Embers of War (130 page)

36
Ely,
Mémoires
, 76–78, 83–85; Philippe Devillers and Jean Lacouture,
End of a War: Indochina, 1954
(New York: Praeger, 1969), 75–76; Paris to FO, April 10, 1954, FO 371/112104, TNA.

37
Jean Pouget,
Nous e’tions à Dien-Bien-Phu
(Paris: Presses de la cité, 1964), 280; Laniel,
Le drame indochinois
, 83–86; Henri Navarre,
Agonie de l’Indochine
(Paris: Plon, 1956), 242–43.

38
Devillers and Lacouture,
End of a War
, 76–77. See also the revealing summary in Paris to FO, April 10, 1954, FO 371/112104, TNA.

39
Paris to State, April 5, 1954,
FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina
, XIII, 1:1236–38; Devillers and Lacouture,
End of a War
, 77; Laniel,
Le drame indochinois
, 83–86.

40
James R. Arnold,
The First Domino: Eisenhower, the Military, and America’s Intervention in Vietnam
(New York: William Morrow, 1991), 169.

41
State to London, April 4, 1954,
FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina
, XIII, 1:1238–40.

42
Kevin Ruane, personal correspondence with the author, November 18, 2010. Might Eisenhower have inserted “appreciable” precisely in order to generate a negative British reply? Conceivably yes, but unlikely; it seems too clever by half. See also note 31 above.

43
White House to Dulles, April 5, 1954,
FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina
, XIII, 1:1238n2.

44
Eisenhower-Dulles telcon, April 5, 1954, DDE Phone Calls, Eisenhower Library; Dulles to Dillon, April 4, 1954,
FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina
, XIII, 1:1242.

45
Paris to State, April 5, 1954,
FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina
, XIII, 1:1242–43.

46
Ibid., 1:1248–49.

47
Mann,
Grand Delusion
, 153.

48
Immerman, “Between the Unattainable and the Unacceptable,” 137.

49
Presidential press conference, April 7, 1954,
Public Papers of Eisenhower
, 2:382–84; George C. Herring and Richard H. Immerman, “Eisenhower, Dulles, and Dienbienphu,” 355.
The New York Times
liked the metaphor and the sentiment behind it: See the editorial on April 8, 1954.

50
Dulles-Wiley telcon, April 7, 1954, Box 2, Telephone Calls Series, John Foster Dulles Papers, Eisenhower Library.

51
Immerman, “Between the Unattainable and the Unacceptable,” 138.

CHAPTER 20:
Dulles Versus Eden

  
1
This remark is sometimes attributed to Eisenhower.

  
2
Martin Gilbert,
Never Despair: Winston S. Churchill, 1945–1965
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988), 959–60.

  
3
Diary entry, March 26, 1954, Evelyn Shuckburgh,
Descent to Suez: Diaries, 1951–1956
(New York: W.W. Norton, 1987), 155–56.

  
4
Lloyd C. Gardner,
Approaching Vietnam: From World War II Through Dienbienphu
(New York: W.W. Norton, 1989), 188–91, 215; and Roy Jenkins,
Churchill: A Biography
(New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2001), 876. Jenkins, a parliamentarian at the time, was present in the Commons that day. “The scene remains etched in my memory,” he wrote.

  
5
Geoffrey Warner, “Britain and the Crisis over Dien Bien Phu, April 1954: The Failure of United Action,” in Lawrence S. Kaplan, Denise Artaud, and Mark Rubin, eds.,
Dien Bien Phu and the Crisis of Franco-American Relations, 1954–1955
(Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1990), 65–66; Anthony Eden,
Full Circle: The Memoirs of Anthony Eden
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1960), 104–5.

  
6
Strong memo, April 12, 1954, PREM 11/645, TNA; Confidential Annex to COS 42nd meeting, Item 2, April 10, 1954, FO 371/112053, TNA; Warner, “Britain and the Crisis over Dien Bien Phu,” 66–67. Eden’s Australian counterpart, R. G. Casey, felt the same. See R. G. Casey diary entry for April 12, 1954, 34–M1153, National Archives of Australia (hereafter NAA).

  
7
Shuckburgh diary entry for April 8, 1954, quoted in James Cable,
The Geneva Conference of 1954 on Indochina
(London: Macmillan, 1986), 55.

  
8
Cable,
Geneva Conference
, 56.

  
9
Record of conversation, April 11, 1954, FO 371/112054; Memcon, April 11, 1954,
FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina
, XIII, 1:1307–9. See also Eden,
Full Circle
, 107–8.

10
Ibid.

11
Walton Butterworth, Oral History Interview, Dulles Papers, Mudd Library, Princeton University, quoted in Gardner,
Approaching Vietnam
, 221–22.

12
Record of conversation, April 12, 1954, FO 371/112054, TNA; Memcon, April 12, 1954,
FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina
, XIII, 1:1319–20.

13
Diary entry, April 12, 1954, Shuckburgh,
Descent to Suez
, 164. Robertson’s Zhou comment is in Robert E. Herzstein,
Henry R. Luce, Time, and the American Crusade in Asia
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 173.

14
Memcon, April 13, 1954,
FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina
, XIII, 1:1321–23; diary entry, April 13, 1954, Shuckburgh,
Descent to Suez
, 164.

15
Gardner,
Approaching Vietnam
, 221; Eden minute, March 26, 1954, FO 371/112048, TNA. See also his comment in the margin of W. D. Allen to I. Kirkpatrick, March 23, 1954, FO 371/112048, TNA.

16
Philippe Devillers and Jean Lacouture,
End of a War: Indochina, 1954
(New York: Praeger, 1969), 87–88. For Bidault’s cynical view of United Action, see Ministère des Affaires Étrangère, “Note,” April 7, 1954, Dossier 2 457 AP 52, Archives Nationale.

17
FO to Washington, April 15, 1954, FO 371/112053, TNA; Cable,
Geneva Conference
, 58.

18
FO to Washington, April 17, 1954, and April 18, 1954, FO 371/112053, TNA; Cable,
Geneva Conference
, 58–59; Eden,
Full Circle
, 99.

19
FO to Washington, April 19, 1954, FO 371/112053, TNA.

20
See the analysis in Warner, “Britain and the Crisis over Dien Bien Phu,” 69–70; and David Dutton,
Anthony Eden: A Life and Reputation
(London: Hodder Arnold, 1997), 343.

21
Townsend Hoopes,
The Devil and John Foster Dulles
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1973), 216. See also Douglas Dillon oral history, Dulles Oral History Project, Princeton University.

22
Diary entry for April 15, 1954, in Shuckburgh,
Descent to Suez
, 166; Cable,
Geneva Conference
, 60.

23
Cable,
Geneva Conference
, 59.

24
U.S. News & World Report
, April 30, 1954;
NYT
, April 17, 1954.

25
Washington Post
, April 20, 1954;
Wall Street Journal
, April 19, 1954;
NYT
, April 20, 1954.

26
Richard Nixon,
RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon
(New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978), 151–52; Nixon interview, Dulles Oral History Project, Princeton University; Arthur Radford,
From Pearl Harbor to Vietnam: The Memoirs of Admiral Arthur W. Radford
, ed. Stephen Jurika (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1980), 405.

27
Nixon never regretted his stance. In his 1985 book
No More Vietnams
, he wrote that not intervening at Dien Bien Phu was “the first critical mistake” the United States made in Vietnam. “By standing aside as our ally went down to defeat, the United States lost its last chance to stop the expansion of communism in Southeast Asia at little cost to itself.” Richard M. Nixon,
No More Vietnams
(New York: Arbor House, 1985), 31.

28
JFD-Nixon telcon, April 19, 1954, JFD Phone Calls, Eisenhower Library; Eisenhower-Nixon telcon, April 19, 1954, Box 5, DDE Diary, Ann Whitman File, Eisenhower Library;
Wall Street Journal
, April 19, 1954.

29
Wall Street Journal
, April 19, 1954;
NYT
, April 19, 1954.

30
See also, e.g.,
Washington Post
, April 20, 1954;
U.S. News & World Report
, April 30, 1954. The latter declared approvingly: “The White House, despite diplomatic denials, has not closed the door to the use of troops if the alternative is Communist domination of Southeast Asia.”

31
Robert F. Randle,
Geneva 1954: The Settlement of the Indo Chinese War
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1969), 92; Herbert S. Parmet,
Richard Nixon and His America
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1990), 318–19.

32
James C. Hagerty diary entry for April 24, 1954, Eisenhower Library.

33
C. L. Sulzberger,
A Long Row of Candles: Memoirs and Diaries, 1934–1954
(New York: Macmillan, 1969), 836–37; C. L. Sulzberger, “Foreign Affairs: The Day It All Began,”
NYT
, January 11, 1967.

34
“Rapport Navarre,” April 21, 1954, 74 AP 39, Paul Reynaud Papers, Archives Nationale; Laurent Cesari and Jacques de Folin, “Military Necessity, Political Impossibility: The French Viewpoint on Operation
Vautour
,” in Kaplan, Artaud, and Rubin,
Dien Bien Phu
, 112–13.

35
Eden to FO, April 24, 1954, FO 371/112055, TNA; Dulles to Eisenhower, April 22, 1954,
FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina
, XIII, 1:1361–62.

36
Dulles to Eisenhower, April 22, 1954,
FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina
, XIII, 1:1361–62.

37
See, e.g., diary entry for April 22, 1954, Shuckburgh,
Descent to Suez
, 169; Cable,
Geneva Conference
, 61.

38
Diary entry for April 22, 1954, Shuckburgh,
Descent to Suez
, 169.

39
Georges Bidault,
Resistance: The Political Autobiography of Georges Bidault
, trans. Marianne Sinclair (New York: Praeger, 1968), 196.

40
Jean Chauvel,
Commentaire: De Berne à Paris, 1952–1962
(Paris: Fayard, 1973), 3:45–46; Georges Bidault,
D’une résistance à l’autre
(Paris: Presses de siècle, 1965), 198; Cesari and de Folin, “Military Necessity,” 113. See also J. R. Tournoux,
Secrets d’état
(Paris: Plon, 1960), 48–49; and Roscoe Drummond and Gaston Coblentz,
Duel at the Brink
(New York: Doubleday, 1960), 121–22.

41
See MacArthur to Dulles, April 7, 1954,
FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina
, XIII, 1:1270–72.

42
Cutler memo, April 30, 1954,
FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina
, XIII, 1:1445–48; John Prados,
Operation Vulture
(New York: ibooks, 2002), 213; William J. Duiker,
U.S. Containment Policy and the Conflict in Indochina
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1994), 167.

43
Gardner,
Approaching Vietnam
, 236, emphasis added.

44
Navarre to Ely, April 22, 1954, 1 K 233 (35), Ely Papers, Service historique de l’armée de terre; Ely’s diary, April 23, 1954, 1 K 233 (19), Ely Papers, Service historique de l’armée de terre; Cesari and de Folin, “Military Necessity,” 113–14.

45
Eden,
Full Circle
, 102; diary entry for April 24, 1954, Shuckburgh,
Descent to Suez
, 171.

46
Dulles to Eisenhower, April 23, 1954,
FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina
, XIII, 1:1374. A few hours before sending this cable, Dulles told Australia’s Casey that France was “in the death throes of her existence as a great power.” Casey diary entry for April 23, 1954, 34–M1153, NAA.

47
Eisenhower-Smith telcon, April 24, 1954, Box 5, DDE diary, Ann Whitman File, Eisenhower Library.

48
Press Secretary Hagerty wrote that day in his diary that the option of using carrier-based aircraft “to support French troops at Dien Bien Phu” remained alive. Hagerty diary, April 24, 1954, Eisenhower Library.

49
This formulation from Gardner,
Approaching Vietnam
, 237.

50
Eden,
Full Circle
, 114–15; Iveragh McDonald,
A Man of the Times: Talks and Travels
in a Disrupted World
(London, 1976), 137, as quoted in David Carlton,
Anthony Eden: A Biography
(New York: HarperCollins, 1986), 345–46.