Radford and Foster Dulles met with the congressional leaders (including a future president, Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas) on April 3, 1954. The leaders made it clear that unless intervention was supported by the NATO allies, especially Great Britain, Congress would not approve direct U.S. intervention in Indochina—approval the administration would need if it were to honor Eisenhower’s news conference pledge and avoid another “presidential war” less than a year after the Korean armistice.
