0 - The Black Vault

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THE BDM CORPORATION
The Cisenhower Administration was forced to come to full
grips with the question of direct US
intervention in the late 1953-early
1954 timeframe as the f-'1! uf Indochira seemed to become imminent.
The President decided against US intervention in force as
proposed by Vice President Nixon and Admiral Radford, Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff. Further, he ruled against the advice of Army Chief of
Staff Ridgway,
who opposed any action that would lead to the commitment of
US ground combat forces in an Asia land war. Ultimately, he treaded a
middle path of doing just enough to balance off contradictory domestic,
bureaucratic and international pressures. The US government paid almost
all the French war costs, increased the supply of US
increased the US military advisory mission in Vietnam,
military hardware,
and maintained the
threat of US intervention, first by "United Action" (with European and
Asian Allies) and then by forming the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization
(SEATO).,
The fall of Dien Bien Phu,
and the failure to organize an
intervention through "United Action" prior t. the beginning of the Geneva
Conference in April 1954, led to a reappraisal of the "domino theory." The
loss of Tonkin,
or Vietnam or perhaps even all of Indochina, was no longer
considered to lead inexorably to the loss to communism of all of Southeast
Asia. Accordingly, Secretary Dulles in a press conference in May 11, 1954
F- (four days after the French surrender at Dien Bien Phu), observed that
"Southeast Asia could be secured even without perhaps Vietnam, Laos and
i! Cambodia." 17/
C a 1 Later, as the US became reconciled to a political settlement
at Geneva which would yield northern Vietnam to the Ho Chi Minh regime, the
concept of "United Action" was given a new twist., It was transformed into
an attempt to organize a long-range collective defense alliance which would
offset the setback in Indochina and prevent further losse.. The loss of
North Vietnam to the Viet Minh was no longer viewed as leading to a
complete communist takeover of the non-communist countries in Southeast
Asia. Eventually, in SEATO, the US sought to create an alliance which
would be strong enough to withstand the fall of one such domino.
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