Embers of War (131 page)

51
Dulles to Smith, April 24, 1954,
FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina
, XIII, 1:1398–99; Eden to FO, April 24, 1954, FO 371/112056, TNA; Casey diary entry for April 26, 1954, 34–M1153, NAA; Eden,
Full Circle
, 116; Hoopes,
Devil and John Foster Dulles
, 217.

52
Eden to FO, April 24, 1954, FO 371/112056, TNA.

53
Diary entry for April 24, 1954, Shuckburgh,
Descent to Suez
, 172.

54
Shuckburgh,
Descent to Suez
, 173; Eden,
Full Circle
, 117.

55
“Indochina,” April 27, 1954, CAB 129/68, TNA; entry for April 25, Harold Macmillan,
The Macmillan Diaries: The Cabinet Years, 1950–1957
, ed. Peter Catterall (London: Macmillan, 2003), 309.

56
Record of conversation at dinner, April 26, 1954, FO 371/112057, TNA. See also Chester L. Cooper,
In the Shadows of History: Fifty Years Behind the Scenes of Cold War Diplomacy
(Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus, 2005), 123–24.

57
RN dictabelts, VP diary, April 29, 1954, Nixon Library, Yorba Linda, Calif.

58
Record of conversation at dinner, April 26, 1954, FO 371/112057, TNA.

59
Carl W. McCardle to Dulles, April 30, 1954, Box 2, General Correspondence and Memoranda Series, Dulles Papers, Eisenhower Library; diary entry for April 24, 1954, Shuckburgh,
Descent to Suez
, 172.

60
Dwight D. Eisenhower diary, April 27, 1954, diary series, “April 1954,” Ann Whitman File, Eisenhower Library; Eisenhower to Hazlett, April 27, 1954, Ann Whitman File, Eisenhower Library.

61
U.S. News & World Report
, April 30, 1954.

62
RN dictabelts, VP diary, April 29, 1954, Nixon Library, Yorba Linda, Calif.

CHAPTER 21:
Valley of Tears

  
1
The climax at Dien Bien Phu has received a great deal of scrutiny over the past six decades, albeit in relatively few English-language accounts in recent years. Particularly useful accounts include Pierre Rocolle,
Pourquoi Dien Bien Phu?
(Paris: Flammarion, 1968); Martin Windrow,
The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam
(Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo, 2004); Bernard B. Fall,
Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu
(Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1966); Jules Roy,
The Battle of Dienbienphu
, trans. Robert Baldick (New York: Harper & Row, 1965; reprint Carroll & Graf, 1984); Pierre Pellissier,
Diên Biên Phu: 20 novembre 1953–7 mai 1954
(Paris: Perrin, 2004); Ted Morgan,
Valley of Death: The Tragedy at Dien Bien Phu That Led America into the Vietnam War
(New York: Random House, 2010); and Pierre Journoud and Hugues Tertrais,
Paroles de Dien Bien Phu: Les survivants témoignent
(Paris: Tallandier, 2004).

  
2
Howard R. Simpson,
Dien Bien Phu: The Epic Battle America Forgot
(Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 1994), 138. See also Paul Grauwin,
J’étais médecin à Dien-Bien-Phu
(Paris: France-Empire, 1954), chaps. 10–11.

  
3
Morgan,
Valley of Death
, 504.

  
4
Simpson,
Dien Bien Phu
, 137; Marcel-Maurice Bigeard,
Pour une parcelle de gloire
(Paris: Plon, 1975), 176–79.

  
5
Navarre’s grim perspective is in Navarre à Monsieur le Ministre des Etats Associés, May 6, 1954, Dossier 1, 457 AP 53, Conférence de Genève, Archives Nationale.

  
6
John Keegan,
Dien Bien Phu
(New York: Ballantine, 1974), 126.

  
7
Quoted in Simpson,
Dien Bien Phu
, 122; Fall,
Hell in a Very Small Place
, 341.

  
8
Fall,
Hell in a Very Small Place
, 237, 266.

  
9
Windrow,
Last Valley
, 538; Roy,
Battle of Dienbienphu
, 226–67.

10
Ton That Tung,
Reminiscences of a Vietnamese Surgeon
(Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1980), 47.

11
Nguyen Thi Ngoc Toan oral history, Hanoi, June 11, 2007. I thank interviewer Merle Pribbenow for making this oral history available to me.

12
The resolution of the Politburo, April 19, 1954, Archives of the Ministry of National Defense, Document 173, sheets 49–51, Central Department, as cited in Vo Nguyen Giap,
Memoirs of War: The Road to Dien Bien Phu
(Hanoi: Gioi, 2004), 114; Fall,
Hell in a Very Small Place
, 341–42; and Carlyle Thayer,
War by Other Means: National Liberation and Revolution in Viet Nam, 1954–1960
(Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1989), 3–5.

13
Giap,
Road to Dien Bien Phu
, 114.

14
Truong Huyen Chi and Marc Jason Gilbert, “Voices of Dien Bien Phu,” unpublished paper in author’s possession. I’m grateful to Marc Gilbert for making this manuscript available to me.

15
Rocolle,
Pourquoi Dien Bien Phu?
, 484; Fall,
Hell in a Very Small Place
, 340.

16
Truong Chinh quoted in Pierre Asselin, “The DRVN and the 1954 Geneva Conference,” unpublished conference paper, in the author’s possession, 25.

17
Documents quoted in Asselin, “DRVN and Geneva Conference,” 29.

18
Zhou quoted in Chen Jian, “China and the Indochina Settlement at the Geneva Conference of 1954,” in Mark Atwood Lawrence and Fredrik Logevall, eds.,
The First Vietnam War: Colonial Conflict and Cold War Crisis
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007), 242.

19
Ilya V. Gaiduk,
Confronting Vietnam: Soviet Policy Toward the Indochina Conflict, 1954–1963
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2003), 18. See also Mari Olsen,
Soviet-Vietnam Relations and the Role of China, 1949–1964: Changing Alliances
(London: Routledge, 2006), 32–34.

20
Gaiduk,
Confronting Vietnam
, 18; Zhou Enlai to Ho Chi Minh, telegram, March 11, 1954, in Cold War International History Project binder; Chen Jian, “China and Indochina Settlement,” 244–45.

21
Quoted in Nguyen Vu Tung, “The Road to Geneva: How the DRV Changed Its Positions,” unpublished paper (Cold War International History Project) in author’s possession.

22
Qiang Zhai,
China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950–1975
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 51.

23
Chen Jian, “China and the Indochina Settlement,” 245; Trinh Quang Thanh, interview by author, Hanoi, January 2003.

24
Zhai,
China and the Vietnam Wars
, 51–53. For an account of the Moscow meetings based on Russian documents, see Gaiduk,
Confronting Vietnam
, 22–24.

25
Zhai,
China and the Vietnam Wars
, 48.

26
Fall,
Hell in a Very Small Place
, 354; Erwan Bergot,
Les 170 jours de Diên Biên Phu
(Paris: Presses de la cité, 1979), 267–69.

27
Fall,
Hell in a Very Small Place
, 354.

28
Simpson,
Dien Bien Phu
, 151.

29
Ibid., 151–52, slightly edited by author.

30
Fall,
Hell in a Very Small Place
, 360–61.

31
Ibid., 371–72.

32
Windrow,
Last Valley
, 597; Fall,
Hell in a Very Small Place
, 373–74.

33
Simpson,
Dien Bien Phu
, 158.

34
In 1997, an American MIA team investigating an unrelated case found a C-119 propeller near Ban Sot, Laos, and a photo analyst spotted possible graves in aerial photos. Excavation in 2002 uncovered remains that turned out to be McGovern’s; the CIA arranged for his nephew to fly to Hickam Air Force Base, near Honolulu, to escort the remains home to New Jersey. Buford’s remains have not been found, making him one of thirty-five civilians among more than seventeen hundred Americans still unaccounted for in Indochina.

35
Quoted in Roy,
Battle of Dienbienphu
, 264.

36
Keegan,
Dien Bien Phu
, 141.

37
Captain Le Damany, quoted in Windrow,
Last Valley
, 601.

38
Rocolle,
Pourquoi Dien Bien Phu?
, 530–31; Windrow,
Last Valley
, 602–3; Roy,
Battle of Dienbienphu
, 268.

39
Roy,
Battle of Dienbienphu
, 268.

40
Rocolle,
Pourquoi Dien Bien Phu?
, 538.

41
Bernard B. Fall, “Dien Bien Phu: Battle to Remember,”
NYT Magazine
, May 3, 1964. Whether the white flag flew at Dien Bien Phu has long been a source of controversy. Castries’s use of the past tense
wanted
could support the argument that he did at some point raise the flag.

42
Quoted in Fall,
Hell in a Very Small Place
, 415–16.

43
Ibid.; Roy,
Battle of Dienbienphu
, 286. Herriott quoted in
Time
, May 17, 1954.

44
Quotes are from
Time
, May 17, 1954.

45
Quoted in Michael Maclear,
The Ten Thousand Day War
(New York: Avon, 1982), 46. See also Robert Guillain,
Diên-Biên-Phu: La fin des illusions [Notes d’Indochine, février–juillet 1954]
(Paris: Arléa, 2004), 163–69.

46
Newsweek
, May 17, 1954.

47
The army’s figure is 10,061 prisoners, broken down as follows: 2,257 French; 932 Moroccans; 804 Algerians; 221 Africans; 2,262 legionnaires; and 3,585 Vietnamese and others, such as Tai. Morgan,
Valley of Death
, 559.

48
Windrow,
Last Valley
, 638–39.

49
See, e.g., Pierre Journoud and Hugues Tertrais,
Paroles de Dien Bien Phu
, chap. 4; Fall,
Hell in a Very Small Place
, 432–47; Robert Bonnafous,
Les Prisonniers de guerre du corps expéditionnaire français en Extrême Orient dans les camps Viêt minh (1945–1954)
(Montpellier: Université Paul Valéry, 1985).

50
Douglas Porch,
The French Foreign Legion: A Complete History of the Legendary Fighting Force
(New York: HarperCollins, 1991), 561–62; Bernard B. Fall,
Street Without Joy: Indochina at War 1946–1954
(reprint ed., Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole, 1994), 301–2.

51
Jean-Louis Rondy, “Les méthodes Viet-Minh de lavage de cerveau,”
Revue historiques des armées
4 (1989), 74–81.

52
Bernard B. Fall, “Communist POW Treatment in Indochina,”
Military Review
(December 1958): 6.

53
Windrow,
Last Valley
, 647; Rocolle,
Pourquoi Dien Bien Phu?
, 548–49; René Bail,
L’enfer de Diên Biên Phu, novembre 1953–mai 1954
(Bayeux: Éditions Heimdal, 2001), 158.

54
Christopher E. Goscha, “The Body Under Siege,” unpublished book chapter, in author’s possession. General de Castries was told in captivity that the Viet Minh casualties at Dien Bien Phu totaled thirty thousand.

55
Keegan,
Dien Bien Phu
, 153–54.

56
Bernard B. Fall, “Post-Mortems on Dien Bien Phu: Review Article,”
Far Eastern Survey
27, no. 10 (October 1958): 158; Keegan,
Dien Bien Phu, 154
.

CHAPTER 22:
With Friends Like These

  
1
Philippe Devillers and Jean Lacouture,
End of a War: Indochina, 1954
(New York: Praeger, 1969), 122.

  
2
NYT
, April 25, 1954.

  
3
Devillers and Lacouture,
End of a War
, 123.

  
4
Quoted in James Cable,
The Geneva Conference of 1954 on Indochina
(London: Macmillan, 1986), 65.

  
5
VP diary, RN dictabelt, April 29, 1954, Nixon Presidential Library, Yorba Linda, Calif.; NSC meeting of April 29, 1954,
FRUS, 1952–1954, Indochina
, XIII, 2:1431–35.

  
6
New York Herald Tribune
, April 29, 1954;
Washington Post
, May 5, 1954;
Newsweek
, May 14, 1954.