ABSTRACT
The Geneva Agreements gave combatants 300 days to assemble in "regrouping zones" and civilians the same 300 days to choose on which side of the 17th parallel they wished to live. As French forces regrouped in Northern ports, nearly 900,000 Vietnamese headed for the South. In 1954, the Communists had reason to be confident, not so much because of the promised elections as because of conditions in the South. What passed for a government was a shambles. The "generals" had only recently elevated themselves from the noncommissioned ranks of French auxiliary forces to command an incompetent army. The US commitment was riot at first to Diem but to shoring up an anticommunist regime. General J. Lawton Collins, appointed US ambassador to Saigon in December 1954, frankly doubted Diem was suitable to head the Saigon government and had agreed with the French High Commissioner Paul Ely that Diem should be jettisoned at the earliest possible moment.
