While Europe was seen as the primary scene of
action in the Cold War, America’s Western allies
were fighting communism in Asia: Britain in
Malaya, and France in Indo-China (as Vietnam,
Laos and Cambodia were then known). Eisen-
hower shared the traditional American antipathy
towards colonialism, which was seen as a sin con-
fined mainly to the old European empires. The
granting of independence, the president believed,
would undermine the support the communists
were receiving in their fight against the French.
On the other hand, he also agreed with Foster
Dulles that the national communist struggles in
that part of Asia were controlled by the Kremlin,
which could call them off if it wished. The Soviet
purpose, they believed, was to weaken the West.
Eisenhower concluded that the US would be play-
ing the Kremlin’s game if it allowed its armed
forces to become embroiled in the endless land
mass of Asia. Instead, the US would provide
finance, arms and advice to European and Asian
allies to fight their own wars against communist
expansion. The question left unanswered was
what should be done if America’s allies proved too
weak or too unwilling to resist. American percep-
tions also over-simplified the problems con-
fronting Beijing and Moscow, whose control over
events in their spheres of influence was not nearly
as complete as the US believed.
The French struggle in Vietnam went from
bad to worse. The greater the effort the French
devoted militarily in Vietnam, moreover, the less
would be their capacity to play their part in the
defence of Western Europe against the Soviet
Union. Military logic suggested that they should
pull out. Yet the defence of Vietnam too seemed
vital. Dulles and Eisenhower subscribed to the
domino theory, that if Vietnam fell to the com-
munists then the rest of south Asia would be lost.
But increased American aid to France was not
turning the tide. By 1954 the French wanted not
only US bombers but also the personnel to keep
them flying. And so in response Eisenhower,
despite his misgivings, sent the first American ser-
vicemen to Vietnam. He was still determined,
however, to keep America out of any large-scale
involvement: his military judgement was against
it and furthermore he did not wish to identify the
US with a colonialist cause. The key struggle in
the spring of 1954 was taking place around the
fortified French position at Dien Bien Phu,
invested by the Vietminh.
In March and April 1954 the French requested
the direct intervention of American armed forces,
but Eisenhower procrastinated. There was even
talk of using atomic bombs: this he rejected deci-
sively. Dien Bien Phu surrendered on 7 May- Eisenhower now accepted the inevitability
of a compromise peace, a partition of Vietnam
that would draw a new line against communist
expansion. He had made peace in Korea; he
would not start a new war in Vietnam, with the
US taking over the role of France.
By the time of Dien Bien Phu’s fall the Geneva
Conference (attended by France, Britain, the
Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China and
both Vietnams) had already been in session for
some days. Realising that the US was not going to
provide the military help needed to win the war
against the Vietminh, the French decided to make
the best bargain they could with the Vietnamese
communists. While negotiations dragged on in
Geneva the French and Americans thought they
faced the danger that Ho Chi-minh would order
his victorious forces to drive the French out of the
whole of Vietnam. In Washington, in May 1954,
a real war-scare ballooned. The National Security
Council came to the drastic conclusion that US
power should not be used in defence of south-east
Asia but should be directed against ‘the source of
the peril’, China, ‘and that in this connection
atomic weapons should be used’. Dulles appeared
to agree, saying that any Chinese intervention in
Vietnam would be the ‘equivalent of a declaration
of war against the US’. In the supercharged
Washington atmosphere, Eisenhower now proved
that he was his own man. At this fateful moment
in world history it was fortunate that the president
was a man of great military prestige. An all-out
nuclear war, Eisenhower told the joint chiefs of
staff, would have to be fought not only against
China but also against its ally, Russia. He brought
his advisers back to reality with a rhetorical ques-
tion: ‘If Russia were destroyed, what would be the
result of such a victory?’ From the Elbe to
Vladivostock there would be starvation and disas-