Embers of War (126 page)

20
“Relations franco-américaines,” January 21, 1953, 457 AP 44, Dossier 2, Papiers Georges Bidault, AN; Irwin Wall,
The United States and the Making of Postwar France, 1945–1954
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 250; Kathryn C. Statler,
Replacing France: The Origins of American Intervention in Vietnam
(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2007), 62–63.

21
George W. Allen,
None So Blind: A Personal Account of the Intelligence Failure in Vietnam
(Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2001), 46.

22
JCS memo to Wilson, April 21, 1953, in
FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina
, XIII, 1:493–95; Arthur Radford,
From Pearl Harbor to Vietnam: The Memoirs of Admiral Arthur W. Radford
, ed. Stephen Jurika (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1980), 362. See also Spector,
Advice and Support
, 170–71; and Dwight D. Eisenhower,
Mandate for Change: 1953–1956
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1963), 168.

23
Arnold,
First Domino
, 114.

24
Memo of discussion, NSC, April 28, 1953, in
FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina
, XIII, 1:516–19; Eisenhower to Dillon, May 6, 1953, International File: France, 1953 (3), Box 10, Eisenhower Library.

25
Vincent Auriol,
Journal du Septennat, 1947–1954
, vol. 7:
1953–1954
(Paris: Armand Colin, 1971), 220.

26
Dillon Memorandum, April 9, 1953, Ann Whitman File, Box 1, Dulles-Herter Series, Eisenhower Library; SecState to Paris, May 6, 1953,
FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina
, XIII, 1:550–51. See also ibid., 561–62.

27
Memo of discussion, NSC, April 28, 1953, in
FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina
, XIII, 1:516–19; Memo of discussion, NSC, May 6, 1953, in
FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina
, XIII, 1:546–49.

28
Douglas Porch,
The French Secret Services: A History of French Intelligence from the Dreyfus Affair to the Gulf War
(New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1995), 323–24.

29
See, e.g.,
L’Observateur
, May 8, 1953; Jacques Despuech,
Le trafic des piastres
(Paris: Deux Rives, 1953). And see Hugues Tertrais,
La piastre et le fusil: Le coût de la guerre d’Indochine 1945–1954
(Paris: Comité pour l’histoire économique et financière de la France, 2002), 133–50.

30
Ellen J. Hammer,
The Struggle for Indochina, 1940–1955
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1955), 300–1;
NYT
, May 20, 1953.

31
CIA Office of National Estimates, “Staff Memorandum No. 349: French Political Developments,” April 30, 1953, NSC Staff Papers, Box 12, PSB Central Files, Eisenhower Library.

32
State Department memcon, “Metropolitan French Opinions and Attitudes on Indochina War,” May 4, 1953, NSC Staff Papers, Box 12, PSB Central Files, Eisenhower Library. The poll results were not published in the paper until early the following year. Declared the headline:
“65% de Francais souhaiterait le retrait des troupes ou une négociation.” Le Monde
, February 24, 1954. On the growing conviction in French official circles in this period that the war was ruining France economically, see Tertrais,
La piastre et le fusil
.

33
Paris to FO, May 30, 1953, FO 371/106752, TNA.

34
Both books were published in 1952.

35
The
Paris-Presse
article is described in
NYT
, May 9, 1953. As the year progressed,
Le Monde
contained more and more articles critical of the war. A Gaullist deputy complained in a letter in the paper: “Indochina resembles a ship without a captain.… We cannot continue to bog ourselves down in a war without end without a goal.” M. Raymond Dronne, “Pour quoi nous combattons,”
Le Monde
, May 9, 1953.

36
“La France peut supporter la vérité,”
L’Express
, May 16, 1953; Edward Rice-Maximin,
Accommodation and Resistance: The French Left, Indochina and the Cold War
(Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1986), 136.

37
Letourneau quoted in Jacques Dalloz,
The War in Indo-China, 1945–1954
(New York: Barnes & Noble, 1990), 163. Dillon comment in Paris to SecState, July 2, 1953, in
FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina
, XIII, 1:631–32.

38
Paris to SecState, June 17, 1953,
FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina
, XIII, 1:610–12.

CHAPTER 15:
Navarre’s American Plan

  
1
Jules Roy,
The Battle of Dienbienphu
, trans. Robert Baldick (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), 7; Stanley Karnow,
Vietnam: A History
(New York: Viking, 1983), 204.

  
2
Navarre was aware of the grumbling. He later wrote that “nothing in my career prepared me for this post. I had never served in the Far East and knew of the Indochina problem only what every more or less well-informed Frenchman knew.” Henri Navarre,
Agonie de l’Indochine
(Paris: Plon, 1956), 2.

  
3
According to French figures (as given to the British), “total French Union and National” forces in May 1953, when Navarre took command, were: regular armies, 316,438; air forces, 11, 394; navies, 10,890; army suppletifs (auxiliaries), 104,113; paramilitary, 75,380; interpreters, etc., 5,468; for a total of 523,683. “Appendix B,” May 4, 1953, FO 371/106777, TNA. Viet Minh assessments of enemy strength in this period are similar. See Vo Nguyen Giap,
Dien Bien Phu: Rendezvous with History
(Hanoi: Gioi, 2004), 9.

  
4
Roy,
Battle of Dienbienphu
, 12.

  
5
Navarre is quoted in
Time
, June 29, 1953, and in James Cable,
The Geneva Conference of 1954 on Indochina
(London: Macmillan, 1986), 22. For Navarre’s reaction to being asked to take the Indochina appointment, see his
Agonie de l’Indochine
, 1–3. For his awareness of the size of the task, see p. 67.

  
6
Pierre Rocolle,
Pourquoi Dien Bien Phu?
(Paris: Flammarion, 1968), 21; Paul Ély,
L’Indochine dans la tourmente
(Paris: Plon, 1964), 25.

  
7
David Halberstam,
The Fifties
(New York: Villard, 1993), 400.

  
8
George W. Allen,
None So Blind: A Personal Account of the Intelligence Failure in Vietnam
(Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2001), 46–47; Ronald H. Spector,
Advice and Support: The Early Years of the U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1941–1960
(Washington, D.C.: Center for Military History, 1985), 175; Hugues Tertrais, “Stratégie et decisions,” in Pierre Journoud and Hugues Tertrais, eds.,
1954–2004: La bataille de Dien Bien Phu, entre histoire et mémoire
(Paris: Société française d’histoire d’outre-mer, 2004), 30–31; Pierre Journoud and Hugues Tertrais,
Paroles de Dien Bien Phu: Les survivants témoignent
(Paris: Tallandier, 2004), 46–51.

  
9
Navarre,
Agonie de l’Indochine
, 28. And see here Ambassador Heath’s comments, in
FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina
, XIII, 1:628. He cabled Washington: “Navarre’s principles reflect … O’Daniel’s impact here.”

10
O’Daniel to Radford, June 30, 1953,
FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina
, XIII, 1:625; Spector,
Advice and Support
, 175. Navarre returned to Paris to present the plan at a meeting of the National Defense Committee on July 24, where it won endorsement. See Rocolle,
Pourquoi Dien Bien Phu?
, 51–53. On O’Daniel’s insistence on the need for a greater application of military force, see also Saigon to FO, July 2, 1953, FO 371/106761, TNA.

11
Bernard B. Fall, “Post-Mortems on Dien Bien Phu: Review Article,”
Far Eastern Survey
27, no. 10 (October 1958): 156.

12
Memcon, July 12, 1953,
FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina
, XIII, 1:656–67.

13
“Note générale sur la politique française en Indochine,” July 21, 1953, Box 31, René Mayer Papers, Series 363AP, AN.

14
Paris to FO, August 11, 1953, FO 474/7, TNA; Kathryn C. Statler,
Replacing France: The Origins of American Intervention in Vietnam
(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2007), 73.

15
Quoted in Dorothy Fall,
Bernard Fall: Memories of a Soldier-Scholar
(Washington, D.C.: Potomac, 2006), 55–81.

16
Bernard Fall,
Street Without Joy: Indochina at War 1946–1954
(Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1961), 255–56. See also Fall,
Bernard Fall
, 55–81.

17
Fall,
Bernard Fall
, 67.

18
Bernard B. Fall, “Insurgency Indicators,”
Military Review
46 (April 1966), 4.

19
Fall,
Bernard Fall
, 67–70.

20
“Appendix D,” April 11, 1953, FO 371/106775, TNA.

21
Quoted in
Newsweek
, April 20, 1953.

22
Dennis Duncan, “The Year of the Snake,”
Life
, August 3, 1953. On the subsequent dispute, see Bonnet to Bidault, July 24, 1953, Dossier 1, AN 457 AP 52, AN; and Saigon cables 391 and 461 in Record Group 59, 751 G.00/9–353, 9–1653, NARA; and C. D. Jackson daily summary, August 5, 1953, Box 68, C. D. Jackson Papers, Eisenhower Library. See also James Waite, “The End of the First Indochina War: An International History,” Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio University, 2005, 98–99.

23
Robert E. Herzstein,
Henry R. Luce, Time, and the American Crusade in Asia
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 183–84.

24
On the gap between the information the Luce magazines received and their published version of events, see ibid., 182–83.

25
Time
, September 28, 1953.

26
See, for example, the editorials on March 28, 1953, June 5, 1953, and October 2, 1953, and the interpretive articles by reporter Hanson W. Baldwin.

27
United States–Vietnam Relations 1945–1967: Study Prepared by the Department of Defense
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1971), 9:46.

28
The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of Decisionmaking on Vietnam
, Senator Gravel edition (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971), 1:591–92.

29
Washington to FO, August 1953, FO 371/103497.

30
Paris to State, July 22, 1953,
FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina
, XIII, 1:695. And see Spector,
Advice and Support
, 176.

31
Knowland press conference, September 16, 1953, “1953 Far East trip,” Series 364, Box 3, Nixon Pre-Presidential Papers, NARA–Laguna Niguel.

32
Don Oberdorfer,
Senator Mansfield: The Extraordinary Life of a Great American Statesman and Diplomat
(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian, 2003), 110–11;
NYT
, February 21, 1953. The senator was quoted in a front-page story concerning the prospect of increased U.S. aid to the war effort. The kicker under the headline read: “Mansfield Cites Urgency.”

33
Oberdorfer,
Senator Mansfield
, 117; Edward Miller, “Vision, Power and Agency: The Ascent of Ngô Dình Diêm, 1945–54,”
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies
35 (October 2004): 446–47.

34
Warner quoted in Oberdorfer,
Senator Mansfield
, 112.

35
Mansfield, “Indochina,” report prepared for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee of a mission to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1953). See also Robert Mann,
A Grand Delusion: America’s Descent into Vietnam
(New York: Basic, 2001), 120–21.

36
Time
, August 10, 1953.

37
Bui Diem with David Chanoff,
In the Jaws of History
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987), 79.

38
Ibid., 79–80; Bao Dai,
Le dragon d’Annam
(Paris: Plon, 1980), 315.

39
Saigon to State, October 17, 1953,
FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina
, XIII, 1:828–30; Saigon to State, October 18, 1953,
FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina
, XIII, 1:834–36.

40
Newsweek
, November 2, 1953; Jacques Dalloz,
The War in Indo-China, 1945–1954
(New York: Barnes & Noble, 1990), 166.

41
Time
, November 9, 1953; Paris to FO, October 2, 1953, FO 371/106770, TNA.

42
Saigon to FO, November 10, 1953, FO 474/7, TNA.

43
Ibid.; Richard Nixon,
RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon
(New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978), 122; “Conversations of Vice President Nixon with
Bao Dai
,” “1953 Far Eastern Trip,” Series 366, Box 2, Nixon Pre-Presidential Papers, NARA–Laguna Niguel.