CHAPTER 21: Valley of Tears
1 The climax at Dien Bien Phu has received a great deal of scrutiny over the past six decades, albeit in relatively few English-language accounts in recent years. Particularly useful accounts include Pierre Rocolle, Pourquoi Dien Bien Phu? (Paris: Flammarion, 1968); Martin Windrow, The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam (Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo, 2004); Bernard B. Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1966); Jules Roy, The Battle of Dienbienphu, trans. Robert Baldick (New York: Harper & Row, 1965; reprint Carroll & Graf, 1984); Pierre Pellissier, Diên Biên Phu: 20 novembre 1953–7 mai 1954 (Paris: Perrin, 2004); Ted Morgan, Valley of Death: The Tragedy at Dien Bien Phu That Led America into the Vietnam War (New York: Random House, 2010); and Pierre Journoud and Hugues Tertrais, Paroles de Dien Bien Phu: Les survivants témoignent (Paris: Tallandier, 2004).
2 Howard R. Simpson, Dien Bien Phu: The Epic Battle America Forgot (Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 1994), 138. See also Paul Grauwin, J’étais médecin à Dien-Bien-Phu (Paris: France-Empire, 1954), chaps. 10–11.
3 Morgan, Valley of Death, 504.
4 Simpson, Dien Bien Phu, 137; Marcel-Maurice Bigeard, Pour une parcelle de gloire (Paris: Plon, 1975), 176–79.
5 Navarre’s grim perspective is in Navarre à Monsieur le Ministre des Etats Associés, May 6, 1954, Dossier 1, 457 AP 53, Conférence de Genève, Archives Nationale.
6 John Keegan, Dien Bien Phu (New York: Ballantine, 1974), 126.
7 Quoted in Simpson, Dien Bien Phu, 122; Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, 341.
8 Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, 237, 266.
9 Windrow, Last Valley, 538; Roy, Battle of Dienbienphu, 226–67.
10 Ton That Tung, Reminiscences of a Vietnamese Surgeon (Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1980), 47.
11 Nguyen Thi Ngoc Toan oral history, Hanoi, June 11, 2007. I thank interviewer Merle Pribbenow for making this oral history available to me.
12 The resolution of the Politburo, April 19, 1954, Archives of the Ministry of National Defense, Document 173, sheets 49–51, Central Department, as cited in Vo Nguyen Giap, Memoirs of War: The Road to Dien Bien Phu (Hanoi: Gioi, 2004), 114; Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, 341–42; and Carlyle Thayer, War by Other Means: National Liberation and Revolution in Viet Nam, 1954–1960 (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1989), 3–5.
13 Giap, Road to Dien Bien Phu, 114.
14 Truong Huyen Chi and Marc Jason Gilbert, “Voices of Dien Bien Phu,” unpublished paper in author’s possession. I’m grateful to Marc Gilbert for making this manuscript available to me.
15 Rocolle, Pourquoi Dien Bien Phu?, 484; Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, 340.
16 Truong Chinh quoted in Pierre Asselin, “The DRVN and the 1954 Geneva Conference,” unpublished conference paper, in the author’s possession, 25.
17 Documents quoted in Asselin, “DRVN and Geneva Conference,” 29.
18 Zhou quoted in Chen Jian, “China and the Indochina Settlement at the Geneva Conference of 1954,” in Mark Atwood Lawrence and Fredrik Logevall, eds., The First Vietnam War: Colonial Conflict and Cold War Crisis (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007), 242.
19 Ilya V. Gaiduk, Confronting Vietnam: Soviet Policy Toward the Indochina Conflict, 1954–1963 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2003), 18. See also Mari Olsen, Soviet-Vietnam Relations and the Role of China, 1949–1964: Changing Alliances (London: Routledge, 2006), 32–34.
20 Gaiduk, Confronting Vietnam, 18; Zhou Enlai to Ho Chi Minh, telegram, March 11, 1954, in Cold War International History Project binder; Chen Jian, “China and Indochina Settlement,” 244–45.
21 Quoted in Nguyen Vu Tung, “The Road to Geneva: How the DRV Changed Its Positions,” unpublished paper (Cold War International History Project) in author’s possession.
22 Qiang Zhai, China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950–1975 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 51.
23 Chen Jian, “China and the Indochina Settlement,” 245; Trinh Quang Thanh, interview by author, Hanoi, January 2003.
24 Zhai, China and the Vietnam Wars, 51–53. For an account of the Moscow meetings based on Russian documents, see Gaiduk, Confronting Vietnam, 22–24.
25 Zhai, China and the Vietnam Wars, 48.
26 Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, 354; Erwan Bergot, Les 170 jours de Diên Biên Phu (Paris: Presses de la cité, 1979), 267–69.
27 Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, 354.
28 Simpson, Dien Bien Phu, 151.
29 Ibid., 151–52, slightly edited by author.
30 Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, 360–61.
31 Ibid., 371–72.
32 Windrow, Last Valley, 597; Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, 373–74.
33 Simpson, Dien Bien Phu, 158.
34 In 1997, an American MIA team investigating an unrelated case found a C-119 propeller near Ban Sot, Laos, and a photo analyst spotted possible graves in aerial photos. Excavation in 2002 uncovered remains that turned out to be McGovern’s; the CIA arranged for his nephew to fly to Hickam Air Force Base, near Honolulu, to escort the remains home to New Jersey. Buford’s remains have not been found, making him one of thirty-five civilians among more than seventeen hundred Americans still unaccounted for in Indochina.
35 Quoted in Roy, Battle of Dienbienphu, 264.
36 Keegan, Dien Bien Phu, 141.
37 Captain Le Damany, quoted in Windrow, Last Valley, 601.
38 Rocolle, Pourquoi Dien Bien Phu?, 530–31; Windrow, Last Valley, 602–3; Roy, Battle of Dienbienphu, 268.
39 Roy, Battle of Dienbienphu, 268.
40 Rocolle, Pourquoi Dien Bien Phu?, 538.
41 Bernard B. Fall, “Dien Bien Phu: Battle to Remember,” NYT Magazine, May 3, 1964. Whether the white flag flew at Dien Bien Phu has long been a source of controversy. Castries’s use of the past tense wanted could support the argument that he did at some point raise the flag.
42 Quoted in Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, 415–16.
43 Ibid.; Roy, Battle of Dienbienphu, 286. Herriott quoted in Time, May 17, 1954.
44 Quotes are from Time, May 17, 1954.
45 Quoted in Michael Maclear, The Ten Thousand Day War (New York: Avon, 1982), 46. See also Robert Guillain, Diên-Biên-Phu: La fin des illusions [Notes d’Indochine, février–juillet 1954] (Paris: Arléa, 2004), 163–69.
46 Newsweek, May 17, 1954.
47 The army’s figure is 10,061 prisoners, broken down as follows: 2,257 French; 932 Moroccans; 804 Algerians; 221 Africans; 2,262 legionnaires; and 3,585 Vietnamese and others, such as Tai. Morgan, Valley of Death, 559.
48 Windrow, Last Valley, 638–39.
49 See, e.g., Pierre Journoud and Hugues Tertrais, Paroles de Dien Bien Phu, chap. 4; Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, 432–47; Robert Bonnafous, Les Prisonniers de guerre du corps expéditionnaire français en Extrême Orient dans les camps Viêt minh (1945–1954) (Montpellier: Université Paul Valéry, 1985).
50 Douglas Porch, The French Foreign Legion: A Complete History of the Legendary Fighting Force (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), 561–62; Bernard B. Fall, Street Without Joy: Indochina at War 1946–1954 (reprint ed., Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole, 1994), 301–2.
51 Jean-Louis Rondy, “Les méthodes Viet-Minh de lavage de cerveau,” Revue historiques des armées 4 (1989), 74–81.
52 Bernard B. Fall, “Communist POW Treatment in Indochina,” Military Review (December 1958): 6.
53 Windrow, Last Valley, 647; Rocolle, Pourquoi Dien Bien Phu?, 548–49; René Bail, L’enfer de Diên Biên Phu, novembre 1953–mai 1954 (Bayeux: Éditions Heimdal, 2001), 158.
54 Christopher E. Goscha, “The Body Under Siege,” unpublished book chapter, in author’s possession. General de Castries was told in captivity that the Viet Minh casualties at Dien Bien Phu totaled thirty thousand.
55 Keegan, Dien Bien Phu, 153–54.
56 Bernard B. Fall, “Post-Mortems on Dien Bien Phu: Review Article,” Far Eastern Survey 2
7, no. 10 (October 1958): 158; Keegan, Dien Bien Phu, 154.
CHAPTER 22: With Friends Like These
1 Philippe Devillers and Jean Lacouture, End of a War: Indochina, 1954 (New York: Praeger, 1969), 122.
2 NYT, April 25, 1954.
3 Devillers and Lacouture, End of a War, 123.
4 Quoted in James Cable, The Geneva Conference of 1954 on Indochina (London: Macmillan, 1986), 65.
5 VP diary, RN dictabelt, April 29, 1954, Nixon Presidential Library, Yorba Linda, Calif.; NSC meeting of April 29, 1954, FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina, XIII, 2:1431–35.
6 New York Herald Tribune, April 29, 1954; Washington Post, May 5, 1954; Newsweek, May 14, 1954.
7 Chester L. Cooper, In the Shadows of History: Fifty Years Behind the Scenes of Cold War Diplomacy (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus, 2005), 118.
8 The question of whether this encounter in fact took place has long been controversial. But several members of the American delegation claimed to witness it personally. See Cooper, In the Shadows of History, 113.
9 Cooper, In the Shadows of History, 117. Cooper’s earlier book appeared in 1970 under the title The Lost Crusade: America in Vietnam (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1970). In this first book, he says that he and the Chinese did not exchange any words in the elevator, but merely smiled and then laughed (77).
10 Diary entry, April 26, 1954, Evelyn Shuckburgh, Descent to Suez: Diaries, 1951–1956 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1987), 177.
11 Diary entry, April 30, 1954, ibid., 183–85; Matthew Jones, “The Geneva Conference of 1954: New Perspectives and Evidence on British Policy and Anglo-American Relations,” unpublished paper in author’s possession.
12 Geneva to FO, May 2, 1954, FO 371/104840; diary entry, May 2, 1954, Shuckburgh, Descent to Suez, 186. See also Eden, “Discussions on the Situation in South-East Asia, March 29–May 22,” June 11, 1954, PREM 11/649, TNA.
13 Geoffrey Warner, “From Geneva to Manila: British Policy Toward Indochina and SEATO, May–September 1954,” in Lawrence S. Kaplan, Denise Artaud, and Mark Rubin, eds., Dien Bien Phu and the Crisis of Franco-American Relations, 1954–1955 (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1990), 150.
14 Moran Diaries, entry for May 4, 1954 from Lord Moran, Churchill: The Struggle for Survival, 1940–1965 (London: Constable, 1966), 573. Said Churchill a few weeks later: “What [Dulles] says counts for absolutely nothing here and the more he says it the more harmless he becomes.” Churchill to Eden, June 16, 1954, PREM 11/666.
15 Jean Chauvel, Commentaire: De Berne à Paris, 1952–1962 (Paris: Fayard, 1973), 3: 56, as quoted in Cable, Geneva Conference, 71.
16 Reading letter to Lloyd, May 14, 1954, SELO 5/15, Selwyn Lloyd Papers, Churchill College, Cambridge. Said one British cable: “Robertson, as we all know, is mad.” Paris to FO, May 3, 1954, FO 371/112058, TNA. See also Donald Maitland, Diverse Times, Sundry Places (Brighton, U.K.: Alpha Press, 1996), 74.
17 Eden diary entry for May 3, 1954, AP20/1/30, Anthony Eden Papers, University of Birmingham (hereafter UB); Cable, Geneva Conference, 70. For Smith’s low opinion of Dulles, see Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (New York: Doubleday, 2007), 79. Donald Maitland, who accompanied Eden to the airport to see off Dulles, recalled that Eden railed against the American en route to the airport. “I had no idea he was capable of such venom.” Maitland, Diverse Times, 74.
18 Devillers and Lacouture, End of a War, 151–52. The text of Bidault’s speech is in Le Monde, May 11, 1954.
19 See Zhou Enlai to Mao Zedong and others, “Regarding the Situation of the First Plenary Session,” May 9, 1954, Record no. 206-Y0049, PRC Diplomatic Archives, Beijing; and Central Committee to Zhou Enlai, May 9, 1954, Record no. 206-Y0049, PRC Diplomatic Archives, Beijing. I’m grateful to Chen Jian for making these documents available to me, and for his translation.
20 “Indochine, Propositions faire par le Délégation de la République du Viêt-Nam,” May 10, 1954, Box X, Indochine, Institut Pierre Mendès France (hereafter IPMF), Paris.
21 See Tahourdin and Allen, “Record of a talk with a member of the Soviet delegation,” May 1, 1954, FO 371/112060, TNA.
22 De Brébisson memorandum, June 17, 1954, cited in Edouard Frédéric-Dupont, Mission de la France en Asie (Paris: Éditions France-Empire, 1956), 172–73.
23 Pierre Asselin, “The DRVN and the 1954 Geneva Conference: New Evidence and Perspectives from Vietnam,” unpublished paper in author’s possession; Zhou Enlai to Mao Zedong and others, “Regarding the Situation of the First Plenary Session,” May 9, 1954, Record no. 206-Y0049, PRC Diplomatic Archives, Beijing.
24 Third Plenary Session on Indochina, Geneva, May 12, 1954, FRUS, 1952–1954, The Geneva Conference, XVI, 780–83.
25 “Notes made by Mr. MacArthur for his own information, following a meeting between the Secretary and Mr. Allen Dulles,” May 14, 1954, FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina, XIII, 2:1562–64; Eden to FO, May 15, 1954, FO 371/112065.
26 Bidault à MAE, May 11, 1954, Dossier IV, Conférence de la Genève 26 avril–17 juin, 457 AP 55, AN; “Décision prise en Comité de Défense Nationale le 15 May 1954,” Dossier IV, DPMF, Indochine, IPMF; Jacques Dalloz, Georges Bidault: Biographie politique (Paris: Éditions L’Harmattan, 1993), 367–68.
27 “Memcon: French Military Briefing, Indochina,” May 11, 1954, Box 49, CF 312, Record Group 59, NARA.
28 Guillermaz quoted in James Waite, “The End of the First Indochina War,” Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio University, 2005, pp. 225–26; Eden to FO, May 11, 1954, FO 371/112063, TNA; Chiefs of Staff Committee, “Confidential Annex,” May 12, 1954, FO 371/112064, TNA.
29 Le Monde, May 7, 1954.
30 See, e.g., the material in FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina, XIII, 2:1534–36, 1566–68, 1574–75, 1586–90, 1618–20; Paris to FO, May 16, 1954, FO 371/112065, TNA.
31 Eden to FO, May 1954, FO 371/112065, TNA; Eden to FO, May 16, 1954, FO 371/112066, TNA.
32 Spender to Tange, May 21, 1954, A5462/1, pt. 3, CRS National Archives of Australia; and Webb to Holland, May 20, 1954, EA1, 316/4/1, pt.7, CRS Archives of New Zealand.
33 Dulles to Rusk, May 24, 1954, Box 8, “General Foreign Policy Matters (3),” White House Memoranda Series, Dulles Papers, Eisenhower Library. I thank Matthew Jones for drawing this document to my attention. No June meeting devoted to this topic appears to have taken place.
34 Devillers and Lacouture, End of a War, 201–2, 232.
35 Quoted in William J. Duiker, U.S. Containment Policy and the Conflict in Indochina (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1994), 176–77.
36 U.S. News & World Report, May 29, 1954; Time, May 31, 1954.
37 Geneva to FO, May 29, 1954, FO 371/112068, TNA; Geneva to State (Dulles), May 30, 1954, FRUS, 1952–1954, The Geneva Conference, XVI:974–78; Eden diary, May 29, 1954, AP20/17/231, UB; Cooper, Lost Crusade, 85.
38 Smith to Dulles, May 30, 1954, Box 9, Indochina May 1953–May 1954 (1), Dulles Papers, Eisenhower Library. This portion of the cable is excised from the version printed in FRUS. I thank Matthew Jones for bringing this version to my attention.
39 Paris to FO, May 29, 1954, FO 371/112089, TNA; Geneva to FO (for Churchill), May 30, 1954, FO 371/112089, TNA.
40 Eden to FO, June 1, 1954, FO 371/112089, TNA; Eden diary, May 30, 1954, AP20/17/231, UB; Eden diary, June 1, 1954, AP20/17/231, UB.
41 Geneva to State, June 2, 1954, FRUS, 1952–1954, The Geneva Conference, XVI:1005–8.
42 Hiroyuki Umetsu, “Australia’s Response to the Indochina Crisis of 1954 Amidst the Anglo-American Confrontation,” Australian Journal of Politics and History 52, no. 3 (2006), esp. 406–14; Casey quote is on p. 414. See also Gregory Pemberton, “Australia, the United States, and the Indo-China Crises of 1954,” Diplomatic History 13 (Winter 1989): 45–66.
43 Umetsu, “Australia’s Response,” 414.
44 Ibid.; Memcon, June 4, 1954, FRUS, 1952–1954, East Asia and the Pacific, XII, 1:537–39; Washington to FO, June 3, 1954, FO 371/112089, TNA.
45 Pierre Pelli
ssier, Diên Biên Phu: 20 novembre 1953–7 mai 1954 (Paris: Perrin, 2004), 459–68; Devillers and Lacouture, End of a War, 181–83.
46 “Fiche sur la Conférence à cinq de Washington sur le Sud-Est Asiatique,” Indochine 295, Asie-Océanie 1944–1955, MAE; British Joint Staff Mission (DC) to MOD, June 7, 1954, FO 371/112070, TNA; “Report of the Five Power Military Conference of June 1954, Pentagon, June 11, 1954,” FO 371/111866, TNA. The French delegation’s statements are in Enclosure C, Annexes 2 and 3.
47 Robert Buzzanco, “Prologue to Tragedy: U.S. Military Opposition to Intervention in Vietnam, 1950–1954,” Diplomatic History 17 (Spring 1993): 201–22. Ridgway is quoted in David L. Anderson, Trapped by Success: The Eisenhower Administration and Vietnam, 1953–1961 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), 29.
48 Cabinet minutes, June 5, 1954, CAB 128/27, TNA; Eden diary, June 6, 1954, AP20/17/231, UB.
49 June 16, 1954, FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina, XIII, 2:1711–13.
50 R. G. Casey diary entry for June 13, 1954, 34–M1153, NAA.
51 SecState to Paris, June 14, 1954, in FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina, XVI:1147.
52 NSC meeting notes, June 15, 1954, FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina, XIII, 2: 1693–94.
53 Wrote Robert McClintock, the counselor at the U.S. embassy, already in mid-May: “Much as I oppose partition in Vietnam, I would rather resort to that desperate recourse, retaining, above all, important air-base at Tourane, than to contemplate ramparts of sand in Cambodia and Laos.” Saigon to State, May 13, 1954, FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina, XIII, 2:1552–53.
54 Memo of discussion, NSC meeting, June 17, 1954, FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina, XIII, 2:1713–18.
55 Geneva (Eden) to FO, June 12, 1954, FO 371/112089, TNA; Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change: The White House Years, 1953–1956 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1963), 366.
CHAPTER 23: “We Must Go Fast”
1 Quoted in Philippe Devillers and Jean Lacouture, End of a War: Indochina, 1954 (New York: Praeger, 1969), 246. See also Eric Roussel, Pierre Mendès France (Paris: Gallimard, 2007), 226; and Jean Lacouture, Pierre Mendès France, trans. George Holock (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1984), 213.
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