Jot down the answers only!

• What big battle ended on the eve of the Geneva Conference?

• Who won? • What is the significance of this battle for

the winner and loser?

• On the next slide, there are flags of the participants at the Geneva Conference. Identify them…if you dare!!!

GENEVA CONFERENCEMAY 1954

Problems

• Vietminh won’t speak to French and vice versa

• US (JF Dulles) won’t even smile @ the Chinese

• Nobody notices that Laos/Cambodia are there

• What shape should the table be?

TWO Key Issues

• How will war in Indochina be resolved?

• What will the future of Vietnam be?United, Divided, Communist, Non-Communist?

4 Major Decisions• Cease fire, no re-arming

• Divide Vietnam at 17th parallel

• Comm troops withdraw to N

• 1956 elections for unification     

Dos Problemas with the Settlement

• Did Ho sell out?

• US/SV don’t sign, but

agree “in principle” – Why?

CIA estimate (Aug ’54)

“If scheduled elections are held in July 1956…the Vietminh will almost surely win.” (The CIA employs poets!)

Eisenhower

• Given the CIA prediction, if you were President Ike, what would you do?

FOUR Results of Geneva• Emperor Bao Dai resigns

• Ngo Dinh Diem becomes pres of SV

• US backs Diem and non-communist SV

• Elections to unify are never held

• 1. “The Americans are only interested in replacing the French. They want to reorganize our economy in order to control it. They are capitalists to the core. All that counts for them is business.” ______________

• 2. “We are the supporting pillar of the defense of the West in Southeast Asia; if this pillar crumbles, Singapore, Malaysia and India will soon fall prey to Mao Tse-tung. The defense of freedom in Indochina has practically cost us twice what we received under the Marshall Plan and in the form of military aid.” __________________

• 3. “We do not commit aggression against others and we are firmly opposed to aggressive action by anyone else. We advocate peace and oppose war. But we certainly will not take it lying down if someone else’s armed aggression is directed against us. The Americans have proposed sending aircraft carriers and planes to participate directly in the Indochina War and Vice President Nixon has actually shouted about dispatching American ground forces to Indochina. The time is ripe for ending the war in Indochina. ______________

• 4. “The Indochina War is a civil war that has been in effect captured by the Soviet Politburo and, besides, has been turned into a tool of the Politburo. So it isn’t a civil war in the usual sense. It is part of an international war.” ____________________

 

• 5. “While we do not believe that a French collapse in Indochina would come about as rapidly as the Americans appear to envisage, this danger reinforces the need to lay the foundations of a wider and viable defense organization for Southeast Asia. We propose therefore that the United States and ___________________ should begin an immediate and secret joint examination of the political and military problems in creating a collective defense of Southeast Asia.”

Cold War Context

• Explain how the U.S. stance at Geneva (and afterwards) relates to the Cold War.