He refused to enter into preparatory consultations with Hanoi on the matter of the elections (according to paragraph 7 of the Final Declaration, these consultations were to begin by July 20, 1955), on the grounds that the State of (South) Vietnam was neither a signatory at Geneva nor a party to the Final Declaration, and moreover that only a duly elected representative body for the south could authorize the Saigon government to take a position on the subject.
