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The Geneva Conference of 1954 on Indochina
Book by Cable, James
179 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 1986
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January 21, 2022
Many historians I have read emphasize the cautiousness the Eisenhower administration displayed at the Geneva conference on Indochina. In his book, James Cable effectively dispels this myth and proves, by examining Secretary of State John Foster Dulles's strategy, that Eisenhower's "United Action" was not as prudent as it is widely believed.
United Action was designed to maintain French involvement in the First Indochina War, stop Chinese aid to the Viet Minh, provide time to develop the Vietnamese forces, and lay the foundations for the military defeat of the Communists. Dulles envisioned a defense pact for Southeast Asia that would include the five Western powers and "interested" Asian states such as the Philippines and Thailand. The main goal of the strategy was to establish a pro-West regime in Vietnam that would be both not accused of being a colonial puppet and able to act as a Western ally against the forces of Communism. According to Dulles and General Navarre, this was the perfect plan, but not everyone thought so.
The American government had hoped to convince the French to maintain their military presence in Vietnam, but at Geneva both the French and the British expressed willingness to negotiate with the Communists. They did not want to internationalize the war under the conditions set by the Americans. Their stance was the first factor that made United Action unachievable. America had limited influence in Southeast Asia because unlike the British and the French, it did not have direct interests there, and America's European allies were reluctant to follow its diplomatic initiatives there. The determination of the British and French to negotiate a settlement to the war with Ho Chi Minh prevented the United States from organizing a coalition to intervene militarily in Vietnam. For the British, United Action was a risky concept that threatened to involve the Western alliance in global war with the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. As it had done during the Korean conflict, Britain attempted to restrain America's containment strategies involving China. United Action was discarded in favor of a policy based on an assessment of Britain's regional interests in Southeast Asia, its relative lack of resources to fight a war, and a determination to work out things peacefully with China.
The second factor was the political chaos and instability surrounding the non-Communist political factions in Vietnam. During the course of the conference, American policy-makers realized that Vietnam could not sustain itself without the continued support from a great power. This, together with the reluctance of its European allies to follow Dulles's plan, made the American government even more determined to build a non-Communist Vietnamese regime by replacing the French as the major power in Indochina.
There was nothing cautious about this course of action – rather, Britain and France were making attempts to restrain America. The conference was an important transition point in the American state-building experiment in Vietnam. The failure of the United Action proposal demonstrated that containing the Viet Minh through French military power was futile. Therefore, the result of the Geneva conference on Indochina was a greater American commitment to South Vietnam. Instead of keeping France in Indochina until the war is won, the United States took its place as the dominant foreign power there and started down its path toward an even more destructive war. Therefore, the Eisenhower administration's approach can hardly be praised for cautiousness and prudency.
THE GENEVA CONFERENCE OF 1954 ON VIETNAM is a really short work, but I was impressed by how clear Cable's account is. This concise book covers the conference better than any other history I have read so far – partially because its main focus is the conference, but also because of the author's writing skills. I was pleasantly surprised, and I highly recommend it to Vietnam history buffs.
United Action was designed to maintain French involvement in the First Indochina War, stop Chinese aid to the Viet Minh, provide time to develop the Vietnamese forces, and lay the foundations for the military defeat of the Communists. Dulles envisioned a defense pact for Southeast Asia that would include the five Western powers and "interested" Asian states such as the Philippines and Thailand. The main goal of the strategy was to establish a pro-West regime in Vietnam that would be both not accused of being a colonial puppet and able to act as a Western ally against the forces of Communism. According to Dulles and General Navarre, this was the perfect plan, but not everyone thought so.
The American government had hoped to convince the French to maintain their military presence in Vietnam, but at Geneva both the French and the British expressed willingness to negotiate with the Communists. They did not want to internationalize the war under the conditions set by the Americans. Their stance was the first factor that made United Action unachievable. America had limited influence in Southeast Asia because unlike the British and the French, it did not have direct interests there, and America's European allies were reluctant to follow its diplomatic initiatives there. The determination of the British and French to negotiate a settlement to the war with Ho Chi Minh prevented the United States from organizing a coalition to intervene militarily in Vietnam. For the British, United Action was a risky concept that threatened to involve the Western alliance in global war with the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. As it had done during the Korean conflict, Britain attempted to restrain America's containment strategies involving China. United Action was discarded in favor of a policy based on an assessment of Britain's regional interests in Southeast Asia, its relative lack of resources to fight a war, and a determination to work out things peacefully with China.
The second factor was the political chaos and instability surrounding the non-Communist political factions in Vietnam. During the course of the conference, American policy-makers realized that Vietnam could not sustain itself without the continued support from a great power. This, together with the reluctance of its European allies to follow Dulles's plan, made the American government even more determined to build a non-Communist Vietnamese regime by replacing the French as the major power in Indochina.
There was nothing cautious about this course of action – rather, Britain and France were making attempts to restrain America. The conference was an important transition point in the American state-building experiment in Vietnam. The failure of the United Action proposal demonstrated that containing the Viet Minh through French military power was futile. Therefore, the result of the Geneva conference on Indochina was a greater American commitment to South Vietnam. Instead of keeping France in Indochina until the war is won, the United States took its place as the dominant foreign power there and started down its path toward an even more destructive war. Therefore, the Eisenhower administration's approach can hardly be praised for cautiousness and prudency.
THE GENEVA CONFERENCE OF 1954 ON VIETNAM is a really short work, but I was impressed by how clear Cable's account is. This concise book covers the conference better than any other history I have read so far – partially because its main focus is the conference, but also because of the author's writing skills. I was pleasantly surprised, and I highly recommend it to Vietnam history buffs.
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