0 - The Black Vault

THE BDM CORPORATION
institutions and their national integrity against
aggressive movements that seek to impose upon them
a totalitarian regime.l0/
The outbreak of the Korean War,
and the US decision to meet
the Iorth Korean aggression, rekindled the Truman Administration's interest
and concerns about Southeast Asia.
The American military response in Korea
symbolized the basic belief that holding the line in A-ia was essential to
American security interest.
The French struggle in Indochina was seen as
an integral part of the US policy of containing communism in that region of
the world. In furtherance of that policy, Secretary of State Acheson
announced the US
the French in May of 1950:
decision to provide military and economic assistance to
The United States Government, convinced that neither
national independence nor democratic evolution exist in
any area dominated by Soviet imperialism, considers the
situation to be such as to warrant its according economic
aid and military equipment to the Associated
States of Indochina and to France in order to assist
them in restoring stability and permitting these states
to pursue their peaceful and democratic development.l_/
The possibility of a large-scale Chinese intervention in
Indochina, similar to the one experienced in Korea in late 1950, came to
dominate the thinking of US policy-makers, The likelihood of such an
intervention existed.,
The Chinese h1d large numbers of troops massed along
the Tonkin border and they were providing material assistance to the Viet
Minh. In time, however, the intelligence community forecast decreasing
probabilitieq of the Indochina war being broadened. Notwithstanding intelligence
estimates and reports of the French pcsition undergoing deterioration,
the NSC undertook in 1952 to list a course of action for the
"resolute defense" of Indochina in the event of a
large-scale Chinese
intervention. Consideration was not given, however, to the possible
collapse of the French effort and their eventual withdrawal from the area.
The upshot was that the NSC
recommended the US increase its level of aid to
French Union forces but "without relieving the French authorities of their
basic military responsibility for the defense of the Associated States."12/
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