0 - The Black Vault

THE BDM CORPORATION
In his first State of the Union Message on February 4, 1953,
President Eisenhower promised a "new, positive foreign policy," 13/ He
went on to link the communist aggression in Korea and Malaya with Indochina,
His Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, spoke of Korea and
Indochina as two flanks, with the principal enemy--Red China--in the
center,14/ In short, the new administration clearly embraced the global
strategy of containment of communism, while specifically announcing its
intentions to prevent the loss of Indochina by taking a more forthright,
anticommunist stand. Furthermore, the "domino theory" and the assumptions
behind it were never questioned. The vulnerability of the Southeast Asian
nations was accepted as Eisenhower pointed out on August 4, 1953.
If Indochina goes, several things will happen right
away. The Malayan Peninsula, the last little bit of
the end hanging on down there, would be scarcely
defensible--and the tin and tungsten that we so greatly
value from that area would cease coming. But all India
would be outflanked. Burma would certainly, in its
weakened condition, be no defense. Now, India is
surrounded on that side by the communist empire. !ran
on its left is in a weakened condition .. so you see,
somewhere along the line, this must be blocked. It
must be blocked now. That is what the French are
doing. 15/
In spite of his administration's "hardline" against communist
expansion in Indochina, Eisenhower tended to pursue a policy of
"minimum action" to prevent the loss of Vietnam to communism. Sherman
Adams,
Eisenhower's White House Chief of Staff, explained how the problem
was seen in the mid-lS50's:
If the Communists had pushed on with an aggressive
offensive after the fail of Dienbienphu, instead of
stopping and agreeing to stay out of Southern Vietnam,
Laos, and Cambodia, there was a strong possibility that
the United States would have moved against them. A
complete Communist conquest of Indochina would have had
a far graver consequence for the West than a Red
victory in Korea.16/
2-11