take the risk by putting our boys in.” Regarded at the time and since as a trial balloon, Nixon’s remarks had not been authorized, and Press Secretary James Hagerty deemed them “foolish.” Some administration officials rationalized that at least they might keep the Communists guessing, but the State Department, acting on instructions from Eisenhower, hurriedly put out an ambiguous statement to “clarify” U.S. policy without ‘’cutting the ground from under Nixon.
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With the administration’s strategy threatened from several directions, Dulles hastened back to Europe for a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) council session. The issue of U.S. air intervention at Dien Bien Phu immediately emerged. The situation of the French fortress had become perilous. Efforts to retake the inner hill positions had failed, costing France all its reserves. The beleaguered garrison had been reduced to about 3,000 able-bodied fighting men, and resupply was virtually impossible. On 22 April, Bidault, whom Dulles described as “totally exhausted mentally,” hinted at French willingness to internationalize the war and warned that nothing short of “massive air intervention by the U.S.” could save Dien Bien Phu. On the following day the foreign minister showed Dulles an “urgent” cable from Navarre, indicating that in the absence of an air strike Navarre would have no choice but to order a cease-fire.
Bidault’s later claim that at that point Dulles offered him the loan of two atomic weapons seems highly implausible. No other evidence of the alleged offer exists in available French or American sources. Dulles did not have the authority to take such a step, and for him to have so exceeded his prerogatives would have been inconsistent with his usual conduct and with the caution he displayed throughout the Dien Bien Phu crisis. Dulles had shown little interest in JCS contingency plans that called for atomic bombs should the United States intervene. Eisenhower did discuss the possibility of lending France “new weapons” but not until 30 April, while Dulles was in Europe. Shocked when he learned of the charges, the secretary could only surmise that as a result of Bidault’s highly agitated state of mind or of problems of translation, Bidault had interpreted as an offer a random statement that U.S. policy now treated nuclear weapons as conventional.
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Even with the fate of Dien Bien Phu in the balance, the United States and France could not bridge the vast gap that had long separated them. France had finally agreed to Vietnamese independence, but the question of internationalization of the war remained unsettled. Moreover, the two nations differed sharply in their approaches to the short-term issues. Bidault warned Dulles that making intervention conditional on British participation would merely cause delays when speed was of the essence, and he added that the British contribution would not “amount to much of anything.” To secure an immediate air strike, he cleverly played on established American fears. If Dien Bien Phu fell, he warned, the French people would insist on getting out of the war and would have no use for a coalition, which they would view as a sinister means of keeping them fighting indefinitely.
Anticipating a negative British response, the French pressed for unilateral U.S. action. Bidault informed Dulles that French military experts had concluded that a massive air strike could deliver a “decisive blow” because the Vietminh had so many men and so much matériel concentrated around Dien Bien Phu. The French pleaded for “armed intervention” through “executive action” or some other “constitutional way to help,” warning of ominous “consequences to the war in Indochina and to Franco-American relations if nothing were done.
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Eisenhower and Dulles peremptorily rejected the French proposal. Dulles advised the administration that because the security of the United States was not directly threatened, the political risk could in no way be justified. Air intervention might not save Dien Bien Phu, he added, and the United States could not be certain that France would continue the fight. Intervention without Britain would “gravely strain” relations with Australia and New Zealand as well as with Britain. There would not be time to “arrange proper political understandings” with the French, and ‘’once our prestige is committed in battle, our negotiating position in these matters would be almost negligible.” If necessary, it would be better to let Dien Bien Phu fall than to intervene “under the present circumstances.” Eisenhower agreed. Years later he contemptuously recalled Bidault’s last-minute proposals to “solve . . . our constitutional problems’ and launch a unilateral air strike on their terms.
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Nor did direct appeals sway Churchill. The prime minister told Radford on 26 April that since the British people had let India go they could not be expected to give their lives to hold Indochina for France. At a formal dinner that evening, the old warrior went into a long and emotional discourse, asserting that the Indochina War could be won only by using “that horrible thing”the atomic bomb and noting Britain’s vulnerability in the event of a nuclear war. “I have known many reverses myself,” he concluded; “I have not given in. I have suffered Singapore, Hong-Kong, Tobruk; the French will have Dien Bien Phu.” The British would not be drawn into what they feared would be “Radford’s war against China.”
“The British and French responses to the crisis infuriated American leaders. Privately, Eisenhower vented his rage with his allies. The British had shown a “woeful unawareness” of the risks “we run in that region,” he confided to his diary. The French had used “weasel words” in promising independence to the Vietnamese, he wrote to an old friend, and “through this one reason as much as anything else have suffered reverses that have been really inexcusable.” They wanted the Americans “to come in as junior partners and provide materials, etc., while they themselves retain authority in that region,” and he would not go along with them “on any such notion.
The American decision sealed Dien Bien Phu’s doom. The hopelessly outnumbered defenders finally surrendered on 7 May after fifty-five days of heroic, but futile, resistance. The attention of the belligerents and of interested outside parties immediately shifted to Geneva, where on the following day the Indochina phase of the conference was to begin.
The evidence presented here permits firm conclusions about the role of the United States in the Dien Bien Phu crisis. Contrary to Roberts’s view, the Eisenhower administration clearly was at no point committed to an air strike at Dien Bien Phu. Even when faced with a total French collapse in the frantic days of late April, the administration did not deviate from the position it had staked out before Dulles and Radford met with congressional leaders. At the same time Eisenhower and Dulles seem to have been much more willing to intervene militarily than the president later indicated in his memoirs. United Action was certainly part bluff, but it also involved a willingness to commit U.S. military power if conditions warranted it and if the proper arrangements could be made.
The praise accorded Eisenhower for consulting with Congress seems overstated. The political situation left him little choice but to consult, and in any event his intent was to manipulate Congress into giving him a broad grant of authority not unlike that which President Johnson secured in 1964. Implicating Congress in the Dien Bien Phu decisions protected the administration’s domestic flank, but it represented at best a hollow victory.
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Like Laniel, Bidault was opposed to any direct negotiation with the Vietminh and hoped, with the aid of the Soviet Union, to negotiate the suspension of Chinese support for Ho Chi Minh in return for monetary grants for equipment to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Reynaud had decided that the moment had come to grant genuine independence to the Associated States and to stand aside and let the Americans continue the war. Jacquet wished to negotiate a compromise directly with the Vietminh, while Pleven held the opposite view and accepted only unofficial overtures intended to prove their intentions.
In order to negotiate, France had to avoid a defeat at Dien Bien Phu, where it had sought engagement. Laniel, a former artillery officer, was skeptical of a French victory on such terrain. Consequently, in February he sent Pleven to inspect the Indochina front in the company of various chiefs of staff, including Ely. After their inspection Pleven and Ely expressed their reservations concerning the possibility of defending this entrenched camp.
On “11 March, while giving an account of his mission to the Committee of National Defense, Pleven made a guarded assessment. The overall military situation appeared to exclude a decisive Vietminh victory, but it was based on unstable conditions. France had air superiority, but the Vietminh had at their disposal “inexhaustible” Chinese aid. Were the Navarre Plan to be implemented, it would at best, in 1955, slow down the Vietminh, whereas the current military effort was rapidly exhausting the French Expeditionary Corps (FEC), both physically and emotionally. As Pleven noted, the Geneva Conference represented the honorable way to pull out of such a situation, but, he added, the United States appeared to be counting on a fairly quick military solution.
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Thus, on 23 March, when Ely asked Dulles if the United States were prepared to retaliate in the event that Chinese aircraft appeared in the skies over Indochina, the secretary of state refused to reply. Like Radford, Dulles stressed the necessity, should that hypothetical situation arise, of making a place for the United States in the Indochina command as well as of granting genuine independence to the Associated States.
Conversely, on 22 March, Eisenhower had asked Radford in Ely’s presence to make priority responses to all French requests to rescue Dien Bien Phu. As for Radford, he proposed to Ely to examine, as a working hypothesis subject to an official request from the French government and to the political agreement of Eisenhower and Dulles, the possibility of an American aerial bombardment no longer with the goal of warding off a Chinese threat but at loosening the noose that encircled Dien Bien Phu. Ely, Nixon, and Radford met to define the technical aspects of the operation; they all agreed on the proposal of Colonel Raymond Brohon, Ely’s assistant, to bombard Vietminh depots in the Tuang Giao region near the Chinese border. Nixon, very much the interventionist, was enthused by this idea, and Radford ordered the Pacific Command to make an on-site study of the conditions for its realization. The plan, which was still subject to political agreement, was named Vautour (VULTURE) after having been sent to General Navarre for his opinion; the general often gave the names of birds to his operations. In the final analysis the Americans had made no commitments, but the contingency evoked by Radford corresponded too much to the wishes of the French government for the latter not to seek its realization, even though the political agreement upon which the operation hinged still was lacking.
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On the 7th, Navarre, panicking, requested that U.S. aircraft camouflaged with French markings and piloted by Americans carry out a nonnuclear bombing mission around the entrenched camp. In that manner the United States would not be officially involved, and the operation would be possible without waiting for the conclusion of the Dulles Pact. So long as the operation took place at night in successive waves, each of which did not exceed the total available strength of French aircraft, the Vietminh and the Chinese, according to Navarre, would not suspect the presence of American planes. In the commanding general’s view it was absolutely necessary to hope that that conclusion would not be reached, since Navarre believed that the PRC, should it decide to react, could quickly put into service 200 planes capable of destroying the entire French air force based at Tonkin, without any possibility of resistance. Ely informed Radford of these proposals, but he was unable to promise Navarre a bombing mission for 10 April.
Dulles, apparently took advantage of French disarray to impose United Action on the British through psychological pressure. After having listened to an account in which Ely hid nothing about the dismal military situation in Indochina, he had lunch with Eden (who would attend only the afternoon talks) and told him of his concerns. Perhaps this was his way of convincing the foreign secretary that it was impossible for the West to arrive at Geneva in a good position.
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During the afternoon Dulles reportedly asked if an atomic bomb could be used effectively at Dien Bien Phu and offered two of them to France. It was an offer rashly made, substantiated only by Bidault’s eyewitness account and whose motives (if the offer was really made) remain obscure. Indeed, the secretary of state surely was not empowered to make this promise, which contradicted his earlier reticences and which no doubt would not have been kept. The fact remains that, in addition to Bidault and Chauvel in their memoirs, Ely mentions these bombs in his diary, which was kept on a daily basis. Three days later the general would give serious consideration to the offer.
One can only imagine Eisenhower providing atomic weapons to Bidault. This tragedy would certainly have reshaped American policy in confronting Moscow and Beijing.
The French coup d’état (March 1955 Sect Crisis)
Following military defeat at Dien Bien Phu, France continued meddling to reinstall colonial rule across South Vietnam. While North Vietnam welcomed French business opportunities, French agents around Saigon at the same time were attempting to oust Diem by supporting three major Saigon criminal gangs: the Cao Dai, the Hoa Hao, and the Binh Xuyen. Yet American Edward Lansdale would thwart the final attempt of the French:
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Thus, almost one year to the day after the fall of Dien Bien Phu, France suffered a second defeat, this time politically and diplomatically a defeat that marked a decisive stage in the elimination of its influence in South Vietnam. The consequences of this crisis may be clear, but its causes and development have raised questions that are still bitterly debated. Did the French authorities in Saigon side with the sects that opposed Diem, thus betraying the commitments made to the Americans during the September 1954 talks in Washington?
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Did they want, as the Americans suspected, to seize an unexpected and probably last opportunity to bring back their influence in Saigon as it had been during the colonial period? Or, on the contrary, were they motivated purely by the difficulties of the moment or by long-range concerns?
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Thus, whereas for the Americans, Diem represented South Vietnam’s best chance to build a stable regime, in the eyes of many French leaders he was the surest way to communism. In addition, his Francophobia was seen to be a threat to France’s strategic interests. Indeed, Vietnam was a window on Asia. According to Ely, maintaining a presence there was the way for Paris to keep a seat on the interallied councils in charge of that continent. It was a way for France to keep or recover its role as a Great Power.
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In the fall he thought that he had convinced the American ambassador to Saigon, Donald Heath, of the necessity of removing Diem. After Heath was recalled, Ely worked on General Collins in his unflagging attempts at persuasion and did not lose hope of succeeding: Washington finally would recognize that Diem was incapable of creating national unity. But Ely, who always weighed every action, also feared that if the Americans were confronted with the failure of a man that they had so eagerly backed, they would decide to abandon Vietnam just as they had abandoned mainland China after the defeat of Chiang Kai-shek. Ely knew that the French had neither the men, the money, nor the matériel to hold back the Vietminh by themselves, which led him not to rush his dealings with the Americans.
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Moreover, in January 1955 the high commissioner’s position was coming closer to that of the United States. He noted that Diem had consolidated his authority. After Hinh’s departure the army had reinstated itself at the side of the head of the government. The sects had grown weaker, especially the Binh Xuyen the closing of Le Grand Monde, the largest brothel and gambling house in the Far East, had deprived it of an important source of income. In addition, public opinion was favorably impressed with the fight against corruption and by impending reforms. Ely concluded that many present difficulties were only transitory, and there was no assurance that the politicians whose names had been suggested would do better than the current prime minister. He also noted that the sects were poorly united. Their relative weakness might incite them not to “fall back into line” but to resume their offensive against Diem before it was too late. 20 And this was exactly what was to happen in mid-March, when Ely was in Paris to consult with the newly formed Edgar Faure government.
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Moreover, in January 1955 the high commissioner’s position was coming closer to that of the United States. He noted that Diem had consolidated his authority. After Hinh’s departure the army had reinstated itself at the side of the head of the government. The sects had grown weaker, especially the Binh Xuyen the closing of Le Grand Monde, the largest brothel and gambling house in the Far East, had deprived it of an important source of income. In addition, public opinion was favorably impressed with the fight against corruption and by impending reforms. Ely concluded that many present difficulties were only transitory, and there was no assurance that the politicians whose names had been suggested would do better than the current prime minister. He also noted that the sects were poorly united. Their relative weakness might incite them not to “fall back into line” but to resume their offensive against Diem before it was too late. 20 And this was exactly what was to happen in mid-March, when Ely was in Paris to consult with the newly formed Edgar Faure government.
On 21 March the crisis erupted in Saigon. The leaders of the three sects the Cao Dai, the Hoa Hao, and the Binh Xuyen issued an ultimatum to Prime Minister Diem, demanding that he implement a total reform of his Cabinet within five days. Should he refuse to comply and should a compromise not be reached, there was every reason to believe that civil war would break out: the sects had their troops at the gates of Saigon, and the city’s chief of security, Sang, was a member of the Binh Xuyen.
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It was in this extremely troubled atmosphere that, on 26 April, Diem relieved Sang of his duties as director of Internal Security and cut off the electricity and telephone service in Sang’s offices. At the same time Diem reinforced the security at Norodom Palace. Two days later hostilities broke out between government forces and those of the Binh Xuyen, but this time High Commissioner Ely was powerless to intervene as a mediator: government troops involved in the incident were beyond the authority of the chief of the general staff, General Vy, with whom the French had good relations. The fight continued until the Binh Xuyen, which were using delaying tactics, managed to retreat in an orderly manner and hide in the marshlands at the gates of the city. Nevertheless, the situation remained confused since a large part of the army backed General Vy and was hostile to Diem. Here again, money worked miracles, by causing a great number of officers to be favorably disposed toward the prime minister. By the first of May, Diem had consolidated his power, thanks to the determined action of some Americans and, most especially, of Colonel Lansdale.
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Ely’s departure marked the end of an era and the beginning of another, characterized in Saigon by a badly faltering monarchy, the cancellation of elections, and the accelerated withdrawal of the FEC. The outcome of the crisis, in the spring of 1955, meant that the French had failed on two major points: honoring the Geneva Accords with regard to the preparation of the Vietnamese elections and maintaining on a long-term basis a strategic French presence in Indochina, notably at Cap St. Jacques (Vung Tau). That failure was most certainly inscribed in the divergent objectives of Paris and Washington as it was in the balance of power between the French and the Americans. Since in France, however, Ely occasionally has been blamed for playing into the hands of the Americans, whereas in the United States others have considered that the French sided with the sects, we must, in concluding, more closely specify the elements that had guided his thought and action and see what finally had been the stumbling block between the French and the Americans.
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Tacked onto the problem of Vietnamese society was that of security, or more precisely, of terrorism, which the French had the misfortune of experiencing in the course of eight years of conflict. And it was not a thing of the past: in 1950 the Vietminh controlled the Saigon-Cholon urban center. They levied a tax on French merchants, mounted attacks against those who did not submit, fired mortar shells at American ships in port, and threw grenades at diplomatic missions, into movie theaters, and in the open-air markets.
Notes:
The Cao Dai and the Hoa Hao had gained control over the peasantry with a sort of religious proselytism: Cao Dai was the Supreme Being, while the “Pope” and the dignitaries of the sect lived off forced offerings from the faithful. The Hoa Hao had established their fief in the western part of Cochin China, while the Cao Dai had established theirs in the east. They had built armies with the help of the French, eliminated the Vietminh, and “maintained law and order. The Binh Xuyen, which controlled the Saigon-Cholon area, originally were a band of pirates who got their start in “business” by acquiring gambling houses and brothels, notably Le Grand Monde. Because of their enormous financial resources and because the French had turned over the control of the police to them in 1950, their power was considerable.
In conclusion Dien Bien Phu and the Crisis of Franco-American Relations, 1954-1955 provides deep insights and rich scholarship. This can reveal insightful strains America faced taking over the war.