Appendix I. Agreements of the Geneva Conference on Indochina__ Appendix II. Biographies of various personages in Indochina____. REPORT ON INDOCHINA 1. INTRODUCTION The foreign policy of the United States has suffered a serious reversal in Indochina. More than a year ago, we embarked on a major effort to assist in the preservation of the three nations in the Indochinese area. These nations, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, lay in the path of the southward sweep of totalitarian communism in Asia and were threatened with engulfment in a new type of colonialism even before they had achieved full independence from the old. The objective of our policy-to assist in the preservation of these states-was a worthy one. It accorded with our fundamental belief in the right of peoples to freedom. If achieved, it promised to enhance the security of the United States by setting up along the southern borders of an expansive and aggressive China a bloc of three independent and durable nations. On my previous visit to Indochina, a year ago, it appeared to me that there was a reasonable expectation of accomplishing our objective. Experienced observers there expressed an almost unanimous view that the united effort of the three Indochinese countries, France, and the United States could serve to check the Communist drive and might even eventually dissipate it. Involved in this effort was the political and military mobilization of the indigenous peoples (particularly of Vietnam) against the Communists, a continuance of the military operations of the French Union forces in Indochina until the Vietminh Communists were brought under control, and military aid from the United States. The extent of the American contribution to the effort is suggested by the allocation of assistance for Indochina. For the 3 fiscal years 1950–52 aid programs amounted to about $800 million. For 1953 and 1954, however, they were almost $1.8 billion. On my recent visit to Indochina, I found that the optimism concerning the prospects of success for the united effort had all but disappeared and with good reason. Instead of being checked or overwhelmed the Vietminh have now obtained firm control of the northern half of Vietnam. While Laos still remains outside the Communist engulfment, internal conditions in that country are such as to make its future highly speculative. Only in Cambodia is there some tangible expectation of the achievement of the objectives of a year ago. The gravest situation exists in Vietnam. In this, the most populous and strategically the most important of the three states, events have now reached a stage of acute crisis. The Vietminh are consolidating their hold on Vietnam north of the 17th parallel, the area allotted to them by the Geneva accord. The non-Communist Vietnamese leaders have spent much time and energy which should have gone into a 1 similar consolidation in the south in what amounts to quasi-suicidal political maneuvering and strife. This divisiveness in all probability has served to facilitate a growth in Vietminh strength throughout Vietnam. Although the Geneva accord is being ostensibly observed in the entire country and the fighting has come to an end, the cease fire does not preclude a subsurface continuation of the Communist advance in south Vietnam. Vietminh sympathizers are to be found throughout that region and it is likely that their number is growing. It must also be presumed that Vietminh activists are being left behind as the Vietminh withdraw their regular forces from south Vietnam in accordance with the terms of the cease fire. One observer described the situation to me in these terms: "Bring a brush down on the map of south Vietnam. Wherever the bristles touch you will find Vietminh." Beyond this subsurface infiltration, the possibilities of a sudden revival of an overt advance of the Vietminh cannot be discounted. There is reason to believe that they accepted the Geneva agreement with some misgiving and only because it was necessary to some larger purpose of communism. By the same token, they could conceivably be led to abandon the agreement should the requirements of international communism change. Regardless of this possibility, the state of affairs throughout Vietnam offers scant hope for an outcome in accord with the objectives of our policy. Unless there is a reversal of present trends, all of Vietnam is open in one way or another to absorption by the Vietminh. Even now there is little to stand in their way. The morale of the French Union forces was shaken by the defeat at Dien Bien Phu and, in any event, massive French military detachments in Indochina may well have outlived their usefulness. Internal political dissension among non-Communist Vietnamese factions and even blatant chicanery on the part of some tends to weaken the nationalist government and discourage popular acceptance of it. The national army of Vietnam is disorganized in the aftermath of the loss of the north. Recent developments, moreover, suggest that it is on the way to being converted into the private army of its commander and his advisers to be used not for the legitimate purposes of the government but as a tool in the maneuvering for political power in Saigon. In these circumstances, American material aid regardless of amount is hardly a panacea and it may not even be a major factor in the achievement of the objectives of our policy in Indochina. In some instances it has even served inadvertently to work at cross-purposes with our objectives. According to best available estimates, for example, some 25 percent of American economic aid went into areas which are now held by the Communists, an unwitting gift of the United States to the Communists. To cite another case, our assistance made possible major improvement in the airport in the northern city of Hanoi. The airport has now passed intact to the Communists. Its new American-aid-built runway can handle heavy bombers capable of striking at our bases in the Philippines. The situation in Vietnam, and in a larger sense in Indochina, is grim and discouraging. It would be misleading and futile to report it to the Senate and to the people of the Nation in any other fashion. The need, it seems to me, is not to bury the realities of this situation but to face them, however grim and discouraging they may be. If we do so, it is possible that aspects of our policy in Indochina may be salvageable. It is also possible that the reversal which has been sustained in Indochina may yield experience which has application elsewhere in Asia. This experience could be useful in avoiding still other setbacks and the damaging waste of untold millions of dollars of the resources of the citizens of the United States. 2. BACKGROUND TO THE SITUATION IN INDOCHINA A year ago, at the time of my previous visit to Indochina, the French authorities had recently put into effect a new plan of campaign against the Vietminh. The plan was essentially military in concept. It envisioned a three-pronged effort which would combine the striking power of the French Union forces in Indochina, vastly expanded nationalist armies of the three states and large amounts of American material aid. The latter was all that was asked of us. There was no suggestion from any responsible source that American forces should become engaged in the fighting in Indochina. On the contrary, there was general agreement that their engagement would simply complicate the problem. In my report last year I emphasized that American aid does not and should not involve the commitment of combat forces. Sacrifices for the defense of freedom must be equitably shared and we have borne our full burden in blood in Korea. The objective of this three-prong plan was to break the stalemate in the war against the forces under the Communist government of Ho Chi Minh, a war which had gone on for 7 years. At that time, the combined military strength of the French Union forces and the Nationalist governments of the three states already outweighed their opponents in manpower in a ratio of 5 to 3. As a result largely of American assistance, moreover, the non-Communist forces possessed great superiority-estimated as high as 10 to 1-in armaments, and the flow of American aid was constant and increasingly heavy. As one French military observer expressed it: "Never before in our history have we had a force that was so well equipped and supplied." In a military sense, therefore, the plan seemed to offer reasonable prospects of success and I so reported to the committee and to the Senate last year. It appeared to me then, however, that the fulfillment of two political conditions was essential to the accomplishment of the plan. There was, first, the need for a rapid and clear-cut transfer of full sovereignty from France to the three states; and second, an equally urgent need for the development of a capacity among the non-Communist Indochinese (particularly of Vietnam) to put aside factional strife and excessive self-seeking and to unite under a nationalist leadership firmly based in the populace. sons. The two conditions were of the greatest importance for these reaIn the first place, the transfer of full sovereignty was essential in order to mobilize the latent power of nationalist sentiment against the Vietminh. In this respect, I reported last year that The current of nationalism runs strong throughout Indochina. It is not, perhaps, of equal fervor in each of the three states but in all of them it is the basic political reality. It gives rise to a desire for independence from foreign control that is deep seated and widespread. 53761-54- 2 |