Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam

by Fredrik Logevall

  In fact, though, British participation was essential, at least under present circumstances, as Dulles made clear when Ambassadors Percy Spender of Australia and Sir Leslie Munro of New Zealand arrived at his home the following afternoon. Hardly had the visitors taken their seats in the library before he and Radford and Walter Bedell Smith lit into them on the vital importance of avoiding a French defeat, lest all of Southeast Asia fall and Japan seek accommodation with Communist China. A new military force was needed, Dulles said, and it had to include Great Britain, or Congress would not give its approval. Yet Winston Churchill’s government seemed altogether too inclined to seek the “least bad” exit from Indochina, perhaps by way of partition.

  At this point, Dulles rose and walked over to a bookcase. He pulled out the first volume of Churchill’s monumental history of the Second World War. Opening it to a certain page, he pedantically read aloud the Briton’s account of the 1931–32 episode when Henry L. Stimson, then the U.S. secretary of state, had tried in vain to enlist British assistance in a joint effort to check Japanese expansionism. Churchill in the book excused London’s behavior on the grounds that Great Britain had no reason to expect corresponding American involvement in Europe, where the truly vital problems lay. That was a reasonable argument at the time, the solemn secretary told his guests as he closed the book and returned it to the shelf, but no longer. Today the United States was fully involved and had “definitely proved” her deep concern with European developments.30

  Spender and Munro listened attentively but kept their counsel. They were not unsympathetic to the American’s claims, and they promised to pass on to their governments his specific request of naval support, probably in the form of a carrier from each. But they could do no more. Dulles plainly hoped that by taking Canberra and Wellington into his confidence he could meaningfully alter London’s policy, but this was a long shot at best, given the intimate nature of Commonwealth diplomacy and the residual subservience of the junior partners to British supremacy on global military strategy. Upon leaving the Dulles residence, the two ambassadors informed not only their home governments of the contents of the discussion, but also the British embassy in Washington.31

  Eisenhower, meanwhile, had returned from Camp David. At 8:20 that same Sunday evening, April 4, he held an off-the-record meeting with five foreign policy advisers in the upstairs study at the White House: Dulles, Smith, Radford, Kyes, and State Department counselor Douglas MacArthur II. According to his assistant Sherman Adams, the president agreed “to send American forces to Indo-China under certain strict conditions”: that (1) the intervention take the form of a united action including Great Britain and other concerned states, that (2) France agree to maintain her own commitments in the area, and that (3) the Paris government pledge to grant full independence to the Associated States, so as to avoid any hint of colonialism. Though Adams didn’t say it, there can be no doubt the conferees that evening saw the first two conditions as of more immediate importance than the third and moreover felt securing the first could be essential to gaining the second.32

  How to interpret Eisenhower’s decision to seek support from Congress on the issue of intervention? Scholars have lauded his inclusion of the legislative branch at a key juncture in the policy making; they often also praise his refusal to take the unilateralist path trod by so many of his successors in the White House. But historians have disagreed in their assessments of his underlying motivations. Some assert that he deliberately used the April 3 meeting to isolate hawks within the administration such as Radford and Vice President Nixon, whose desire for direct military intervention he did not share. According to this interpretation, Eisenhower had no intention of permitting the use of American military force in Indochina in the spring of 1954, and he cleverly used congressional doubts as a means to avoid action while simultaneously protecting his political flank from the inevitable fallout following French defeat.33 Others depict a president who was himself a hawk, who believed the apocalyptic rhetoric about Indochina’s transcendent importance, and who was serious about intervention, but who was determined to have Congress—and therefore allied governments—on board. With the long and frustrating Korean experience fresh in everyone’s minds, it was inconceivable to him to put Americans in harm’s way in Asia again without the explicit backing of Capitol Hill.34

  The evidence makes it hard to come down firmly on one side or the other, but the best argument is the second one, or a variant thereof: that Eisenhower actively contemplated taking the United States directly into the war and sought a blank check from Congress to free his hands and strengthen his bargaining position vis-à-vis allies, or at least that he wanted to keep open the option of military involvement. A president scheming to use congressional nervousness as a pretext to avoid deeper involvement would not have tried to remove such constraints on his future decision-making authority; Eisenhower did.35 A president determined to stay out of the war would also have spoken more elliptically about the nature of the threat in Indochina, and would have instructed top aides to do likewise. He would not have worked so hard to bring the British around. Taken as a whole, Eisenhower’s statements and actions from the time of General Ely’s arrival on March 20 until April 4—and, as we shall see, in the days thereafter—suggest a man who was fully prepared to intervene with force under certain circumstances and who sought to maintain his freedom of maneuver for whatever contingencies might arise.

  V

  WHEN MACARTHUR LEFT THE WHITE HOUSE THAT EVENING OF April 4, he decided to go back to Foggy Bottom and check his mail for any late messages. At 10:15 P.M. he read a top-secret cable from the Paris embassy. It was a stunner: The Laniel government had decided formally to request American intervention at Dien Bien Phu, in the form of Operation Vulture. Two days earlier, on April 2, Colonel Raymond Brohon, a midlevel French officer, had arrived in Hanoi, charged with determining General Navarre’s views on Vulture and, more broadly, whether the general thought American air strikes could save Dien Bien Phu. U.S. Admiral Radford, Brohon noted, had told Paul Ely he supported such action. If Navarre signaled his approval, Paris leaders had decided on March 29, the French government would put the request forward to Washington.36

  Navarre was initially skeptical—he questioned Vulture’s military utility and feared it could bring Chinese retaliation—but by April 3 he had warmed to the plan. Overnight the situation at Dien Bien Phu had grown still more ominous. Portions of Eliane and Dominique in the north-central part of the camp had fallen to the enemy, and the wounded could no longer be evacuated—the last flight out had left on March 26. The garrison was now totally dependent on air-drops that, on account of Viet Minh antiaircraft fire and the steady compression of the perimeter, were increasingly landing in enemy territory. On April 4, after Brohon had returned to France, Navarre radioed Paris his approval: “The intervention of which Colonel Brohon has told me can have a decisive impact, especially if it is made before the Viet Minh [major] assault.”37 Defense Minister Pleven, who that afternoon had been accosted by hostile Indochina veterans at the Ceremony of the Flame at the Arc de Triomphe, immediately called a meeting of a newly formed “war committee”—composed of the service chiefs and some key cabinet members—for late that evening. In short order, they voted to ask for American air strikes. Even those members fearful of “international complications” arising from U.S. intervention went along, as did those who doubted that even large-scale aerial bombardment could save the day. A desperate situation called for desperate action. But all also agreed that the intervention must be immediate and massive.38

  Time was short. The meeting adjourned quickly so that U.S. ambassador Douglas Dillon could be brought to Hôtel Matignon (the French prime minister’s official residence) for consultation. But could he be summoned this late—it was after eleven P.M.—on a Sunday night? He could. Dillon arrived close to midnight to find Foreign Minister Bidault waiting. Prime Minister Laniel soon arrived and got right down to business: On behalf of the French government
, he hereby requested that the United States intervene immediately with heavy bombers capable of delivering two-ton-or-heavier bombs, in order to save the entrenched camp at Dien Bien Phu. No other option existed. Given the heavy Chinese involvement on the side of the Viet Minh, including material aid, technical advisers, and communications system, it seemed entirely appropriate, Laniel added, for the American government to initiate the actions General Ely and Admiral Radford had discussed in Washington. Dillon was noncommittal. He said that in his personal view, Congress would have to be consulted before any action could commence, but he promised to submit the request to his government right away.39

  Dillon’s cable arrived at the State Department at 9:43 P.M. local time. MacArthur read it half an hour later. By 10:30, he had passed on the details to Dulles, Radford, and Smith. Dulles did not act immediately, in part because he was busy preparing a telegram from Eisenhower to Winston Churchill that amounted to, in one historian’s words, “a request for war.”40 Eisenhower in his correspondence was usually not given to oratorical flourish, but this time he and the secretary laid it on thick, rather in the way the Briton himself might do. After paying tribute to the “gallant fight” being put up by the French at Dien Bien Phu, Eisenhower warned that, whatever the final outcome there, greater efforts by the Western powers would be required to save Indochina from Communism. Simply to urge the French to redouble their efforts was no solution, not when the stakes were this high: The loss of Indochina could lead to a disastrous shift in the power ratio “throughout Asia and the Pacific” and severely undermine the global strategic position of both the United States and Britain. Even Berlin did not matter as much in grand strategic terms. Following a defeat in Vietnam, Southeast Asia could swiftly fall, and Australia and New Zealand would be threatened. Japan would be deprived of non-Communist markets and sources of food and would almost certainly have to make an accommodation with the Communist world. “This has led us,” the president continued, “to the hard conclusion that the situation in Southeast Asia requires us urgently to take serious and far-reaching decisions.”

  Specifically, Eisenhower wrote, there should be a coalition of nations committed to stopping Communist expansion in the area and “willing to join the fight if necessary. I do not envisage the need of any appreciable ground forces on your or our part. If the members of the alliance are sufficiently resolute it should be able to make clear to the Chinese Communists that the continuation of their material support to the Viet Minh will inevitably lead to the growing power of the forces arrayed against them.”

  Eisenhower concluded by offering to send Dulles to London “at the earliest date convenient to you” and by invoking a previous moment of similar peril: “If I may refer again to history, we failed to halt Hirohito, Mussolini, and Hitler by not acting in unity and in time. That marked the beginning of many years of stark tragedy and desperate peril. May it not be that our nations have learned something from that lesson?”41

  One must ask again: Would a president determined to avoid military intervention in Vietnam send this kind of letter—cajoling, flattering, bribing, bullying—to his old wartime partner, drawing direct parallels between their titanic struggle against the Axis powers and the present threat? Hardly. Would he reference the all-important question concerning fighting troops under United Action by saying he did not envisage the need for “appreciable ground forces” on Britain’s or America’s part? Not likely. Historian Kevin Ruane is surely right that Eisenhower’s missive (“a model of psychological profiling with barbs aimed at all the prime minister’s weak points”) constitutes powerful proof that he was utterly serious about intervention under the right conditions.42

  The letter, sent by cable through the American embassy in London, went out six minutes before midnight. Due to problems in transmission, it did not reach Churchill until six P.M. the following day, April 5. The day after that came the reply:

  “My dear friend,

  “I have received your most important message of April 4. We are giving it earnest cabinet consideration. Winston.” 43

  VI

  HOW TO RESPOND TO THE FRENCH REQUEST FOR IMMEDIATE AERIAL intervention at Dien Bien Phu consumed White House attention early on April 5. First thing that morning Dulles telephoned the president and told him of Laniel’s conversation with Dillon and of his petition for air strikes. Eisenhower expressed irritation at Radford’s seeming indiscretion in the talks with Ely—the admiral had implied more than he should have—and said there could be no talk of early intervention absent explicit congressional support. Certainly the administration should take “a look to see if anything else can be done,” he went on, but “we cannot engage in active war.” Dulles concurred. He dispatched a cable to Paris informing Dillon that the United States would not intervene “except on [a] coalition basis with active British Commonwealth participation.” Congress, he added, would likewise have to be on board.44

  Bidault, informed of the rejection later in the day, took it hard. The time for coalitions had passed, he told Dillon, for the fate of Indochina would be determined in the next ten days at Dien Bien Phu. As the American got up to leave, Bidault vowed that French troops would not quit even if they must fight alone. May God grant them success, he said.45

  Or perhaps God plus some additional American aircraft. The following day, April 6, Bidault summoned Dillon back to the Quai d’Orsay and made a new request, this one for ten to twenty B-29 bombers, complete with maintenance personnel and bombs, to be put at the immediate disposal of France. As the runways in Indochina were probably too short to handle the B-29s, the French government hoped the aircraft could be based at U.S. facilities in the Philippines. It amounted to a Plan B, similar to Operation Vulture except involving no American airmen. The Frenchman expressed hope that prompt intervention by these B-29s over the following few days could break up the Viet Minh reinforcement columns moving toward Dien Bien Phu and thereby save the day.46

  Dillon, sympathetic as usual to the Laniel government’s perspective on Vietnam, recommended to Dulles that the administration grant the request. Failure to do so, he warned, would allow Paris to lay significant blame for the fall of Dien Bien Phu on the United States and would “strengthen the already powerful group in [the] French Government who wish for peace at any price in Indochina.” Senior policy makers feared he might be right, but they rejected Plan B as well when the NSC met on Tuesday afternoon, April 6. The French had little experience with B-29s, Admiral Radford noted, and could not put them into effective use in time to make a difference at Dien Bien Phu. Even the B-26s already given to them had not been used efficiently. Eisenhower concurred. The group decided instead to give the French other aircraft, including Corsairs and light navy bombers, plus technicians and maintenance crews, subject to approval by Congress.

  Congress in fact was the elephant in the room that afternoon, figuring into every part of the discussion. The Smith committee formed by Eisenhower back in January had submitted a report the day before rejecting negotiations and calling for “military victory” in Indochina using U.S. ground forces if necessary, but the NSC refused to go that far. Eisenhower, after declaring that the war was still eminently winnable and that even the fall of Dien Bien Phu would not necessarily be a defeat “since the French would have inflicted such heavy losses on the enemy,” said “with great emphasis” that a fundamental reality had to be faced: Unilateral American intervention was impossible. “Even if we tried such a course, we would have to take it to the Congress and fight for it like dogs, with very little hope of success.” John Foster Dulles agreed. The April 3 meeting with legislative leaders had shown, he said, that it would be impossible to get congressional support for unilateral action. Intervention would have to be multilateral and would have to include Great Britain. Accordingly, Dulles continued, he had with the president’s approval begun to work on allied governments and in particular to convince Britain of two salient facts: that her own position in Malaya would be gravely endangered if Indochina was lo
st, and that her “two children” Australia and New Zealand would likewise be imperiled.

  As Eisenhower and Dulles no doubt knew, a prearranged colloquy on Indochina was at that very moment under way in the U.S. Senate, a few blocks away. Massachusetts Democrat John F. Kennedy, fifteen months into his first term in office and exhibiting the same contradictory impulses on Vietnam that he would later show as president, framed the discussion with an address blasting the administration for its lack of candor about the war. The time had come, he proclaimed, “for the American people to be told the truth about Indochina.” While he favored the concept of United Action, Kennedy feared where such a policy would lead the nation: “To pour money, matériel, and men into the jungles of Indochina without at least a remote prospect of victory would be dangerously futile and destructive.” For that matter, he wondered, would the United States ever be able to make much difference in that part of the world? “No amount of American military assistance can conquer an enemy which is everywhere and at the same time nowhere, ‘an enemy of the people’ which has the sympathy and covert support of the people.” No satisfactory outcome was possible, Kennedy concluded, unless France accorded the Associated States full and complete independence; without it, adequate indigenous support would remain forever elusive.