Despite the fact that Ho Chi Minh and his followers had worked closely with the American OSS (the forerunner of the CIA) during the recently ended world war, while the French authorities in Indochina had collaborated with the Japanese, the United States failed to answer any of the letters, did not reveal that it had received them, and eventually sided with the French. In 1950, part of the publicly stated rationale for the American position was that Ho Chi Minh was not really a genuine nationalist but rather a tool of international communism , a conclusion that could be reached only by deliberately ignoring the totality of his lifes work. He and the Vietminh had, in fact, been long-time admirers of the United States. Ho trusted the US more than he did the Soviet Union and reportedly had a picture of George Washington and a copy of the American Declaration of Independence on his desk. According to a former OSS officer, Ho sought his advice on framing the Vietminhs own declaration of independence. The actual declaration of 1945 begins with the familiar All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. 7

But it was the French who were to receive Americas blessing. Ho Chi Minh was, after all, some kind of communist.

The United States viewed the French struggle in Vietnam and their own concurrent intervention in Korea as two links in the chain aimed at containing China. Washington was adamantly opposed to the French negotiating an end to the war which would leave the Vietminh in power, in the northern part of the country, and, at the same time, free the Chinese to concentrate exclusively on their Korean border. In 1952, the US exerted strong pressure upon France not to pursue peace feelers extended by the Vietminh, and a French delegation, scheduled to meet with Vietminh negotiators in Burma, was hastily recalled to Paris.

Bernard Fall, the renowned French scholar on Indochina, believed that the canceled negotiations could perhaps have brought about a cease-fire on a far more acceptable basis for the French than the one obtained two years later in the shadow of crushing military defeat .8

Subsequently, to keep the French from negotiating with the Vietminh, the United States used the threat of a cessation of their substantial economic and military aid.9 (This prompted a French newspaper to comment that the Indochina War has become Frances number one dollar-earning export .)10

In November 1953, the omnipresent CIA airline, CAT, helped the French air force airlift 16,000 men into a fortified base the French had established in a valley in the North called Dien Bien Phu. When the garrison was later surrounded and cut off by the Vietminh, CAT pilots, flying US Air Force C-119s, often through anti-aircraft fire, delivered supplies to the beleaguered French forces, in this their Waterloo.11

By 1954, the New York Times could report that The French Air Force is now almost entirely equipped with American planes. 12 The United States had also constructed a number of airfields, ports and highways in Indochina to facilitate the war effort, some of which American forces were to make use of in their later wars in that area.

In April 1954, when a French military defeat was apparent and negotiations at Geneva were scheduled, the National Security Council urged President Eisenhower to inform Paris that French acquiescence in a Communist take-over of Indochina would bear on its status as one of the Big Three and that U.S. aid to France would automatically cease .13

A Council paper recommended that It be U.S. policy to accept nothing short of a military victory in Indo-China and that the U.S. actively oppose any negotiated

settlements in Indo-China at Geneva . The Council stated further that, if necessary, the US should consider continuing the war without French participation.14

The Eisenhower administration had for some time very seriously considered committing American combat troops to Vietnam. Apparently this move was not made only because of uncertainty about congressional approval and the refusal of other countries to send even a token force, as they had done in Korea, to remove the appearance of a purely American operation.15 We are confronted by an unfortunate fact, lamented Secretary of State John Foster Dulles at a 1954 Cabinet meeting. Most of the countries of the world do not share our view that Communist control of any government anywhere is in itself a danger and a threat. 16

In May, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Arthur Radford, sent a memorandum to Defense Secretary Charles Wilson on Studies With Respect to Possible U.S. Actions Regarding Indochina which stated that The employment of atomic weapons is contemplated in the event that such course appears militarily advantageous. 17 (General Charles Willoughby, MacArthurs director of intelligence, put it a bit more poetically when he advocated the use of atomic bombs to create a belt of scorched earth across the avenues of communism to block the Asiatic hordes .)18

By this time, two American aircraft carriers equipped with atomic weapons had been ordered into the Gulf of Tonkin, in the North of Vietnam,19 and Dulles is, in fact, reported to have offered his French counterpart, Georges Bidault, atomic bombs to save Dien Bien Phu. Bidault was obliged to point out to Dulles that the use of atomic bombs in a war of such close armed conflict would destroy the French troops as well as the Vietminh.20

Dulles regularly denounced China, in the ultra-sanctimonious manner he was known for, for assisting the Vietminh, as if the Chinese had no cause or right to be alarmed about an anti-communist military crusade taking place scant miles from their border. As the Geneva conference approached, a CIA propaganda team in Singapore began to disseminate fabricated news items to advance the idea that the Chinese were giving full armed support to the Viet-Minh and to identify the Viet-Minh with the world Communist movement . The CIA believed that such stories would strengthen the non-Communist side at the Geneva talks.21

Joseph Burkholder Smith was a CIA officer in Singapore. His press asset was one Li Huan Li, an experienced local journalist. It is instructive to note the method employed in the creation and dissemination of one such news report about the Chinese. After Smith and Li had made up their story, Li attended the regular press conference held by the British High Commissioner in Singapore, Malcolm MacDonald. At the conference, Li mentioned the report and asked the Commissioner if he had any comment. As expected, MacDonald had nothing to say about it one way or the other. The result was the following news item:

MORE CHINESE SUPPLIES AND TROOPS SPOTTED EN ROUTE TO HAIPHONG. At the press conference of the British High Commissioner for Southeast Asia today, reports of the sightings of Chinese naval vessels and supply ships in the Tonkin Gulf en route from Hainan to Haiphong were again mentioned. According to these reports, the most recent of many similar sightings occurred one week ago when a convoy of ten ships was spotted. Among them were two armed Chinese naval vessels indicating that the convoy consisted of troops as well as arms and supplies.

High Commissioner Malcolm MacDonald would not elaborate further about these reports.22

The story was put onto a wire service in the morning, and by the evening had gone around the world, coming back to Singapore on the European relay to Asia.

The Geneva conference, on 20 July 1954, put a formal end to the war in Vietnam. The United States was alone in refusing to sign the Final Declaration, purely because it was peeved at the negotiated settlement, which precluded any further military effort to defeat the Vietminh. There had been ample indication of American displeasure with the whole process well before the end of the conference. Two weeks earlier, for example, President Eisenhower had declared at a news conference: I will not be a party to any treaty that makes anybody a slave; now that is all there is to it. 23 But the US did issue a unilateral declaration in which it agreed to refrain from the threat or the use of force to disturb the accords.24

The letter and the spirit of the ceasefire agreement and the Final Declaration looked forward to a Vietnam free from any military presence other than Vietnamese or French, and free from any aggressive operations. However, while the conference was still in session in June, the United States began assembling a paramilitary team inside Vietnam. By August, only days after the close of the conference, the team was in place. Under the direction of CIA leading-light Edward Lansdale, fresh from his success in the Philippines, a campaign of military and psychological warfare was carried out against the Vietminh. (Lansdales activities in Vietnam were later enshrined in two semi-fictional works, The Ugly American and The Quiet American.) Over the next six months, Lansdales clandestine team executed such operations as the following:

Encouraged the migration of Vietnamese from the North to the South through an extremely intensive, well-coordinated, and, in terms of its objective, very successful ... psychological warfare operation. Propaganda slogans and leaflets appealed to the devout Catholics with such themes as Christ has gone to the South and the Virgin Mary has departed from the North. 25

Distributed other bogus leaflets, supposedly put out by the Vietminh, to instill trepidation in the minds of people in the North about how life would be under Communist rule. The following day, refugee registration to move South tripled. (The exodus of Vietnamese to the South during the regrouping period that followed the Geneva Accords was often cited by American officials in the 1960s, as well as earlier, as proof of the fact that the people did not want to live under communism- They voted with their feet was the catchphrase) Still other Vietminh leaflets were aimed at discouraging people in the South from returning to the North.

Infiltrated paramilitary forces into the North under the guise of individuals choosing to live there.

Contaminated the oil supply of the bus company in Hanoi so as to lead to a gradual wreckage of the bus engines.

Took the first actions for delayed sabotage of the railroad (which required teamwork with a CIA special technical team in Japan who performed their part brilliantly).

Instigated a rumor campaign to stir up hatted of the Chinese, with the usual stories of rapes.

Created and distributed an almanac of astrological predictions carefully designed to play on Vietnamese fears and superstitions and undermine life in the North while making the future of the South appear more attractive.

Published and circulated anti-Communist articles and news reports in newspapers and leaflets.

Attempted, unsuccessfully, to destroy the largest printing establishment in the North because it intended to remain in Hanoi and do business with the Vietminh.

Laid some of the foundation for the future American war in Vietnam by: sending selected Vietnamese to US Pacific bases for guerrilla training; training the armed forces of the South who had fought with the French; creating various military support facilities in the Philippines; smuggling into Vietnam large quantities of arms and military equipment to be stored in hidden locations; developing plans for the pacification of Vietminh and dissident areas .26

At the same time, the United States began an economic boycott against the North Vietnamese and threatened to blacklist French firms which were doing business with them.27