ABSTRACT
The Geneva Conference had marked the end of one period of involvement by the United States in the Vietnam War and the beginning of its entanglement in the precursor to its second phase. It led President Eisenhower to remark at the Conference-ending, ‘It is not what we have liked to have had’, it was difficult to find an alternative, and ‘if I have no better plan I am not going to criticize what they have done’.1 Walter Bedell Smith, America’s delegate to the Conference who occupied America’s Conference seat for much of the time Dulles declined to attend, made a heartfelt comment on 20 July, coinciding with the signing of the armistice, saying, ‘The United States delegation is very pleased with the important progress that has been made tonight toward ending the bloodshed in Indochina . . . we share the fervent hopes of millions throughout the world . . . toward a lasting peace in Southeast Asia, which will establish the right of the peoples of that area to determine their own future’.2 Secretary Dulles was impressed by the acumen of Prime Minister Mendès-France, saying that although the Conference settlement reflected more a ‘sense of compulsion rather than of choice’, it was a ‘good augury for France’ that the Prime Minister had ‘demonstrated a capacity to take decisions and carry them out’ and that ‘I greatly value the opportunity we had in Paris for an exchange of views and believe that exchange will be helpful for the future’.3 Mendès-France pleaded with Dulles to attend the Geneva Conference, but Dulles remained in Paris during the short times he visited Europe through the course of the Conference sessions.
