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1954 Geneva Conference

May 01, 2023

For other similar events, see Geneva Conference.

The Geneva Conference was a conference that was intended to settle outstanding issues resulting from the Korean War and the First Indochina War and involved several nations. It took place in Geneva, Switzerland, from 26 April to 20 July 1954.[1][2] The part of the conference on the Korean question ended without adopting any declarations or proposals and so is generally considered less relevant. The Geneva Accords that dealt with the dismantling of French Indochina proved to have long-lasting repercussions, however. The crumbling of the French colonial empire in Southeast Asia led to the formation of the states of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam), the State of Vietnam (precursor of the future Republic of Vietnam, or South Vietnam), the Kingdom of Cambodia, and the Kingdom of Laos.

The partition of French Indochina that resulted from the Conference. Three successor states were created: the Kingdom of Cambodia; the Kingdom of Laos; and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the state led by Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh. The State of Vietnam was reduced to the southern part of Vietnam. The division of Vietnam was intended to be temporary, with elections planned for by 1956 to reunify the country.

Diplomats from South Korea, North Korea, the People's Republic of China, the Soviet Union, and the United States dealt with the Korean side of the conference. For the Indochina side, the Accords were between France, the Viet Minh, the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the future states being made from French Indochina.[3] The agreement temporarily separated Vietnam into two zones: a northern zone to be governed by the Viet Minh and a southern zone to be governed by the State of Vietnam, which was headed by former Nguyễn dynasty emperor Bảo Đại. A Conference Final Declaration, which was issued by the British chairman of the conference, provided that a general election be held by July 1956 to create a unified Vietnamese state. Despite helping create some of the agreements, they were not directly signed or accepted by delegates of the State of Vietnam and the United States. The State of Vietnam, under Ngo Dinh Diem, subsequently refused to allow elections, a cause of the Vietnam War. Three separate ceasefire accords, covering Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, were signed at the conference.

Background

On 18 February 1954, at the Berlin Conference, participants agreed that "the problem of restoring peace in Indochina will also be discussed at the Conference [on the Korean question] to which representatives of the United States, France, the United Kingdom, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Chinese People's Republic and other interested states will be invited."[4]: 436 

The conference was held at the Palace of Nations in Geneva, commencing on 26 April 1954. The first agenda item was the Korean question to be followed by Indochina.[4]: 549 

Korea

Main articles: Korean War and Korean Armistice Agreement

The armistice signed at end of the Korean War required a political conference within three months—a timeline which was not met—"to settle through negotiation the questions of the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Korea, the peaceful settlement of the Korean question, etc."[5]

Indochina

Main article: First Indochina War
 
The Geneva Conference

As decolonization took place in Asia, France had to relinquish its power over Indochina (Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam). While Laos and Cambodia were both given independence, France chose to stay in Vietnam. This ended with a war between French troops and the Vietnamese nationalists led by Ho Chi Minh. The latter's army, the Viet Minh, fought a guerrilla war, while the French employed traditional Western technology. The deciding factor was the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, where the French were decisively defeated. This resulted in French withdrawals and the Geneva conference.

It was decided that Vietnam would be divided at the 17th parallel until 1956 when democratic elections would be held under international supervision and auspices. All parties involved agreed to this (Ho Chi Minh had strong support in the north, which was more populous than the south, and was thus confident that he would win an election), except for the U.S., which, in the spirit of the Cold War, feared seeing communism spreading in a domino effect throughout Asia.

Korea

The South Korean representative proposed that the South Korean government was the only legal government in Korea, that UN-supervised elections should be held in the North, that Chinese forces should withdraw, and that UN forces, a belligerent party in the war, should remain as a police force. The North Korean representative suggested that elections be held throughout all of Korea, that all foreign forces leave beforehand, that the elections be run by an all-Korean Commission to be made up of equal parts from North and South Korea, and to increase general relations economically and culturally between the North and the South.[6]

The Chinese delegation proposed an amendment have a group of neutral nations supervise the elections, which the North accepted. The U.S. supported the South Korean position, saying that the USSR wanted to turn North Korea into a puppet state. Most allies remained silent and at least one, Britain, thought that the South Korean–U.S. proposal would be deemed unreasonable.[6]

The South Korean representative proposed that all-Korea elections, be held according to South Korean constitutional procedures and still under UN supervision. On June 15, the last day of the conference on the Korean question, the USSR and China both submitted declarations in support of a unified, democratic, independent Korea, saying that negotiations to that end should resume at an appropriate time. The Belgian and British delegations said that while they were not going to accept "the Soviet and Chinese proposals, that did not mean a rejection of the ideas they contained".[7] In the end, however, the conference participants did not agree on any declaration.

Indochina

 
"Charles de Gaulle and Ho Chi Minh are hanged" in effigy by students demonstrating in Saigon, July 1964, on the 10th anniversary of the Geneva Accords.

While the delegates began to assemble in Geneva in late April, the discussions on Indochina did not begin until 8 May 1954. The Viet Minh had achieved their decisive victory over the French Union forces at Dien Bien Phu the previous day.[4]: 549 

The Western allies did not have a unified position on what the Conference was to achieve in relation to Indochina. Anthony Eden, leading the British delegation, favored a negotiated settlement to the conflict. Georges Bidault, leading the French delegation, vacillated and was keen to preserve something of France's position in Indochina to justify past sacrifices, even as the nation's military situation deteriorated.[4]: 559  The U.S. had been supporting the French in Indochina for many years and the Republican Eisenhower administration wanted to ensure that it could not be accused of another "Yalta" or having "lost" Indochina to the Communists. Its leaders had previously accused the Democratic Truman administration of having "lost China" when the Communists were successful in taking control of the country.

The Eisenhower administration had considered air strikes in support of the French at Dien Bien Phu but was unable to obtain a commitment to united action from key allies such as the United Kingdom. Eisenhower was wary of becoming drawn into "another Korea" that would be deeply unpopular with the American public. U.S. domestic policy considerations strongly influenced the country's position at Geneva.[4]: 551–3  Columnist Walter Lippmann wrote on 29 April that "the American position at Geneva is an impossible one, so long as leading Republican senators have no terms for peace except unconditional surrender of the enemy and no terms for entering the war except as a collective action in which nobody is now willing to engage."[4]: 554  At the time of the conference, the U.S. did not recognize the People's Republic of China. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, an anticommunist, forbade any contact with the Chinese delegation, refusing to shake hands with Zhou Enlai, the lead Chinese negotiator.[4]: 555 

Dulles fell out with the UK delegate Anthony Eden over the perceived failure of the UK to support united action and U.S. positions on Indochina; he left Geneva on 3 May and was replaced by his deputy Walter Bedell Smith.[4]: 555–8  The State of Vietnam refused to attend the negotiations until Bidault wrote to Bảo Đại, assuring him that any agreement would not partition Vietnam.[4]: 550–1 

Bidault opened the conference on 8 May by proposing a cessation of hostilities, a ceasefire in place, a release of prisoners of war, and a disarming of irregulars, despite the French surrender at Dien Bien Phu the previous day in northwestern Vietnam.[4]: 559–60 

On 10 May, Phạm Văn Đồng, the leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) delegation set out their position, proposing a ceasefire; separation of the opposing forces; a ban on the introduction of new forces into Indochina; the exchange of prisoners; independence and sovereignty for Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos; elections for unified governments in each country, the withdrawal of all foreign forces; and the inclusion of the Pathet Lao and Khmer Issarak representatives at the Conference.[4]: 560  Pham Van Dong first proposed a temporary partition of Vietnam on 25 May.[8] Following their victory at Dien Bien Phu and given the worsening French security position around the Red River Delta, a ceasefire and partition would not appear to have been in the interests of the DRV. It appears that the DRV leadership thought the balance of forces was uncomfortably close and was worried about morale problems in the troops and supporters, after eight years of war.[4]: 561  Turner has argued that the Viet Minh might have prolonged the negotiations and continued fighting to achieve a more favorable position militarily, if not for Chinese and Soviet pressure on them to end the fighting.[8] In addition, there was a widespread perception that the Diem government would collapse, leaving the Viet Minh free to take control of the area.[9]

On 12 May, the State of Vietnam rejected any partition of the country, and the U.S. expressed a similar position the next day. The French sought to implement a physical separation of the opposing forces into enclaves throughout the country, known as the "leopard-skin" approach. The DRV/Viet Minh would be given the Cà Mau Peninsula, three enclaves near Saigon, large areas of Annam and Tonkin; the French Union forces would retain most urban areas and the Red River Delta, including Hanoi and Haiphong, allowing it to resume combat operation in the north, if necessary.[4]: 562–3 

Behind the scenes, the U.S. and the French governments continued to discuss the terms for possible U.S. military intervention in Indochina.[4]: 563–6  By 29 May, the U.S. and the French had reached an agreement that if the Conference failed to deliver an acceptable peace deal, Eisenhower would seek Congressional approval for military intervention in Indochina.[4]: 568–9  However, after discussions with the Australian and New Zealand governments in which it became evident that neither would support U.S. military intervention, reports of the plummeting morale among the French Union forces and opposition from U.S. Army Chief of Staff Matthew Ridgway, the U.S. began to shift away from intervention and continued to oppose a negotiated settlement.[4]: 569–73  By early to mid-June, the U.S. began to consider the possibility that rather than supporting the French in Indochina, it might be preferable for the French to leave and for the U.S. to support the new Indochinese states. That would remove the taint of French colonialism. Unwilling to support the proposed partition or intervention, by mid-June, the U.S. decided to withdraw from major participation in the Conference.[4]: 574–5 

On 15 June, Vyacheslav Molotov proposed that the ceasefire should be monitored by a supervisory commission, chaired by non-aligned India. On 16 June, Zhou Enlai stated that the situations in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos were not the same and should be treated separately. He proposed that Laos and Cambodia could be treated as neutral nations if they had no foreign bases. On 18 June, Pham Van Dong said the Viet Minh would be prepared to withdraw their forces from Laos and Cambodia if no foreign bases were established in Indochina.[4]: 581  The apparent softening of the Communist position appeared to arise from a meeting among the DRV, Chinese and Soviet delegations on 15 June in which Zhou warned the Viet Minh that its military presence in Laos and Cambodia threatened to undermine negotiations in relation to Vietnam. That represented a major blow to the DRV, which had tried to ensure that the Pathet Lao and Khmer Issarak would join the governments in Laos and Cambodia, respectively, under the leadership of the DRV. The Chinese likely also sought to ensure that Laos and Cambodia were not under Vietnam's influence in the future but under China's.[4]: 581–3 

On 18 June, following a vote of no-confidence, the French Laniel government fell and was replaced by a coalition with Radical Pierre Mendès France as Prime Minister, by a vote of 419 to 47, with 143 abstentions.[4]: 579  Prior to the collapse of the Laniel government, France recognized Vietnam as "a fully independent and sovereign state" on 4 June.[10] A long-time opponent of the war, Mendès France had pledged to the National Assembly that he would resign if he failed to achieve a ceasefire within 30 days.[4]: 575  Mendès France retained the Foreign Ministry for himself, and Bidault left the Conference.[4]: 579  The new French government abandoned earlier assurances to the State of Vietnam that France would not pursue or accept partition, and it engaged in secret negotiations with the Viet Minh delegation, bypassing the State of Vietnam to meet Mendès France's self-imposed deadline.[11] On 23 June, Mendès France secretly met with Zhou Enlai at the French embassy in Bern. Zhou outlined the Chinese position that an immediate ceasefire was required, the three nations should be treated separately, and the two governments that existed in Vietnam would be recognized.[4]: 584 

Mendès France returned to Paris. The following day he met with his main advisers on Indochina. General Paul Ély outlined the deteriorating military position in Vietnam, and Jean Chauvel suggested that the situation on the ground called for partition at the 16th or 17th parallel. The three agreed that the Bao Dai government would need time to consolidate its position and that U.S. assistance would be vital. The possibility of retaining Hanoi and Haiphong or just Haiphong was dismissed, as the French believed it was preferable to seek partition with no Viet Minh enclaves in the south.[4]: 585–7 

On 16 June, twelve days after France granted full independence to the State of Vietnam,[12] Bao Dai appointed Ngo Dinh Diem as Prime Minister to replace Bửu Lộc. Diem was a staunch nationalist, both anti-French and anticommunist, with strong political connections in the U.S.[4]: 576  Diem agreed to take the position if he received all civilian and military powers.[12] Diem and his foreign minister, Tran Van Do, were strongly opposed to partition.

At Geneva, the State of Vietnam's proposal included "a ceasefire without a demarcation line" and "control by the United Nations... of the administration of the entire country [and] of the general elections, when the United Nations believes that order and security will have been everywhere truly restored."[13]

On 28 June following an Anglo-US summit in Washington, the UK and the U.S. issued a joint communique, which included a statement that if the Conference failed, "the international situation will be seriously aggravated." The parties also agreed to a secret list of seven minimum outcomes that both parties would "respect": the preservation of a noncommunist South Vietnam (plus an enclave in the Red River Delta if possible), future reunification of divided Vietnam, and the integrity of Cambodia and Laos, including the removal of all Viet Minh forces.[4]: 593–4 

Also on 28 June, Tạ Quang Bửu, a senior DRV negotiator, called for the line of partition to be at the 13th parallel, the withdrawal of all French Union forces from the north within three months of the ceasefire, and the Pathet Lao to have virtual sovereignty over eastern Laos.[4]: 595–6 

From 3 to 5 July, Zhou Enlai met with Ho Chi Minh and other senior DRV leaders in Liuzhou, Guangxi. Most of the first day was spent discussing the military situation and balance of forces in Vietnam, Giáp explained that while

Dien Bien Phu had represented a colossal defeat for France ... she was far from defeated. She retained a superiority in numbers - some 470,000 troops, roughly half of them Vietnamese, versus 310,000 on the Viet Minh side as well as control of Vietnam's major cities (Hanoi, Saigon, Huế, Tourane (Da Nang)). A fundamental alteration of the balance of forces had thus yet to occur, Giap continued, despite Dien Bien Phu.

Wei Guoqing, the chief Chinese military adviser to the Viet Minh, said he agreed. "If the U.S. does not interfere,' Zhou asked, "and assuming France will dispatch more troops, how long will it take for us to seize the whole of Indochina?" In the best scenario, Giap replied, "full victory could be achieved in two to three years. Worst case? Three to five years."[4]: 596 

That afternoon Zhou "offered a lengthy exposition on the massive international reach of the Indochina conflict ... and on the imperative of preventing an American intervention in the war. Given Washington's intense hostility to the Chinese Revolution ... one must assume that the current administration would not stand idly by if the Viet Minh sought to win complete victory." Consequently, "if we ask too much at Geneva and peace is not achieved, it is certain that the U.S. will intervene, providing Cambodia, Laos, and Bao Dai with weapons and ammunition, helping them train military personnel, and establishing military bases there ... The central issue", Zhou told Ho, is "to prevent America's intervention" and "to achieve a peaceful settlement." Laos and Cambodia would have to be treated differently and be allowed to pursue their own paths if they did not join a military alliance or permit foreign bases on their territory. The Mendes France government, having vowed to achieve a negotiated solution, must be supported, for fear that it would fall and be replaced by one committed to continuing the war."[4]: 597  Ho pressed hard for the partition line to be at the 16th parallel while Zhou noted that Route 9, the only land route from Laos to the South China Sea ran closer to the 17th parallel.[4]: 597 

Several days later the Communist Party of Vietnam's Sixth Central Committee plenum took place. Ho Chi Minh and General Secretary Trường Chinh took turns Emphasizing the need for an early political settlement to prevent military intervention by the United States, now the "main and direct enemy" of Vietnam. "In the new situation we cannot follow the old program," Ho declared. "[B]efore, our motto was, 'war of resistance until victory.' Now, in view of the new situation, we should uphold a new motto: peace, unification, independence, and democracy." A spirit of compromise would be required by both sides to make the negotiations succeed, and there could be no more talk of wiping out and annihilating all the French troops. A demarcation line allowing the temporary regrouping of both sides would be necessary ..." The plenum endorsed Ho's analysis, passing a resolution supporting a compromise settlement to end the fighting. However, Ho and Truong Chinh plainly worried that following such an agreement in Geneva, there would be internal discontent and "leftist deviation", and in particular, analysts would fail to see the complexity of the situation and underestimate the power of the American and French adversaries. They accordingly reminded their colleagues that France would retain control of a large part of the country and that people living in the area might be confused, alienated, and vulnerable to enemy manipulations.

"We have to make it clear to our people," Ho said that "in the interest of the whole country, for the sake of long-term interest, they must accept this, because it is a glorious thing and the whole country is grateful for that. We must not let people have pessimistic and negative thinking; instead, we must encourage the people to continue the struggle for the withdrawal of French troops and ensure our independence."[4]: 597–8 

The Conference reconvened on 10 July, and Mendès France arrived to lead the French delegation.[4]: 599  The State of Vietnam continued to protest against partition which had become inevitable, with the only issue being where the line should be drawn.[4]: 602  Walter Bedell Smith from the U.S. arrived in Geneva on July 16, but the U.S. delegation was under instructions to avoid direct association with the negotiations.[4]: 602 

All parties at the Conference called for reunification elections but could not agree on the details. Pham Van Dong proposed elections under the supervision of "local commissions." The U.S., with the support of Britain and the Associated States of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, suggested UN supervision. That was rejected by Molotov, who argued for a commission with an equal number of communist and noncommunist members, which could determine "important" issues only by unanimous agreement.[14] The negotiators were unable to agree on a date for the elections for reunification. The DRV argued that the elections should be held within six months of the ceasefire, and the Western allies sought to have no deadline. Molotov proposed in June 1955 then later softened later in 1955 and finally July 1956.[4]: 610  The Diem government supported reunification elections but only with effective international supervision; it argued that genuinely free elections were impossible in the totalitarian North.[15]

 
Geneva Conference, 21 July 1954. Last plenary session on Indochina in the Palais des Nations. Second left Vyacheslav Molotov, two unidentified Soviets, Anthony Eden, Sir Harold Caccie, and W.D. Allen. In the foreground, the North Vietnamese delegation.

By the afternoon of 20 July, the remaining outstanding issues were resolved as the parties agreed that the partition line should be at the 17th parallel and that the elections for reunification should be in July 1956, two years after the ceasefire.[4]: 604  The "Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities in Vietnam" was signed only by French and Viet Minh military commands.[14] Based on a proposal by Zhou Enlai, an International Control Commission (ICC) chaired by India, with Canada and Poland as members, was placed in charge of supervising the ceasefire.[4]: 603 [14] Because issues were to be decided unanimously, Poland's presence in the ICC provided the communists' effective veto power over supervision of the treaty.[14] The unsigned "Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference" called for reunification elections, which the majority of delegates expected to be supervised by the ICC. The Viet Minh never accepted ICC authority over such elections, stating that the ICC's "competence was to be limited to the supervision and control of the implementation of the Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities by both parties."[16] Of the nine delegates present, only the United States and the State of Vietnam refused to accept the declaration. Bedell Smith delivered a "unilateral declaration" of the U.S. position, reiterating: "We shall seek to achieve unity through free elections supervised by the United Nations to insure that they are conducted fairly."[17]

While the three agreements (later known as the Geneva Accords) were dated 20 July (to meet Mendès France's 30-day deadline) they were in fact signed on the morning of 21 July.[4]: 605 [18]

Provisions

The accords, which were issued on July 21, 1954,[19] set out the following terms in relation to Vietnam:

  • a "provisional military demarcation line" running approximately along the 17th Parallel[20] "on either side of which the forces of the two parties shall be regrouped after their withdrawal".[20]
  • a 3 miles (4.8 km) wide demilitarized zone on each side of the demarcation line
  • French Union forces regroup to the south of the line and Viet Minh to the north
  • free movement of the population between the zone for three hundred days
  • neither zone to join any military alliance or seek military reinforcement
  • establishment of the International Control Commission, comprising Canada, Poland, and India as chair, to monitor the ceasefire[4]: 605 [21]
  • free general elections by secret ballot shall be held in July 1956, under the supervision of the International Supervisory Commission

The agreement was signed by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, France, the People's Republic of China, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom. The State of Vietnam rejected the agreement,[22] while the United States stated that it "took note" of the ceasefire agreements and declared that it would "refrain from the threat or use of force to disturb them.[4]: 606 

To put aside any notion specifically that the partition was permanent, an unsigned Final Declaration, stated in Article 6: "The Conference recognizes that the essential purpose of the agreement relating to Vietnam is to settle military questions with a view to ending hostilities and that the military demarcation line is provisional and should not in any way be interpreted as constituting a political or territorial boundary."[20]

Separate accords were signed by the signatories with the Kingdom of Cambodia and the Kingdom of Laos in relation to Cambodia and Laos respectively.

The British and Communist Chinese delegations reached an agreement on the sidelines of the Conference to upgrade their diplomatic relations.[23]

Reactions

The DRV at Geneva accepted a much worse settlement than the military situation on the ground indicated. "For Ho Chi Minh, there was no getting around the fact that his victory, however unprecedented and stunning was incomplete and perhaps temporary. The vision that had always driven him on, that of a 'great union' of all Vietnamese, had flickered into view for a fleeting moment in 1945–46, then had been lost in the subsequent war. Now, despite vanquishing the French military, the dream remained unrealized ..."[4]: 620  That was partly as a result of the great pressure exerted by China (Pham Van Dong is alleged to have said in one of the final negotiating sessions that Zhou Enlai double-crossed the DRV) and the Soviet Union for their own purposes, but the Viet Minh had their own reasons for agreeing to a negotiated settlement, principally their own concerns regarding the balance of forces and fear of U.S. intervention.[4]: 607–9 

France had achieved a much better outcome than could have been expected. Bidault had stated at the beginning of the Conference that he was playing with "a two of clubs and a three of diamonds" whereas the DRV had several aces, kings, and queens,[4]: 607  but Jean Chauvel was more circumspect: "There is no good end to a bad business."[4]: 613 

In a press conference on July 21, President Eisenhower expressed satisfaction that a ceasefire had been concluded but stated that the U.S. was not a party to the Accords or bound by them, as they contained provisions that his administration could not support.[4]: 612 

Aftermath

Main articles: Operation Passage to Freedom and 1955 State of Vietnam referendum

On October 9, 1954, the tricolore was lowered for the last time at the Hanoi Citadel and the last French Union forces left the city, crossing the Paul Doumer Bridge on their way to Haiphong for embarkation.[4]: 617–8 

 
Anti-communist Vietnamese refugees moving from a French LSM landing ship to the USS Montague during Operation Passage to Freedom in August 1954.

For the communist forces, which were instrumental in the defeat of the French, the ideology of communism and nationalism were linked. Many communist sympathizers viewed the South Vietnamese as a French colonial remnant and later an American puppet regime. On the other hand, many others viewed the North Vietnamese as a puppet of International Communism.

After the cessation of hostilities, a large migration took place. North Vietnamese, especially Catholics, intellectuals, business people, land owners, anti-communist democrats, and members of the middle class moved south of the Accords-mandated ceasefire line during Operation Passage to Freedom. The ICC reported that at least 892,876 North Vietnamese were processed through official refugee stations, while journalists recounted that as many as 2 million more might have fled had it not been for the presence of Viet Minh soldiers, who frequently beat and occasionally killed those who refused to turn back.[24] The CIA attempted to further influence Catholic Vietnamese with slogans such as "the Virgin Mary is moving South".[25] Around the same time, between 14,000 – 45,000 civilians and approximately 100,000 Viet Minh fighters moved in the opposite direction.[26][27][28]

The U.S. replaced the French as a political backup for Ngo Dinh Diem, the Prime Minister of the State of Vietnam, who asserted his power in the South. The Geneva conference had not provided any specific mechanisms for the national elections planned for 1956, and Diem refused to hold them by citing that the South had not signed and was not bound to the Geneva Accords and that it was impossible to hold free elections in the communist North. Instead, he went about attempting to crush communist opposition.[29][30]

On May 20, 1955, French Union forces withdrew from Saigon to a coastal base and on April 28, 1956, the last French forces left Vietnam.[4]: 650 

North Vietnam violated the Geneva Accords by failing to withdraw all Viet Minh troops from South Vietnam, stifling the movement of North Vietnamese refugees, and conducting a military buildup that more than doubled the number of armed divisions in the North Vietnamese army while the South Vietnamese army was reduced by 20,000 men.[31] U.S. military advisers continued to support the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, which was created as a replacement for the Vietnamese National Army.

In July 1955, the prime minister of the State of Vietnam, Ngô Đình Diệm, announced that South Vietnam would not participate in elections to unify the country. He said that the State of Vietnam had not signed the Geneva Accords and was therefore not bound by it,[32] despite the State of Vietnam being part of the French Union,[33] which was bound by the Accords.[34] The failure of reunification led to the creation of the National Liberation Front (better known as the Viet Cong) by Ho Chi Minh's government. They were closely aided by the Vietnam People's Army (VPA) of the North, also known as the North Vietnamese Army. The result was the Vietnam War.

Historian John Lewis Gaddis said that the 1954 accords "were so hastily drafted and ambiguously worded that, from the standpoint of international law, it makes little sense to speak of violations from either side".[35]

See also

References

Citations

  1. ^ "Indochina - Midway in the Geneva Conference: Address by the Secretary of State". Avalon Project. Yale Law School. 7 May 1954. Retrieved 29 April 2010.
  2. ^ Young, Marilyn (1991). The Vietnam Wars: 1945–1990. New York: HarperPerennial. p. 41. ISBN 978-0-06-092107-1.
  3. ^ Archive, Wilson Center Digital. "Wilson Center Digital Archive". digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar as at au Logevall, Fredrik (2012). Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam. random House. ISBN 978-0-679-64519-1.
  5. ^ "Text of the Korean War Armistice Agreement". Findlaw. Columbia University. July 27, 1953. Retrieved 29 April 2010.
  6. ^ a b Bailey, Sydney D. (1992). The Korean Armistice. St. Martin's Press. p. 163.
  7. ^ Bailey, Sydney D. (1992). The Korean Armistice. St. Martin's Press. pp. 167–168.
  8. ^ a b Turner 1975, p. 92.
  9. ^ Turner 1975, p. 108.
  10. ^ Turner 1975, p. 93.
  11. ^ Turner 1975, p. 88.
  12. ^ a b Turner 1975, p. 94.
  13. ^ Turner 1975, pp. 94–95.
  14. ^ a b c d Turner 1975, p. 97.
  15. ^ Turner 1975, p. 107.
  16. ^ Turner 1975, p. 99.
  17. ^ Turner 1975, pp. 99–100.
  18. ^ Turner 1975, p. 96.
  19. ^ . The Wars for Viet Nam. Vassar College. Archived from the original on 7 August 2011. Retrieved 20 July 2011.
  20. ^ a b c The United States in Vietnam: An analysis in depth of the history of America's involvement in Vietnam by George McTurnan Kahin and John W. Lewis Delta Books, 1967.
  21. ^ (Article 3) (N. Tarling, The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia, Volume Two Part Two: From World War II to the present, Cambridge University Press, p45)
  22. ^ Ang Cheng Guan (1997). Vietnamese Communists' Relations with China and the Second Indochina War (1956–62). Jefferson, NC: McFarland. p. 11. ISBN 0-7864-0404-3.
  23. ^ Lowe, Peter (January 1997). Containing the Cold War in East Asia: British Policies Towards Japan, China, and Korea, 1948-53. Manchester University Press. p. 261. ISBN 978-0-7190-2508-2. Retrieved July 21, 2013.
  24. ^ Turner 1975, p. 102-103.
  25. ^ Patrick J. Hearden (2017). The Tragedy of Vietnam. Routledge. p. 74. ISBN 978-1-351-67400-3. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
  26. ^ Trân, Thi Liên (2005). "The Catholic Question in North Vietnam: From Polish Sources, 1954–56". Cold War History. London: Routledge. 5 (4): 427–449. doi:10.1080/14682740500284747.
  27. ^ Frankum, Ronald (2007). Operation Passage to Freedom: The United States Navy in Vietnam, 1954–55. Lubbock, Texas: Texas Tech University Press. ISBN 978-0-89672-608-6.
  28. ^ Ruane, Kevin (1998). War and Revolution in Vietnam. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-85728-323-5.
  29. ^ Keylor, William. "The 20th Century World and Beyond: An International History Since 1900," p.371, Oxford University Press: 2011.
  30. ^ David L. Anderson (2010). The Columbia History of the Vietnam War. Columbia University Press. p. 30–31. ISBN 978-0-231-13480-4.
  31. ^ Turner 1975, p. 100-104.
  32. ^ Ang Cheng Guan (1997). Vietnamese Communists' Relations with China and the Second Indochina War (1956–62). Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. p. 11. ISBN 978-0-7864-0404-9. Archived from the original on 13 July 2017. Retrieved 5 August 2016.
  33. ^ Hammer, Ellen J. “The Bao Dai Experiment.” Pacific Affairs, vol. 23, no. 1, Pacific Affairs, University of British Columbia, 1950, p. 55, doi:10.2307/2753754.
  34. ^ "Geneva Agreements 20-21 July 1954" (PDF). United Nations. 1954. (PDF) from the original on 2018-11-10.
  35. ^ Fadiman, Anne. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 1997. 126.

Sources

  • Asselin, Pierre. "The Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the 1954 Geneva Conference: a revisionist critique". Cold War History (2011) 11#2 pp. 155–195.
  • Hannon Jr, John S. "Political Settlement for Vietnam: The 1954 Geneva Conference and Its Current Implications, A". Virginia Journal of International Law 8 (1967): 4.
  • Turner, Robert F. (1975). Vietnamese Communism: Its Origins and Development. Hoover Institution Publications. ISBN 978-0-8179-1431-8.
  • Waite, James. The End of the First Indochina War: A Global History (2013)
  • Young, Kenneth T. The 1954 Geneva Conference: Indo-China and Korea (Greenwood Press, 1968)

External links

 
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Geneva Conference
 
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
The Final Declaration of The Geneva Conference: On Restoring Peace in Indochina, July 21, 1954
  • (PDF). Cold War International History Project Bulletin. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (16). 2008-04-22. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-03-27. Retrieved 2009-04-14.
  • Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars - Cold War International History Project - The 1954 Geneva Conference July 13, 2011
  • Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954, volume XVI, The Geneva Conference. Available through the Foreign Relations of the United States online collection at the University of Wisconsin.

May 01, 2023
1954, geneva, conference, other, similar, events, geneva, conference, geneva, conference, conference, that, intended, settle, outstanding, issues, resulting, from, korean, first, indochina, involved, several, nations, took, place, geneva, switzerland, from, ap. For other similar events see Geneva Conference The Geneva Conference was a conference that was intended to settle outstanding issues resulting from the Korean War and the First Indochina War and involved several nations It took place in Geneva Switzerland from 26 April to 20 July 1954 1 2 The part of the conference on the Korean question ended without adopting any declarations or proposals and so is generally considered less relevant The Geneva Accords that dealt with the dismantling of French Indochina proved to have long lasting repercussions however The crumbling of the French colonial empire in Southeast Asia led to the formation of the states of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam North Vietnam the State of Vietnam precursor of the future Republic of Vietnam or South Vietnam the Kingdom of Cambodia and the Kingdom of Laos The partition of French Indochina that resulted from the Conference Three successor states were created the Kingdom of Cambodia the Kingdom of Laos and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam the state led by Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh The State of Vietnam was reduced to the southern part of Vietnam The division of Vietnam was intended to be temporary with elections planned for by 1956 to reunify the country Diplomats from South Korea North Korea the People s Republic of China the Soviet Union and the United States dealt with the Korean side of the conference For the Indochina side the Accords were between France the Viet Minh the Soviet Union the People s Republic of China the United States the United Kingdom and the future states being made from French Indochina 3 The agreement temporarily separated Vietnam into two zones a northern zone to be governed by the Viet Minh and a southern zone to be governed by the State of Vietnam which was headed by former Nguyễn dynasty emperor Bảo Đại A Conference Final Declaration which was issued by the British chairman of the conference provided that a general election be held by July 1956 to create a unified Vietnamese state Despite helping create some of the agreements they were not directly signed or accepted by delegates of the State of Vietnam and the United States The State of Vietnam under Ngo Dinh Diem subsequently refused to allow elections a cause of the Vietnam War Three separate ceasefire accords covering Cambodia Laos and Vietnam were signed at the conference Contents 1 Background 1 1 Korea 1 2 Indochina 2 Korea 3 Indochina 4 Provisions 5 Reactions 6 Aftermath 7 See also 8 References 8 1 Citations 8 2 Sources 9 External linksBackground EditOn 18 February 1954 at the Berlin Conference participants agreed that the problem of restoring peace in Indochina will also be discussed at the Conference on the Korean question to which representatives of the United States France the United Kingdom the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Chinese People s Republic and other interested states will be invited 4 436 The conference was held at the Palace of Nations in Geneva commencing on 26 April 1954 The first agenda item was the Korean question to be followed by Indochina 4 549 Korea Edit Main articles Korean War and Korean Armistice Agreement The armistice signed at end of the Korean War required a political conference within three months a timeline which was not met to settle through negotiation the questions of the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Korea the peaceful settlement of the Korean question etc 5 Indochina Edit This section does not cite any sources Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed July 2020 Learn how and when to remove this template message Main article First Indochina War The Geneva Conference As decolonization took place in Asia France had to relinquish its power over Indochina Laos Cambodia and Vietnam While Laos and Cambodia were both given independence France chose to stay in Vietnam This ended with a war between French troops and the Vietnamese nationalists led by Ho Chi Minh The latter s army the Viet Minh fought a guerrilla war while the French employed traditional Western technology The deciding factor was the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954 where the French were decisively defeated This resulted in French withdrawals and the Geneva conference It was decided that Vietnam would be divided at the 17th parallel until 1956 when democratic elections would be held under international supervision and auspices All parties involved agreed to this Ho Chi Minh had strong support in the north which was more populous than the south and was thus confident that he would win an election except for the U S which in the spirit of the Cold War feared seeing communism spreading in a domino effect throughout Asia Korea EditThe South Korean representative proposed that the South Korean government was the only legal government in Korea that UN supervised elections should be held in the North that Chinese forces should withdraw and that UN forces a belligerent party in the war should remain as a police force The North Korean representative suggested that elections be held throughout all of Korea that all foreign forces leave beforehand that the elections be run by an all Korean Commission to be made up of equal parts from North and South Korea and to increase general relations economically and culturally between the North and the South 6 The Chinese delegation proposed an amendment have a group of neutral nations supervise the elections which the North accepted The U S supported the South Korean position saying that the USSR wanted to turn North Korea into a puppet state Most allies remained silent and at least one Britain thought that the South Korean U S proposal would be deemed unreasonable 6 The South Korean representative proposed that all Korea elections be held according to South Korean constitutional procedures and still under UN supervision On June 15 the last day of the conference on the Korean question the USSR and China both submitted declarations in support of a unified democratic independent Korea saying that negotiations to that end should resume at an appropriate time The Belgian and British delegations said that while they were not going to accept the Soviet and Chinese proposals that did not mean a rejection of the ideas they contained 7 In the end however the conference participants did not agree on any declaration Indochina Edit Charles de Gaulle and Ho Chi Minh are hanged in effigy by students demonstrating in Saigon July 1964 on the 10th anniversary of the Geneva Accords While the delegates began to assemble in Geneva in late April the discussions on Indochina did not begin until 8 May 1954 The Viet Minh had achieved their decisive victory over the French Union forces at Dien Bien Phu the previous day 4 549 The Western allies did not have a unified position on what the Conference was to achieve in relation to Indochina Anthony Eden leading the British delegation favored a negotiated settlement to the conflict Georges Bidault leading the French delegation vacillated and was keen to preserve something of France s position in Indochina to justify past sacrifices even as the nation s military situation deteriorated 4 559 The U S had been supporting the French in Indochina for many years and the Republican Eisenhower administration wanted to ensure that it could not be accused of another Yalta or having lost Indochina to the Communists Its leaders had previously accused the Democratic Truman administration of having lost China when the Communists were successful in taking control of the country The Eisenhower administration had considered air strikes in support of the French at Dien Bien Phu but was unable to obtain a commitment to united action from key allies such as the United Kingdom Eisenhower was wary of becoming drawn into another Korea that would be deeply unpopular with the American public U S domestic policy considerations strongly influenced the country s position at Geneva 4 551 3 Columnist Walter Lippmann wrote on 29 April that the American position at Geneva is an impossible one so long as leading Republican senators have no terms for peace except unconditional surrender of the enemy and no terms for entering the war except as a collective action in which nobody is now willing to engage 4 554 At the time of the conference the U S did not recognize the People s Republic of China Secretary of State John Foster Dulles an anticommunist forbade any contact with the Chinese delegation refusing to shake hands with Zhou Enlai the lead Chinese negotiator 4 555 Dulles fell out with the UK delegate Anthony Eden over the perceived failure of the UK to support united action and U S positions on Indochina he left Geneva on 3 May and was replaced by his deputy Walter Bedell Smith 4 555 8 The State of Vietnam refused to attend the negotiations until Bidault wrote to Bảo Đại assuring him that any agreement would not partition Vietnam 4 550 1 Bidault opened the conference on 8 May by proposing a cessation of hostilities a ceasefire in place a release of prisoners of war and a disarming of irregulars despite the French surrender at Dien Bien Phu the previous day in northwestern Vietnam 4 559 60 On 10 May Phạm Văn Đồng the leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam DRV delegation set out their position proposing a ceasefire separation of the opposing forces a ban on the introduction of new forces into Indochina the exchange of prisoners independence and sovereignty for Vietnam Cambodia and Laos elections for unified governments in each country the withdrawal of all foreign forces and the inclusion of the Pathet Lao and Khmer Issarak representatives at the Conference 4 560 Pham Van Dong first proposed a temporary partition of Vietnam on 25 May 8 Following their victory at Dien Bien Phu and given the worsening French security position around the Red River Delta a ceasefire and partition would not appear to have been in the interests of the DRV It appears that the DRV leadership thought the balance of forces was uncomfortably close and was worried about morale problems in the troops and supporters after eight years of war 4 561 Turner has argued that the Viet Minh might have prolonged the negotiations and continued fighting to achieve a more favorable position militarily if not for Chinese and Soviet pressure on them to end the fighting 8 In addition there was a widespread perception that the Diem government would collapse leaving the Viet Minh free to take control of the area 9 On 12 May the State of Vietnam rejected any partition of the country and the U S expressed a similar position the next day The French sought to implement a physical separation of the opposing forces into enclaves throughout the country known as the leopard skin approach The DRV Viet Minh would be given the Ca Mau Peninsula three enclaves near Saigon large areas of Annam and Tonkin the French Union forces would retain most urban areas and the Red River Delta including Hanoi and Haiphong allowing it to resume combat operation in the north if necessary 4 562 3 Behind the scenes the U S and the French governments continued to discuss the terms for possible U S military intervention in Indochina 4 563 6 By 29 May the U S and the French had reached an agreement that if the Conference failed to deliver an acceptable peace deal Eisenhower would seek Congressional approval for military intervention in Indochina 4 568 9 However after discussions with the Australian and New Zealand governments in which it became evident that neither would support U S military intervention reports of the plummeting morale among the French Union forces and opposition from U S Army Chief of Staff Matthew Ridgway the U S began to shift away from intervention and continued to oppose a negotiated settlement 4 569 73 By early to mid June the U S began to consider the possibility that rather than supporting the French in Indochina it might be preferable for the French to leave and for the U S to support the new Indochinese states That would remove the taint of French colonialism Unwilling to support the proposed partition or intervention by mid June the U S decided to withdraw from major participation in the Conference 4 574 5 On 15 June Vyacheslav Molotov proposed that the ceasefire should be monitored by a supervisory commission chaired by non aligned India On 16 June Zhou Enlai stated that the situations in Vietnam Cambodia and Laos were not the same and should be treated separately He proposed that Laos and Cambodia could be treated as neutral nations if they had no foreign bases On 18 June Pham Van Dong said the Viet Minh would be prepared to withdraw their forces from Laos and Cambodia if no foreign bases were established in Indochina 4 581 The apparent softening of the Communist position appeared to arise from a meeting among the DRV Chinese and Soviet delegations on 15 June in which Zhou warned the Viet Minh that its military presence in Laos and Cambodia threatened to undermine negotiations in relation to Vietnam That represented a major blow to the DRV which had tried to ensure that the Pathet Lao and Khmer Issarak would join the governments in Laos and Cambodia respectively under the leadership of the DRV The Chinese likely also sought to ensure that Laos and Cambodia were not under Vietnam s influence in the future but under China s 4 581 3 On 18 June following a vote of no confidence the French Laniel government fell and was replaced by a coalition with Radical Pierre Mendes France as Prime Minister by a vote of 419 to 47 with 143 abstentions 4 579 Prior to the collapse of the Laniel government France recognized Vietnam as a fully independent and sovereign state on 4 June 10 A long time opponent of the war Mendes France had pledged to the National Assembly that he would resign if he failed to achieve a ceasefire within 30 days 4 575 Mendes France retained the Foreign Ministry for himself and Bidault left the Conference 4 579 The new French government abandoned earlier assurances to the State of Vietnam that France would not pursue or accept partition and it engaged in secret negotiations with the Viet Minh delegation bypassing the State of Vietnam to meet Mendes France s self imposed deadline 11 On 23 June Mendes France secretly met with Zhou Enlai at the French embassy in Bern Zhou outlined the Chinese position that an immediate ceasefire was required the three nations should be treated separately and the two governments that existed in Vietnam would be recognized 4 584 Mendes France returned to Paris The following day he met with his main advisers on Indochina General Paul Ely outlined the deteriorating military position in Vietnam and Jean Chauvel suggested that the situation on the ground called for partition at the 16th or 17th parallel The three agreed that the Bao Dai government would need time to consolidate its position and that U S assistance would be vital The possibility of retaining Hanoi and Haiphong or just Haiphong was dismissed as the French believed it was preferable to seek partition with no Viet Minh enclaves in the south 4 585 7 On 16 June twelve days after France granted full independence to the State of Vietnam 12 Bao Dai appointed Ngo Dinh Diem as Prime Minister to replace Bửu Lộc Diem was a staunch nationalist both anti French and anticommunist with strong political connections in the U S 4 576 Diem agreed to take the position if he received all civilian and military powers 12 Diem and his foreign minister Tran Van Do were strongly opposed to partition At Geneva the State of Vietnam s proposal included a ceasefire without a demarcation line and control by the United Nations of the administration of the entire country and of the general elections when the United Nations believes that order and security will have been everywhere truly restored 13 On 28 June following an Anglo US summit in Washington the UK and the U S issued a joint communique which included a statement that if the Conference failed the international situation will be seriously aggravated The parties also agreed to a secret list of seven minimum outcomes that both parties would respect the preservation of a noncommunist South Vietnam plus an enclave in the Red River Delta if possible future reunification of divided Vietnam and the integrity of Cambodia and Laos including the removal of all Viet Minh forces 4 593 4 Also on 28 June Tạ Quang Bửu a senior DRV negotiator called for the line of partition to be at the 13th parallel the withdrawal of all French Union forces from the north within three months of the ceasefire and the Pathet Lao to have virtual sovereignty over eastern Laos 4 595 6 From 3 to 5 July Zhou Enlai met with Ho Chi Minh and other senior DRV leaders in Liuzhou Guangxi Most of the first day was spent discussing the military situation and balance of forces in Vietnam Giap explained that while Dien Bien Phu had represented a colossal defeat for France she was far from defeated She retained a superiority in numbers some 470 000 troops roughly half of them Vietnamese versus 310 000 on the Viet Minh side as well as control of Vietnam s major cities Hanoi Saigon Huế Tourane Da Nang A fundamental alteration of the balance of forces had thus yet to occur Giap continued despite Dien Bien Phu Wei Guoqing the chief Chinese military adviser to the Viet Minh said he agreed If the U S does not interfere Zhou asked and assuming France will dispatch more troops how long will it take for us to seize the whole of Indochina In the best scenario Giap replied full victory could be achieved in two to three years Worst case Three to five years 4 596 That afternoon Zhou offered a lengthy exposition on the massive international reach of the Indochina conflict and on the imperative of preventing an American intervention in the war Given Washington s intense hostility to the Chinese Revolution one must assume that the current administration would not stand idly by if the Viet Minh sought to win complete victory Consequently if we ask too much at Geneva and peace is not achieved it is certain that the U S will intervene providing Cambodia Laos and Bao Dai with weapons and ammunition helping them train military personnel and establishing military bases there The central issue Zhou told Ho is to prevent America s intervention and to achieve a peaceful settlement Laos and Cambodia would have to be treated differently and be allowed to pursue their own paths if they did not join a military alliance or permit foreign bases on their territory The Mendes France government having vowed to achieve a negotiated solution must be supported for fear that it would fall and be replaced by one committed to continuing the war 4 597 Ho pressed hard for the partition line to be at the 16th parallel while Zhou noted that Route 9 the only land route from Laos to the South China Sea ran closer to the 17th parallel 4 597 Several days later the Communist Party of Vietnam s Sixth Central Committee plenum took place Ho Chi Minh and General Secretary Trường Chinh took turns Emphasizing the need for an early political settlement to prevent military intervention by the United States now the main and direct enemy of Vietnam In the new situation we cannot follow the old program Ho declared B efore our motto was war of resistance until victory Now in view of the new situation we should uphold a new motto peace unification independence and democracy A spirit of compromise would be required by both sides to make the negotiations succeed and there could be no more talk of wiping out and annihilating all the French troops A demarcation line allowing the temporary regrouping of both sides would be necessary The plenum endorsed Ho s analysis passing a resolution supporting a compromise settlement to end the fighting However Ho and Truong Chinh plainly worried that following such an agreement in Geneva there would be internal discontent and leftist deviation and in particular analysts would fail to see the complexity of the situation and underestimate the power of the American and French adversaries They accordingly reminded their colleagues that France would retain control of a large part of the country and that people living in the area might be confused alienated and vulnerable to enemy manipulations We have to make it clear to our people Ho said that in the interest of the whole country for the sake of long term interest they must accept this because it is a glorious thing and the whole country is grateful for that We must not let people have pessimistic and negative thinking instead we must encourage the people to continue the struggle for the withdrawal of French troops and ensure our independence 4 597 8 The Conference reconvened on 10 July and Mendes France arrived to lead the French delegation 4 599 The State of Vietnam continued to protest against partition which had become inevitable with the only issue being where the line should be drawn 4 602 Walter Bedell Smith from the U S arrived in Geneva on July 16 but the U S delegation was under instructions to avoid direct association with the negotiations 4 602 All parties at the Conference called for reunification elections but could not agree on the details Pham Van Dong proposed elections under the supervision of local commissions The U S with the support of Britain and the Associated States of Vietnam Laos and Cambodia suggested UN supervision That was rejected by Molotov who argued for a commission with an equal number of communist and noncommunist members which could determine important issues only by unanimous agreement 14 The negotiators were unable to agree on a date for the elections for reunification The DRV argued that the elections should be held within six months of the ceasefire and the Western allies sought to have no deadline Molotov proposed in June 1955 then later softened later in 1955 and finally July 1956 4 610 The Diem government supported reunification elections but only with effective international supervision it argued that genuinely free elections were impossible in the totalitarian North 15 Geneva Conference 21 July 1954 Last plenary session on Indochina in the Palais des Nations Second left Vyacheslav Molotov two unidentified Soviets Anthony Eden Sir Harold Caccie and W D Allen In the foreground the North Vietnamese delegation By the afternoon of 20 July the remaining outstanding issues were resolved as the parties agreed that the partition line should be at the 17th parallel and that the elections for reunification should be in July 1956 two years after the ceasefire 4 604 The Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities in Vietnam was signed only by French and Viet Minh military commands 14 Based on a proposal by Zhou Enlai an International Control Commission ICC chaired by India with Canada and Poland as members was placed in charge of supervising the ceasefire 4 603 14 Because issues were to be decided unanimously Poland s presence in the ICC provided the communists effective veto power over supervision of the treaty 14 The unsigned Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference called for reunification elections which the majority of delegates expected to be supervised by the ICC The Viet Minh never accepted ICC authority over such elections stating that the ICC s competence was to be limited to the supervision and control of the implementation of the Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities by both parties 16 Of the nine delegates present only the United States and the State of Vietnam refused to accept the declaration Bedell Smith delivered a unilateral declaration of the U S position reiterating We shall seek to achieve unity through free elections supervised by the United Nations to insure that they are conducted fairly 17 While the three agreements later known as the Geneva Accords were dated 20 July to meet Mendes France s 30 day deadline they were in fact signed on the morning of 21 July 4 605 18 Provisions EditThe accords which were issued on July 21 1954 19 set out the following terms in relation to Vietnam a provisional military demarcation line running approximately along the 17th Parallel 20 on either side of which the forces of the two parties shall be regrouped after their withdrawal 20 a 3 miles 4 8 km wide demilitarized zone on each side of the demarcation line French Union forces regroup to the south of the line and Viet Minh to the north free movement of the population between the zone for three hundred days neither zone to join any military alliance or seek military reinforcement establishment of the International Control Commission comprising Canada Poland and India as chair to monitor the ceasefire 4 605 21 free general elections by secret ballot shall be held in July 1956 under the supervision of the International Supervisory CommissionThe agreement was signed by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam France the People s Republic of China the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom The State of Vietnam rejected the agreement 22 while the United States stated that it took note of the ceasefire agreements and declared that it would refrain from the threat or use of force to disturb them 4 606 To put aside any notion specifically that the partition was permanent an unsigned Final Declaration stated in Article 6 The Conference recognizes that the essential purpose of the agreement relating to Vietnam is to settle military questions with a view to ending hostilities and that the military demarcation line is provisional and should not in any way be interpreted as constituting a political or territorial boundary 20 Separate accords were signed by the signatories with the Kingdom of Cambodia and the Kingdom of Laos in relation to Cambodia and Laos respectively The British and Communist Chinese delegations reached an agreement on the sidelines of the Conference to upgrade their diplomatic relations 23 Reactions EditThe DRV at Geneva accepted a much worse settlement than the military situation on the ground indicated For Ho Chi Minh there was no getting around the fact that his victory however unprecedented and stunning was incomplete and perhaps temporary The vision that had always driven him on that of a great union of all Vietnamese had flickered into view for a fleeting moment in 1945 46 then had been lost in the subsequent war Now despite vanquishing the French military the dream remained unrealized 4 620 That was partly as a result of the great pressure exerted by China Pham Van Dong is alleged to have said in one of the final negotiating sessions that Zhou Enlai double crossed the DRV and the Soviet Union for their own purposes but the Viet Minh had their own reasons for agreeing to a negotiated settlement principally their own concerns regarding the balance of forces and fear of U S intervention 4 607 9 France had achieved a much better outcome than could have been expected Bidault had stated at the beginning of the Conference that he was playing with a two of clubs and a three of diamonds whereas the DRV had several aces kings and queens 4 607 but Jean Chauvel was more circumspect There is no good end to a bad business 4 613 In a press conference on July 21 President Eisenhower expressed satisfaction that a ceasefire had been concluded but stated that the U S was not a party to the Accords or bound by them as they contained provisions that his administration could not support 4 612 Aftermath EditMain articles Operation Passage to Freedom and 1955 State of Vietnam referendum On October 9 1954 the tricolore was lowered for the last time at the Hanoi Citadel and the last French Union forces left the city crossing the Paul Doumer Bridge on their way to Haiphong for embarkation 4 617 8 Anti communist Vietnamese refugees moving from a French LSM landing ship to the USS Montague during Operation Passage to Freedom in August 1954 For the communist forces which were instrumental in the defeat of the French the ideology of communism and nationalism were linked Many communist sympathizers viewed the South Vietnamese as a French colonial remnant and later an American puppet regime On the other hand many others viewed the North Vietnamese as a puppet of International Communism After the cessation of hostilities a large migration took place North Vietnamese especially Catholics intellectuals business people land owners anti communist democrats and members of the middle class moved south of the Accords mandated ceasefire line during Operation Passage to Freedom The ICC reported that at least 892 876 North Vietnamese were processed through official refugee stations while journalists recounted that as many as 2 million more might have fled had it not been for the presence of Viet Minh soldiers who frequently beat and occasionally killed those who refused to turn back 24 The CIA attempted to further influence Catholic Vietnamese with slogans such as the Virgin Mary is moving South 25 Around the same time between 14 000 45 000 civilians and approximately 100 000 Viet Minh fighters moved in the opposite direction 26 27 28 The U S replaced the French as a political backup for Ngo Dinh Diem the Prime Minister of the State of Vietnam who asserted his power in the South The Geneva conference had not provided any specific mechanisms for the national elections planned for 1956 and Diem refused to hold them by citing that the South had not signed and was not bound to the Geneva Accords and that it was impossible to hold free elections in the communist North Instead he went about attempting to crush communist opposition 29 30 On May 20 1955 French Union forces withdrew from Saigon to a coastal base and on April 28 1956 the last French forces left Vietnam 4 650 North Vietnam violated the Geneva Accords by failing to withdraw all Viet Minh troops from South Vietnam stifling the movement of North Vietnamese refugees and conducting a military buildup that more than doubled the number of armed divisions in the North Vietnamese army while the South Vietnamese army was reduced by 20 000 men 31 U S military advisers continued to support the Army of the Republic of Vietnam which was created as a replacement for the Vietnamese National Army In July 1955 the prime minister of the State of Vietnam Ngo Đinh Diệm announced that South Vietnam would not participate in elections to unify the country He said that the State of Vietnam had not signed the Geneva Accords and was therefore not bound by it 32 despite the State of Vietnam being part of the French Union 33 which was bound by the Accords 34 The failure of reunification led to the creation of the National Liberation Front better known as the Viet Cong by Ho Chi Minh s government They were closely aided by the Vietnam People s Army VPA of the North also known as the North Vietnamese Army The result was the Vietnam War Historian John Lewis Gaddis said that the 1954 accords were so hastily drafted and ambiguously worded that from the standpoint of international law it makes little sense to speak of violations from either side 35 See also EditVietnamese reunification day Korean conflictReferences EditCitations Edit Indochina Midway in the Geneva Conference Address by the Secretary of State Avalon Project Yale Law School 7 May 1954 Retrieved 29 April 2010 Young Marilyn 1991 The Vietnam Wars 1945 1990 New York HarperPerennial p 41 ISBN 978 0 06 092107 1 Archive Wilson Center Digital Wilson Center Digital Archive digitalarchive wilsoncenter org a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar as at au Logevall Fredrik 2012 Embers of War The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America s Vietnam random House ISBN 978 0 679 64519 1 Text of the Korean War Armistice Agreement Findlaw Columbia University July 27 1953 Retrieved 29 April 2010 a b Bailey Sydney D 1992 The Korean Armistice St Martin s Press p 163 Bailey Sydney D 1992 The Korean Armistice St Martin s Press pp 167 168 a b Turner 1975 p 92 Turner 1975 p 108 Turner 1975 p 93 Turner 1975 p 88 a b Turner 1975 p 94 Turner 1975 pp 94 95 a b c d Turner 1975 p 97 Turner 1975 p 107 Turner 1975 p 99 Turner 1975 pp 99 100 Turner 1975 p 96 The Final Declarations of the Geneva Conference July 21 1954 The Wars for Viet Nam Vassar College Archived from the original on 7 August 2011 Retrieved 20 July 2011 a b c The United States in Vietnam An analysis in depth of the history of America s involvement in Vietnam by George McTurnan Kahin and John W Lewis Delta Books 1967 Article 3 N Tarling The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia Volume Two Part Two From World War II to the present Cambridge University Press p45 Ang Cheng Guan 1997 Vietnamese Communists Relations with China and the Second Indochina War 1956 62 Jefferson NC McFarland p 11 ISBN 0 7864 0404 3 Lowe Peter January 1997 Containing the Cold War in East Asia British Policies Towards Japan China and Korea 1948 53 Manchester University Press p 261 ISBN 978 0 7190 2508 2 Retrieved July 21 2013 Turner 1975 p 102 103 Patrick J Hearden 2017 The Tragedy of Vietnam Routledge p 74 ISBN 978 1 351 67400 3 Retrieved 19 September 2017 Tran Thi Lien 2005 The Catholic Question in North Vietnam From Polish Sources 1954 56 Cold War History London Routledge 5 4 427 449 doi 10 1080 14682740500284747 Frankum Ronald 2007 Operation Passage to Freedom The United States Navy in Vietnam 1954 55 Lubbock Texas Texas Tech University Press ISBN 978 0 89672 608 6 Ruane Kevin 1998 War and Revolution in Vietnam London Routledge ISBN 978 1 85728 323 5 Keylor William The 20th Century World and Beyond An International History Since 1900 p 371 Oxford University Press 2011 David L Anderson 2010 The Columbia History of the Vietnam War Columbia University Press p 30 31 ISBN 978 0 231 13480 4 Turner 1975 p 100 104 Ang Cheng Guan 1997 Vietnamese Communists Relations with China and the Second Indochina War 1956 62 Jefferson North Carolina McFarland p 11 ISBN 978 0 7864 0404 9 Archived from the original on 13 July 2017 Retrieved 5 August 2016 Hammer Ellen J The Bao Dai Experiment Pacific Affairs vol 23 no 1 Pacific Affairs University of British Columbia 1950 p 55 doi 10 2307 2753754 Geneva Agreements 20 21 July 1954 PDF United Nations 1954 Archived PDF from the original on 2018 11 10 Fadiman Anne The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down Farrar Straus and Giroux 1997 126 Sources Edit Asselin Pierre The Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the 1954 Geneva Conference a revisionist critique Cold War History 2011 11 2 pp 155 195 Hannon Jr John S Political Settlement for Vietnam The 1954 Geneva Conference and Its Current Implications A Virginia Journal of International Law 8 1967 4 Turner Robert F 1975 Vietnamese Communism Its Origins and Development Hoover Institution Publications ISBN 978 0 8179 1431 8 Waite James The End of the First Indochina War A Global History 2013 Young Kenneth T The 1954 Geneva Conference Indo China and Korea Greenwood Press 1968 External links Edit Wikisource has original text related to this article Geneva Conference Wikisource has original text related to this article The Final Declaration of The Geneva Conference On Restoring Peace in Indochina July 21 1954 The Geneva Conference of 1954 New Evidence from the Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People s Republic of China PDF Cold War International History Project Bulletin Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars 16 2008 04 22 Archived from the original PDF on 2009 03 27 Retrieved 2009 04 14 Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Cold War International History Project The 1954 Geneva Conference July 13 2011 Bibliography Dien Bien Phu and the Geneva Conference Foreign Relations of the United States 1952 1954 volume XVI The Geneva Conference Available through the Foreign Relations of the United States online collection at the University of Wisconsin Retrieved from https en 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