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The Seeds of Our Destruction: The United States and the Battle of Dien Bien Phu
Thomas G. Bradbeer
Leadership Department U.S. Army Command & General Staff College Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 66027 Email: thomas.bradbeer@us.army.mil Phone: Work-913-758-3567 Home: 913-680-0336
I kept telling my men, we must hold on one more day. The Americans will not let us down. Major Marcel M. Bigeard, Commander, 6th Colonial Parachute Battalion
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Operation Castor began at 1035 hours on November 20, 1953 when Major Marcel Bigeard and his 651 men of the 6th Colonial Parachute Battalion leapt from the rear cargo doors of sixty-four American C-47 aircraft. They were followed by 569 men of the 2d Battalion, 1st Parachute Light Infantry Regiment. As their parachutes began to open, the French and their Vietnamese soldiers started to receive automatic weapons fire from the valley floor and the nearby hills. The fire came from elements of the Viet Minh Independent Regiment 148s 920th Battalion who were conducting a training exercise that morning in the valley near a village that bore the Vietnamese designation of Dien Bien Phu or big frontier administrative center.1 Upon landing the paratroopers immediately became involved in hand to hand combat with Viet Minh regulars, some while they were still in their parachute harnesses. Individuals and small groups used their carbines, submachine guns, knives and bayonets in the tall elephant grass that covered the drop zones. The intense and desperate fighting lasted the rest of the morning and into the afternoon. A third airborne unit, the 1st Colonial Parachute Battalion, dropped over the battlefield as the fighting culminated with the Viet Minh units withdrawing southwards. French losses were eleven killed and fifty-two wounded. Major Bigeard estimated that the Viet Minh had lost two companies almost totally destroyed. 2 This engagement was the beginning of a battle that would have global and strategic repercussions for the next thirty years. The United States, having supported France with enormous amounts of military and financial aid for more
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than four years prior to the battle of Dien Bien Phu, and ever watchful of the influence and actions of the Soviet Union during this early phase of the Cold War, would seriously contemplate military intervention and the use of nuclear weapons to prevent a French defeat in Indochina* and stop the spread of communism in Southeast Asia. The battle would have far reaching and lasting long-term effects on every country in the region and, especially the United States. Americas indirect involvement in the French Indochina War and the decisions made during the Dien Bien Phu battle would be the spark for the start of the Second Indochina War ten years later in which 58, 229 U.S. servicemen would be killed and another 303, 704 wounded. 3 The Vietnam War would have unimaginable and unforeseen consequences on the United States, its foreign policy, the military and society at large. Many of these impacts are still being reconciled with by the country today. The First Indochina War The First Indochina War had its beginnings at the Potsdam Conference in July 1945. The Allied governments agreed that once hostilities with Japan ended, Chinese forces would accept the surrender of Japanese units north of the sixteenth parallel while British troops landing in Saigon took the surrender south of that line. Hence the partitioning of Vietnam into North and South was agreed to by the major powers. Communist Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Viet Minh (Nationalist Independence Front), whose forces had fought alongside Allied units against the Japanese invaders late in the war, hoped that the United States would support his efforts for a united Vietnam and
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*Indochina consisted of Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam and was also known as the Associated States of the French Union. At the time Vietnam consisted of three states: Tonkin (North Vietnam), Annam (Central Vietnam) and Cochinchina (South Vietnam).
prevent the French from reasserting themselves as colonial rulers of Indochina, their pre-war role in the region (see Map 1).
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Map 1: Indochina: 1946-1954 (map courtesy of Richard F. However, with the war and History the Axis President Newcomb, A won Pictorial ofdefeated, the Viet Nam War). Truman believed
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that communism and most especially the Soviet Union were the new threats to democracy and world peace. His first imperative was to rebuild Western Europe, creating both an economic and military barrier to Soviet expansion. Truman and his cabinet also strove to maintain close relations with Great Britain, France, and the Netherlands in order to use these countries to contain the expected expansion of Soviet Union interests. 4 Thus Truman was reluctant to change the colonial policies of these three nations. To maintain French cooperation, and more importantly their ports, airfields and bases in the Far East, Truman succumbed to demands. In the summer of 1945 he informed Charles de Gaulle that the United States would not undermine Frances efforts to rebuild its pre-war empire in the Far East. 5 The Presidents decision set in motion a series of events that would help start the First Indochina War in which French forces would conduct the fighting while the United States provided financial and logistical support to its ally. The French were adamant about maintaining control over their colonies while the U.S. wanted to ensure they successfully defeated the spread of communism in Asia. More importantly, American support to the French would also build the foundations that would directly lead to Americas eleven year war in Vietnam where more than three and a half million men and women would serve in one of this countrys most divisive events in its history. Ho agreed to negotiate with the French in the hope that he would be able to gain a united and independent Vietnam through peaceful measures. The
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result was the Franco-Viet Minh Accords signed on March 6, 1946. France agreed to extended diplomatic
recognition to Hos regime identifying it as a free state within the French Union.* The French government also promised to hold free elections sometime in the near future to determine if Cochinchina would come under Hos control. Ho agreed to allow 25,000 French troops to replace the Chinese forces north of the sixteenth parallel for five years. Both sides agreed that a Viet Minh delegation would go to Paris to more clearly identify the timing of the elections and the details behind Vietnamese independence. While Ho was in France, the French High Commissioner for Indochina, Georges T. dArgenlieu created the Republic of Cochinchina, virtually creating a separate colony within the French Union. Ho was incensed and believed he that he had been betrayed. Desperate, he turned to the United States for help and offered to open Vietnam to American investment, and added the possibility of leasing the naval base at Cam Ranh Bay in return for diplomatic pressure to get the French out of Vietnam. Though several State Department officials believed the U.S. should use its influence to moderate French policy in Indochina, the decision-makers were focused solely on events in Europe. Primarily because he was a communist, Ho received no consideration or assistance from the United States. With the French diplomatic efforts exposed as a sham, Ho met with Frances Prime Minister Georges Bidault and told him: If we must fight, we will
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fight. You will kill ten of our men, and we will kill one of yours. Yet, in the end, it is you who will tire. 6 It was to prove to be a prophetic statement. Tensions between the French and Viet Minh arose when the Viet Minh refused to pay custom duties. The French insisted it was their right since the region was a French *The French Union consisted of France and all of her colonies which included those in North and Central Africa and Southeast Asia. colony. The Viet Minh disagreed and refused to pay the taxes. On November 23, 1946 dArenlieu ordered French armor and infantry units to attack suspected Viet Minh hideouts within the city of Haiphong and fighting between the French Union Army and Viet Minh forces began. Supported by concentrations of artillery and naval gunfire the French swept through the city. By nightfall much of it lay in ruins and more than six thousand people were dead. No one could identify how many of the dead were Viet Minh soldiers among the thousands of civilian casualties. 7 By early December French units occupied Hanoi. On December 19, General Vo Nguyen Giap, a former French-trained history professor who had become the commander of the Viet Minh forces under Ho Chi Minh, ordered a war of national resistance. 8 I order all soldiers and militia in the center, south, and north to stand together, go into battle, destroy the invaders, and save the nation. 9 On the same day the Viet Minh attacked Hanoi, destroying the citys electrical power plant and assassinating several French officials. Ho, with more than 40,000 troops under his command, retreated from the city and set up his headquarters sixty miles from Hanoi.
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The French had a large military force of over 100,000 well trained and equipped soldiers and did not expect much opposition form the Viet Minh who had less than 75,000 men, many of whom were untrained, with only one third being equipped with small arms. The French were able to take possession of all major cities and towns and easily defeated the Viet Minh forces they engaged in open battle. 10 General Jacques Leclerc, commander of all French Union Forces in Indochina realized that France could not obtain military victory as long as the Viet Minh controlled the countryside where they retained the loyalty of most of the population. He warned the French leadership in 1947 that anti-Communism will be a useless tool as long as the problem of nationalism remains unsolved.11 The French Minister of War, Paul Coste-Floret recommended to his superiors that . . . I do not think that we should undertake the conquest of French Indochina. It would necessitate an expeditionary corps of at least 500,000 men. 12 Ho and Giap realized they could not defeat the French in conventional combat so they quickly resorted to conducting a drawn out guerrilla war that would bite and nip at the French military and destroy French political will. Giap was a disciple of Mao Zedongs principles on revolutionary warfare and developed a three phased strategy to defeat the French. The first stage focused on Viet Minh survival, avoiding major contacts with French forces and building reserves. If the Viet Minh were able to attain surprise or overwhelming superiority, they would attack. Otherwise the Viet Minh would wait out their enemy while their army grew ever larger. Stage one occurred from 1946-47.
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During that period, Giaps Peoples Army grew from less than 5,000 untrained peasants to more than 100,000 trained irregular soldiers. 13 Stage two occurred primarily during 1948-49 and consisted of ambushes, assassinations, and interdiction of French logistics convoys. Most especially this stage demonstrated the adeptness of the Viet Minh in conducting guerrilla operations. The Viet Minh would ambush French patrols and convoys, destroy roads and supply routes, assassinate political and military leaders with the ultimate objective to demoralize the enemy. The third and final phase was to consist of a force-on-force conventional battle with the French Expeditionary Corps in Vietnam. The French government, realizing they were facing a long war, began to develop an anticommunist, nationalist alternative to the Viet Minh. The biggest problem they faced was finding a leader whom the Vietnamese could rally behind and challenge Ho Chi Minhs nationalist vision. Eventually they settled on the former emperor, Bao Dai. Using the media to full advantage, the French announced the Elysee Agreement in March 1949 which granted independence to the State of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, 14 allowed them to become associated states within the French Union. In reality the French retained total control over foreign affairs, defense and other key governmental matters with Bao Dai as a figurehead who lacked any real power. As Gary Hess states in Vietnam and the United States: Origins and Legacy of War: For the French, the Bao Dai solution was intended to provide a faade for continuation of French military rule. It enabled the French to respond to
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critics of their war against the Viet Minh, for they could now claim that the struggle in Indochina was not a colonial war, but a civil war in which the French were supporting one of two Vietnamese contestants. 15 As the war in Indochina intensified, Truman and his cabinet began to see the struggle as part of a larger global battle between the Soviet Union and the West. The Truman Doctrine issued in May, 1947, provided 400 million dollars in military and economic assistance to Greece and Turkey to support their fights against leftist-backed guerrillas and prevent their fall to communism. It also was a response to perceived aggression by the Soviet Union in Europe and the Middle East. The following year Truman announced the Marshall Plan, named after the United States Secretary of State George Marshall, known officially as the European Recovery Program (ERP). To one of the Marshal Plans authors, the State Departments premier expert on the Soviets, George F. Kennan, the Marshall Plan was the foundation for the new doctrine of containment that he was advocating. The Soviet Union had now become an arch-rival of the United States, both in ideology and military prowess. The fear of communism spreading from country to country, real or imagined, had become very real for most of the American public. The Marshall Plan would provide 12.6 billion dollars (equivalent to 130 billion dollars in 2006) in economic assistance over four years to rebuild Western Europe. The same amount of aid was offered to the Soviet Union and its allies but only if they would make political reforms and accept certain outside controls. Stalin refused the offer. When the Plan ended in 1951, the economy of every participating nation, except Germany, had grown well past pre-war levels.
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But it was three critical events that occurred in 1949 that elevated anticommunism in the United States from fear to paranoia. 16 The first was the Soviet blockade of Berlin in which Truman countered that action by directing the relief of the city via the successful Berlin Airlift. The second event was the detonation of an atomic bomb by the Soviet Union. Now their were two nuclear powers in the world. The third event, which had enormous strategic implications in the Pacific region, was the Chinese communist victory under Mao Zedong over Chiang Kai-shek and his nationalists. China, with the worlds largest population and an ally of the United States just four years earlier, was now under control of the communists. 17 China falling under communist control would force the United States to reappraise its strategic outlook in the Pacific and the Far East and would greatly impact the U.S. decision-making and foreign policy in the region for the next thirty years. These three events heightened the ever spreading fear of communism and forced Truman to revise his Asian foreign policy. The term Domino Theory had been used to describe what might happen if Greece and Turkey fell to the communists and its impact on Europe but it took on new meaning as events in Southeast Asia developed. The Domino Theory was a development of the containment concept originally developed by George F. Keenan to halt the spread of Soviet influence immediately after the end of the Second World War. It would become foreign policy for the United States over the next two decades. 18 As a consequence many American political and military leaders believed that if the Viet Minh defeated the French in Indochina then Laos and Cambodia would
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fall too. Thailand and Burma would follow, with Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Iran and the rest of the Middle East succumbing in sequence like a row of dominos. Communism would then spread to North Africa and the rest of the Mediterranean. There was already ample proof that the stage was set for this to occur. Communist guerrillas were attempting to take control in Malaya and Burma. The Dutch colonial regime in Indonesia was also under attack by insurgents. The leadership of Australia and New Zealand were also greatly concerned that if Indochina fell to the communists, then Malaya, the Philippines, and Indonesia were also in jeopardy. The spread of communism under the Domino Theory would have enormous strategic and economic impacts, not only on Southeast Asia, but on the United States and Europe as well. The British and French economies were explicably linked to markets and natural resources throughout Southeast Asia. In 1940 the Japanese had posed just such a threat and the result was a world war. If action was not taken quickly to stop the spread of communism, the entire Pacific region might fall to the combined weight of the Soviet Union and China. In late 1949, after nearly three years of guerrilla warfare in Indochina, the French government began to send warnings to Truman that without substantial military aid, they might have to make the difficult decision to withdraw altogether from Indochina. 19 After French Intelligence services were able to confirm that China was providing both logistical support and armaments to the Viet Minh, it convinced many American leaders that China was focusing on expanding the communist
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movement southward. Then on January 18, 1950 China announced formal diplomatic recognition to Ho Chi Minh as the leader of all of Vietnam. Twelve days later the Soviet Union followed suit. In lieu of this threatening new development, the National Security Council released a statement which warned: The extension of communist authority in China represents a grievous political defeat for us. . . .If South-east Asia is also swept by communism, we shall have suffered a major political rout, the repercussions of which will be felt throughout the rest of the world. 20 With some reluctance but with few alternatives available, the Truman government responded to the Chinese and Soviet diplomatic recognition of Ho on February 7 by officially recognizing the Bao Dai government as the legitimate government of Vietnam. At the same time it also recognized the kingdoms of Laos and Cambodia. Shortly thereafter the British also offered diplomatic recognition to Bao Dais Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. On May 15, 1950, Truman told the press that he had decided to provide fifteen million dollars in military assistance to France in their war against the Viet Minh. On June 25 the entire strategic picture in Southeast Asia changed when North Korean forces invaded South Korea. This was the final straw to convince the American president that the Soviets master plan was nothing less than the conquest of all of Asia. While Truman committed U.S. forces to South Korea to halt the communist aggression, he also greatly increased American aid to Frances war in Indochina by providing an additional 133 million dollars in military aid (small arms, ammunition, tanks, fighter and bomber aircraft, and several ships) and a further fifty million dollars in economic and technical assistance. 21
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By the time of the battle of Dien Bien Phu three and a half years later, the United States would spend almost three billion dollars to finance French operations in Indochina. 22 For Giap the start of the Korean War was a godsend, even more so when five months later Chinese forces attacked into North Korea to repulse a U.S/UN offensive in November 1950. Military aid to the Viet Minh began flowing in even greater quantities from both China and the Soviet Union. Receiving both light and heavy artillery pieces and anti-aircraft machine guns, Giap was able to form artillery units and heavy weapons companies. He also began to transition battalions into regiments and even division sized formations. 23 Under intense training programs run by the Chinese Peoples Army, the Viet Minh began the process of transforming from a guerrilla force into a conventional army, which would allow Giap to transition from the second phase of his strategy to his final phase of the war: counter-offensive. Between September and October 1950, Giaps Viet Minh units attacked and captured French outposts at Dong Khe and Cao Bang along Route 4. The French were also forced to abandon Lang Son and Thai Nguyen. These tactical setbacks cost the French more than 6,000 dead and captured. Bernard Fall, a pre-eminent Indochina War historian wrote that it was Frances greatest colonial defeat since Montcalm died at Quebec.24 The French also lost enough arms and equipment to supply a Viet Minh division. Worse still, the French lost their earlier dominance along the Chinese border. Giap was eager to follow up these
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successes by driving the French into Hanoi and possibly engage in a battle that might bring about the end of the war. On December 6, 1950 the French defeats cost the senior military leader his job. General Carpentier was replaced by General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, a hero of both world wars. 25 De Lattre, believing Giap was over confident after his series of successes and would overreach himself, was ready for the next phase of the Viet Minh offensive. In January 1951, when Giaps forces attacked the French base at Vinh Yen just thirty miles northwest of Hanoi, they were faced with a much stronger position than he had at first believed. De Lattre, heavily reinforced the base additional battalions, artillery, and supported by the wars largest aerial bombardment, was able to beat back the hordes of attacking Viet Minh. The victory at Vinh Yen provided a much need boost to French morale and cost Giaps forces dearly with 6,000 dead and 500 prisoners. 26 A second attack was launched by parts of three divisions against Mao Khe and Dong Trieu near Haiphong. After a week of heavy combat the French defense proved too strong and the attacks were repulsed. A third attack was launched in late May against French positions at Ninh Binh and Nam Dinh, twenty miles south of Haiphong. This attack failed also and forced Giap to withdraw his units. Viet Minh casualties had been excessive with almost 9,000 dead and 1,000 captured. Even worse was the fact that two of Giaps divisions were no longer combat effective thus forcing the Viet Minh commander to halt all offensive operations. The French chain of command in Indochina was thrown in turmoil when General de Lattre was diagnosed with cancer. On January 19, 1951 he was
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replaced by General Raoul Salan. For the next sixteen months Salan managed the campaign by conducting largely defensive oriented security operations in the Red River Delta. Meanwhile, Giap focused on rebuilding his shattered units. In late 1952, under Salans guidance, the French developed the theory of base aero-terrestre (air-land base). This concept espoused the development of a fortified base and airstrip, deep in enemy controlled territory, where the French could use it to either conduct offensive operations to interdict enemy logistics from or stay within the perimeter and force the Viet Minh to attack and in the process suffer massive casualties from the firepower within the air-land base. Salan directed the first base aero-terrestre be built in a valley at Na San. Salan believed that a reinforced garrison, supported by on-site artillery, could be sustained far from the Delta region by airlift alone. 27 Giaps response was to direct three of his five divisions to assault Na San the last week of November. After several days of heavy fighting all efforts to capture the fortified position failed. Once again, Giaps forces had to withdraw. Salans theory of the air-land base seemed to have been proven valid. In June 1952 Truman approved an additional 150 million dollars in military aid to France and the National Security Council agreed that if the Chinese Peoples Army did cross the Vietnamese border to fight alongside the Viet Minh, the U.S. would respond by deploying both air and naval units to Frances aid. The possibility of conducting naval and air operations against China directly was also discussed. 28 It was known that Chinese aid to the Viet Minh had increased from 400 tons of weapons, ammunition and food per month to more than 3,000
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and there were at least 4,000 Chinese advisors working with Giaps divisions. 29 The Viet Minh were becoming more and more proficient at conducting conventional tactical operations at the brigade and division level. Theodore H. White, a war correspondent, observed The enemy, once painted as a bombthrowing terrorist or hill sniper lurking in night ambush, has become a modern army, increasingly skillful, armed with artillery, organized into divisional groups.30 By the end of 1952 the United States was paying almost one-third of the cost of the French-Indochina War having given France slightly over one billion dollars in military aid, that included United States Army equipment worth more than 740 million dollars, given directly to the French Expeditionary Corps. 31 The U.S. government was not satisfied with the results, or lack thereof, by the French. Furthermore, Truman was not happy that the small American Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG), sent to Vietnam in 1950 to assist the French with training of the Vietnamese National Army and development of strategy, had been intentionally underutilized by each successive French Army commander. De Lattre, as with the others, ignored his American advisers and never kept them informed of his operational plans. 32 It was evident that the French leadership in Indochina was resisting American influence within what they considered French territory while at the same time consistently demanded more military assistance and a greater American commitment to Frances war against the Viet Minh. It was during this same period that France began to push Truman and his cabinet for a collective security arrangement for the defense of Southeast Asia. Even more so it wanted
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a firm commitment from the U.S. that American combat forces would be deployed to the theater if China entered the war. When Truman left office in January 1953, his successor, Dwight D. Eisenhower and his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, believed that if France were defeated in Indochina, then all of Southeast Asia would succumb to communism. While Truman was reluctant to commit U.S. combat forces to Indochina, Eisenhower was even more so. He firmly believed that if the French were to regain the initiative and win the war, they would have to develop a new strategy which must be executed by a forceful and inspirational leader. 33 Such a strategy should focus on the offense and not the defense currently being followed for the past eighteen months. The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff concluded that if the French took the offensive and focused on destroying the Viet Minhs conventional forces, and also trained and incorporated more Vietnamese units to assist in the fighting, the war could be won within a year. 34 With mounting pressure from Eisenhower, the French replaced General Salan on May 20, 1953 with General Henri Navarre. Having no previous experience in Indochina, a decorated soldier from both world wars, it was believed Navarre would bring a fresh outlook to the problem. Having commanded at the battalion, regiment, and division level, Navarre just left Germany where he was the Chief of Staff to the Commander of Central Land Forces, NATO. French Prime Minister Mayer directed him to create the conditions necessary to place the French Union forces into a position of advantage that would allow France to negotiate a favorable peace with the Viet Minh. 35 After six and a half years of
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warfare with more than 90,000 French casualties, and having spent twice the amount of money that the United States had provided in aid under the Marshall Plan, the French were reaching the point of exhaustion. Even with massive amounts of U.S. support, they still could not prevent Giaps divisions from growing larger and stronger with each passing month. The future looked bleak for France. At his initial in-country briefing, Navarre was informed that the Viet Minh controlled two-thirds of the country and now had an army of more than 300,000 troops made up of both regular and irregular soldiers. He was also told that though French Union forces retained control of Hanoi, Haiphong, and Saigon and areas along the Cambodian border, all were susceptible to Viet Minh attack. Navarre was perhaps too over-confident when he naively predicted the war would end within a year. 36 His first major decision was to revise the French strategy then in effect. He believed what was required was a return to conventional operations. His intent was to lure the Viet Minh into a major battle in which French firepower would destroy Giaps forces. It had worked at Vinh Yen. He believed with the right planning and enough firepower and men, it would work again. The Navarre Plan After touring much of the French Expeditionary Corps area of operations, several times at great personal risk, General Navarre and his staff developed a plan for future operations in a manner of weeks. He returned to Paris in July 1953 to brief the plan that he firmly believed would win the war in Indochina. His
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audience was the National Defense Committee led by the President and the newly elected Prime Minister of France, Joseph Laniel, and also included the French Joint Chiefs of Staff. The plan consisted of seven objectives: 1) Increase the size of the Vietnamese National Army (VNA) from 165,000 to 217,000 men in the next eighteen months. This would allow VNA units to replace French units conducting defensive operations from static bases and also relieve French forces from security duties, freeing them for offensive operations; 37 2) increase the strategic reserve force, primarily in the Red River Delta region; 3) create more mobile groups for the Expeditionary Corps; 4) plan and execute a major offensive operation in the Southern Highlands to eliminate the Viet Minh threat in that region; 5) prevent a major Viet Minh offensive in the north-west towards Laos; and 6) prepare for a decisive main battle in the north which would destroy both Giaps main force units and his reserves. 38 To accomplish these objectives, Navarre stated he would require twelve fresh infantry battalions, 750 more officers, 2,550 non-commissioned officers, and significant increases in Air Force and Navy strength. This request was not welcome news to the Army and Air Force chiefs of staff. He also requested a substantial increase of supplies and equipment if he was to conduct offensive operations in the coming year. Before he left the briefing, Navarre was told that not all of his demands could be met. In fact, he would only receive eight infantry battalions, 320 officers and 200 non-commissioned officers. Reluctant to remove any more French units from their NATO commitments in Europe and by law unable to send conscripts to serve in Indochina, France turned to her other
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colonies for volunteers. Additional battalions from the French Foreign Legion, already approximately fifty percent of its force serving in Indochina, were sent to partially meet Navarres request. By the end of the May 1954 the Foreign Legion would suffer 11,710 men killed and more than 30,000 wounded. Of the 6,328 legionnaires captured during the war only 2,567 returned alive. 39 The French submitted the Navarre Plan to Eisenhower for approval. To the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff it looked good on paper. However, the American military leaders were concerned that the French would not follow their own plan with enough vigor to achieve its stated objectives. 40 In the end, the Joint Chiefs realized that the Navarre Plan was Frances best hope for success. Though many of his advisors were only cautiously optimistic of what the Navarre Plan might actually accomplish, Eisenhower received a formal promise from the French to aggressively pursue the Navarre Plan and subsequently authorized an additional 385 million dollars in military aid to support Navarre and the French Union forces under his command. When the fighting in Korea ended with the signing of the armistice on July 27, many of the worlds leaders asked why the war in Indochina could not be settled in the same manner. Georges Bidault, the French Foreign Minister, stated just two weeks prior to the signing of the Korean armistice that France would be in an untenable position [if] peace were reestablished in Korea while the war continued in Indochina. 41 The armistice halting the fighting in Korea occurred only days after Navarres Paris meetings, and this negotiated settlement may
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have signaled a methodology to the French leadership that there might be a way to end to the fighting in Indochina through negotiations. Another more violent option that Bidault feared was the fact that that since the Chinese Peoples Army was no longer involved in the Korean War it was now free to significantly increase its support to the Viet Minh. The possibility of sending Chinese units into Indochina to fight beside their fellow communists became even a greater cause for concern for both France and the United States. Actions by Giap and the Viet Minh in the spring and summer of 1953 would have a great impact on the Navarre Plan development and future operations in Indochina. In April, Giap directed three divisions to attack into Laos and put pressure on the capital of Luang Prabang to force the French to come to the aid of another of its colonies. This attack was launched from the Viet Minhcontrolled village of Dien Bien Phu, located in a long valley in northwest Tonkin only twenty miles from the Laotian border. Giaps attack into Laos stretched French forces thin across the Tonkin region as they attempted to react to the incursion. It also deprived the French of the Red River Delta as units were ordered to the north-east. Already overtaxed and exhausted, French units were forced to march long distances over rough terrain, fighting several engagements with well trained Viet Minh infantry battalions. Giap had a done a masterful job of leading and directing three divisions more than 130 miles from Tonkin and Annam into Laos. 42 His communications, though taxed, had worked very well, and his flexibility of command had shown that he had learned well the lessons of earlier campaigns. The French strung themselves out over Tonkin and into Laos
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trying to react to Giaps invasion. When he gave the order to withdraw in May, Giap was well satisfied that soon his army would be ready for a decisive battle against the French Expeditionary Corps. The Navarre Plan addressed protecting Laos from further invasion by the Viet Minh as one of its objectives. On July 25, Navarre directed his staff to develop a plan for the reoccupation of Dien Bien Phu which was strategically placed along the major routes leading from northern Vietnam into Laos. The French had held the area less than a year previously with one battalion but it was forced to withdraw when the Viet Minh 148th Independent Regiment moved in and established an operating base there. Brigadier General Rene Cogny, commander of the northern Tonkin region, had recommended to Navarre that the village be used as a mooring point for counter-guerrilla operations against the Viet Minh. He was strongly against establishing a base aero-terrestre there. 43 Navarre disagreed and directed that Dien Bien Phu serve as an air-supplied hedgehog from which French units could attack Giaps forces in any direction, and force him to disperse his units. This in turn would prevent any attempt by the Viet Minh to re-invade Laos. Navarre was convinced that the French Air Force could sustain the base aeroterrestre and that the units within the base could endure a siege by two light divisions. French Air Force senior officers raised several objections to the proposed plan. One was its ability to sustain the base over time because of the long distances from the airfields in Hanoi and Haiphong. The unpredictable
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weather in the Tonkin region and the condition of their aircraft were also raised as major concerns. On November 14, after months of preparation and planning, Navarre issued his final orders to his subordinate commanders to execute Operation Castor, the airborne assault to seize Dien Bien Phu. Dien Bien Phu was a large village that lay in a valley nearly eleven miles long and five miles wide. Located in the High Region of Northwest Tonkin, it was less than eight miles from the Laotian border and largely comprised of rice paddies with several scattered hills, streams and canals running through it. Its importance was due to it being the largest rice growing area in the region, providing huge amounts of opium to the Viet Minh, who used it as a cash crop to pay for weapons. It also contained a Japanese built dirt airstrip constructed during World War II. By setting up a base of operations in this fertile valley, Navarre made the decision to accept battle in northwest Tonkin. He would use Dien Bien Phu to engage the Viet Minh in a pitched battle and protect Laos from invasion. At the same time interdict the Viet Minhs supply and trafficking of rice and opium in that area. Six days later on Friday, November 20, 1953, Major Bigeard and his 6th Colonial Parachute Battalion and Major Brechignac and his 2d Battalion, 1st Parachute Light Infantry, along with an artillery battery and an engineer section totaling 1,487 men, exited their aircraft. Upon landing they engaged Viet Minh Independent Regiment 148 elements in fierce close-in combat before they withdrew. Five hours later Dien Bien Phu was in French hands. Additional
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airborne battalions arrived and, by the end of the third day, there were nearly 5,000 French Union forces occupying the Vietnamese village. Construction started on rebuilding the 3,500 foot airstrip, establishing hardened bunkers and command posts, along with emplacements for the heavier artillery pieces that would soon arrive via airlift. At the same time as the airborne assault on Dien Bien Phu, Navarre was also planning to conduct a six month offensive in Annam codenamed Operation Atlante. The operation was to be conducted in three phases with its objective being the destruction of Viet Minh units along the coastal plains of southern Annam. However, General Cogny was concerned that by conducting offensive operations both in the north at Dien Bien Phu and the south in Annam simultaneously, Giap would be able to concentrate the majority of his divisions known to be in Tonkin against the garrison at Dien Bien Phu. Navarre heard his subordinates concerns yet two weeks later issued the order to execute Atlante. The first phase began in January 1954 with twenty-five infantry battalions, three artillery groups, two armor squadrons and nearly as many Vietnamese National Army units. 44 The impact on Dien Bien Phu was not that these units could have been dedicated to the defense of the besieged fortress, more importantly it was the logistics required to support two major simultaneous operations with the French logistics infrastructure. The French Air Force, already strained by conducting multiple operations all over Indochina, was forced to dedicate vital transport aircraft away from Dien Bien Phu to support Atlante. The
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troops within the fortress strong-points would notice a significant decrease of resupplies they were receiving in late January and February because of Atlante. After receiving reports of French activities at Dien Bien Phu, Giap and his staff analyzed what they believed Navarres plans for the fortress were. He believed that by establishing a base deep in Viet Minh territory, Navarre had made a serious operational mistake which provided an opportunity that if successful, would allow the communist forces to deliver a decisive blow against the French. Giaps staff formulated a strategy to take advantage of the French action with one endstate: Wipe out at all costs the whole enemy force at Dien Bien Phu.
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He ordered three divisions to encircle Dien Bien Phu and prevent
the French units there from withdrawing. 46 At long last Giap believed his forces were ready for the decisive third phase of his strategic plan. If things went well, the coming battle at Dien Bien Phu would end the war. On November 28, General Navarre was briefed by his Chief of Military Intelligence at Hanoi that at least three and possibly four Viet Minh divisions were preparing to move towards Dien Bien Phu and would close in that area sometime before the second week of December. Navarre refused to believe that Giap had three or four complete divisions to maneuver towards the northwest. He instead thought that only elements of one or more divisions were moving towards the French fortress. His underestimation was just one of many serious mistakes the French commander would make that would cost the French Expeditionary Corps dearly in the months ahead.
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The next day Navarre, along with newly promoted Major General Cogny and Major General Thomas Trapnell, U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) in Indochina, landed at Dien Bien Phu to inspect the French base.During this visit Navarre made the decision to assign command of the base to Colonel Christian de Castries, a cavalry officer well trained in mobile warfare operations. Navarre planned to deliver both tanks and armored cars by air so that de Castries could patrol the valley and basin and also control the hills around the fort. Upon his return from Dien Bien Phu, Trapnell sent a progress report outlining the French campaign plan to the commander in chief, Pacific (CINCPAC) at Pearl Harbor, which was then forwarded through channels to the Pentagon. In it Trapnell stated that the French intention was to regain control of [the] Thai country, stimulate [a] friendly guerrilla effort in [the] region and invite [the] enemy [to] attack the Dien Bien Phu area. 47 Additionally he added his professional judgment of ongoing operations from what he had been briefed while visiting the French base aero-terrestre: While [it is] too early to assess the effect of CASTOR upon [the] enemy, the fact that [a] conservative [French] move has been followed by [a] base development scheme [at Dien Bien Phu] in [the] sparsely populated hinterland leads to [a] reasonable doubt [the] French have [the] will to seize [the] initiative by operations threatening enemy supply lies from China in [the] northern Delta area where major enemy concentrations exist. [It is] Apparent [that the] Viet-minh still have the initiative. . . 48 Trapnells assessment differed with that of his superior, Lieutenant General John W. ODaniel, commander, U.S. Army Pacific. He had just returned from a week long trip to Indochina in mid-November as part of the U.S. Joint Military Mission to Indochina. ODaniel had been largely impressed with what
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Navarre was planning at Dien Bien Phu and sent reports to that effect back to Washington. On November 30 General Cogny issued Directive 739 to Colonel Dominique Bastiani whose Paratroop Operational Group (GOP) had just replaced Brigadier General Gilles Airborne Division Command Element (EDAP). In effect this meant that the airborne forces which had recaptured Dien Bien Phu were to be replaced by conventional units in the very near future. The directive stated that Bastiani was to: 1) guarantee at the very least the free usage of the airfield; 2) gather intelligence from as far away as possible; and 3) proceed with the withdrawal to Dien Bien Phu of the units from Lai Chau.
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Lai Chau,
located just twenty miles from the Chinese border and sixty miles north of Dien Bien Phu, was the capital of the pro-French Tai Federation in northwestern Tonkin. With Dien Bien Phu being established as a base aero-terrestre, the French had planned to evacuate Lai Chau once it was known that the Viet Minh planned to assault the French and Vietnamese garrison there. A warning order for the evacuation was issued on November 13 and the actual evacuation (Operation Pollux) began on December 8. More than 3,500 Vietnamese civilians were successfully evacuated by air to Hanoi. Several French and Vietnamese battalions were airlifted to Dien Bien Phu while twenty companies of Tai Light Irregular Infantry, a total of 2,101 men, were ordered to move by land to join the forces at Dien Bien Phu. The twenty companies were virtually wiped out by the Viet Minh with only 101 survivors making it alive to the French fortress. 50
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Admiral Arthur Radford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in an address to cadets and faculty at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York on December 2 reinforced the fact that the French were taking the offensive in Indochina against the Viet Minh and the outlook seemed both positive and hopeful. He did add that if China came in on the side of the Viet Minh, the war would take on a whole new dimension: In the past, the efforts to win the war in Indo-China have been limited. General Navarre, however, has sparked his entire military command with a fighting spirit. This fact, combined with the planned augmentation and improved training of the military forces, should rapidly improve the military position of the French and the Associated States. The United States is providing military assistance to this area. With our programs of assistance, we hope that increased military operations in Indo-China will defeat the communist military forces of Ho Chi Minh. Of course, the entire outlook on the war in Indo-China could change if Red China chose to intervene overtly with military forces. In that event, the war would no longer be localized. The free world could not permit Indo-China to go under the communist yoke. 51 On December 3, Navarre issued his final operational orders to General Cogny. Within the order he stated: I have decided to accept battle in the Northwest under the following general conditions. 1. The defense of the
Northwest shall be centered on the air-land base of Dien Bien Phu which must be held at all costs. 52 Navarres order was based on two assumptions: 1) The garrison at Dien Bien Phu would face only one enemy division, and 2) the landing strip would be operational throughout the expected battle. Navarre failed to take into account not only Viet Minh capabilities but also the unpredictable weather that his Air Force advisors had warned him about. What was most striking about the order however was the fact that suddenly Dien Bien Phu had become a
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defensive base instead of a platform to conduct offensive operations as was Navarres original intent. He had specifically picked Colonel de Castries, a cavalryman, for just that purpose. Limited offensive operations of battalion and company strength were conducted up to twenty miles from the Dien Bien Phu perimeter in the first few weeks after the initial airborne operation on November 20 but none achieved their objective of interdicting Viet Minh infiltration into Laos or their supply operations in the area. Bernard Fall wrote that Dien Bien Phu
indeed had ceased to fulfill its mission [a base that would facilitate offensive operations] even before the French had a chance to build the sort of defenses that would have made it a true fortress.53 Why did Navarre not evacuate Dien Bien Phu before his strong-points became encircled? (This question was one of the major topics for analysis by the commission tasked by the French government in1955 to analyze the battle of Dien Bien Phu). Navarre responded that because he had not determined the true strength of the enemy forces moving to Dien Bien Phu, it was not fathomable to consider evacuation so soon after seizing and occupying the valley there. 54 Only after Dien Bien Phu was completely encircled in mid-December did Navarre order Cogny to prepare a detailed withdrawal plan. Three weeks later Cogny sent a completed plan back to Navarre which stated that the chances of breaking through the Viet Minh encirclement were so poor that it would be paramount to suicide to attempt a breakout. His recommendation was for the garrison to remain within the defensive strong-points and fight it out. 55 By the end of December French forces could not move freely out of their defensive network without drawing fire from
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Viet Minh units. As Cogny stated later, any attempt at breakout after that date would have resulted in serious and possibly catastrophic losses for the French. By December 26, the Viet Minh completely surrounded Dien Bien Phu. Inside the fortress the French combat forces consisted of nine infantry battalions supported by three artillery batteries. On this day Giap made what he considered the most important military decision 56 of his life by changing the tactics for the assault on the French fortress. Instead of sending mass human waves against barbed wire and machine gun positions, he decided to conduct piecemeal attacks on each of the nine strong-points that made up the French perimeter of Dien Bien Phu. 57 Before he could launch his attacks though, Giap had to set the stage for his decisive battle by ensuring the logistics were in place to ensure success. Between mid December 1953 and early March 1954 Giap assembled four divisions supported by over two hundred artillery pieces and several engineer battalions around Dien Bien Phu-nearly 50,000 combat troops with another 31,000 support troops and an additional 23,000 available as a reserve. 58 Moving largely at night or over trails that were masterfully camouflaged, the Viet Minh soldiers were able to transport several battalions worth of artillery (primarily 75mm and 105mm) and anti-aircraft weapons into the valley. This feat was accomplished only after having built a series of roads and trails from the Chinese border through inhospitable terrain and under repeated attacks from the French Air Force. Using a fleet of Chinese and Soviet trucks, plus an estimated 100,000 porters carrying loads up to two hundred pounds each and manhandling light and
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heavy artillery broken down in pieces, hundreds of kilometers, the Viet Minh moved into positions that were cleverly concealed all around Dien Bien Phu. By doing this Giaps forces accomplished what both the French and U.S. military leadership believed was impossible. Viet Minh forces also began the Herculean task of digging what in fact would be hundreds of kilometers of trenches and tunnels from their positions outside the perimeter of Dien Bien Phu towards the nine major strong-points they would ultimately assault. While Giap was preparing the proper conditions to launch his offensive, Eisenhower reiterated to the National Security Council on January 8, 1954 that he was totally against sending U.S. ground forces to fight in Indochina but acknowledged that the U.S. had vital interests in the region. He compared Indochina to a leaky dike and he warned that it was sometimes better to put a finger in than let the whole structure wash away. 59 Shortly thereafter Eisenhower appointed a special committee to analyze the conditions under which the United States might have to become directly involved in the Indochina conflict. At the conclusion of a Four-Power (U.S., Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union) conference held in Berlin on February 18, it was announced that their respective foreign ministers should meet in April at Geneva to conduct an East-West conference to discuss the Korean conflicts unresolved issues. The Chinese were also invited to attend. 60 Against U.S. opposition, France requested that Indochina be added to the agenda in anticipation of negotiating an end to the fighting in Indochina. France, the United States and the Viet Minh understood that the tactical situation in Indochina, and most especially what was taking place
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at Dien Bien Phu, would have a huge impact on any negotiations that took place in Geneva. After more than three months of a grueling and back-breaking logistics build-up, Giap was ready to strike. On March 12 the first phase of the battle of Dien Bien Phu began when Viet Minh artillery opened fire on the airstrip destroying several fighter, bomber, and reconnaissance aircraft. Within minutes it was made untenable for aircraft takeoffs and landings. French counter-battery fire was totally ineffective. Twenty-four hours later, while Viet Minh artillery bombarded the French artillery batteries, the Viet Minh infantry launched divisionlevel attacks against strong-points Beatrice and Gabrielle, the two most northern positions of the French fortress (see Map 2). Both were vital to the overall defense of Dien Bien Phu as they contained artillery batteries within their perimeters. In both attacks Giap sent division-size elements supported by heavy mortars and artillery against strong-points held by battalions. After intense and heavy fighting, both strong-points were overwhelmed and captured. Three days later strongpoint Anne Marie was also captured. In less than five days of fighting Giaps soldiers had captured all three of their initial objectives for the battles first phase. The French had lost nearly one-third of their infantry and one third of their precious few artillery pieces.
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Map 2: Dien Bien Phu showing the locations of the nine French strong-points that formed the defensive perimeter from December 1953 through the start of Giaps opening phase of the battle 12 March 1954. (Map courtesy of www. dienbienphu.org/English).
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The French artillery commander at Dien Bien Phu, Colonel Charles Piroth, distraught after his perceived failure for breaking the promise he had made to his commander that his artillery would quickly destroy whatever enemy artillery managed to fire on the fortress, committed suicide with a hand grenade. By March 14 the airfield at Dien Bien Phu with its runway, covered with prefabricated pierced-steel plates, was cratered by the impacts from hundreds of artillery shells. Landings and takeoffs could no longer be conducted until it was repaired. That same day the French Air Force began dropping supplies by parachute to the besieged garrison. For the remainder of the battle all supplies would have to be delivered by parachute and except for a few daring C-47 pilots who landed amidst falling artillery to evacuate several dozen wounded during the last week in March, the growing number of casualties could no longer be evacuated. Two days later Major Biegeard and 612 of his paratroops (332 were Vietnamese) of the 6th Colonial Parachute Battalion made their second jump into Dien Bien Phu, this time as reinforcements for the encircled garrison. The 6th Colonial parachute Battalion was followed by three complete gun crews from the 35th Airborne Artillery and one hundred replacements for the 1st Foreign Legion Parachute Battalion and 8th Parachute Assault Battalion. 61 The arrival of the reinforcements lifted the spirits of those on the ground. Over the coming weeks of constant and exhausting combat Biegeard would recall I kept telling my men, we must hold on one more day. The Americans will not let us down. 62
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The U.S Central Intelligence Agency notified Eisenhower that in their estimation the French had no better than a fifty percent chance of defeating the Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu. It was becoming clearer with each passing day of the battle that the United States might have to take some drastic measures to stave off a French defeat or even worse a total collapse in Indochina. Operation Vulture and United Action A week later, on March 20, after a trip to Indochina to survey the situation there, the chief of staff of the French armed forces, General Paul Ely, met with President Eisenhower, his Secretary of State John Dulles, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Arthur Radford in Washington. Ely believed that the French Union forces at Dien Bien Phu had only a fifty percent chance of beating the Viet Minh units encircling the fortress. He admitted that a French defeat would be a serious blow to morale both in Indochina and in France. He added that if Dien Bien Phu fell, it would greatly effect the negotiations to be held in Geneva and that the U.S. might not find the terms that France could be forced to agree with acceptable. He also wanted to impress on the American leadership that the French government wanted iron-clad assurances that the U.S. would support France against the risks it was taking of drawing direct Chinese intervention into Indochina, especially tactical air support to the Viet Minh. 63 Having already received two squadrons of B-26 bombers for use in Indochina, he requested a third squadron of bombers and also asked for twelve F-8-F fighters, fourteen C-47 cargo planes, and twenty helicopters to evacuate wounded from the fortress along with eighty maintenance personnel to service the helicopters.
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Eisenhower approved all of the requests except for the cargo aircraft and the helicopters (along with the maintenance personnel) because they were not available without affecting U.S. readiness in the Pacific. It was also agreed upon that the French could man C-119 cargo aircraft to drop napalm on Dien Bien Phu. 64 The meeting concluded with Ely further requesting that the financial and military aid that the U.S. was providing would continue as agreed upon. 65 After the meeting Eisenhower directed Radford to conduct an analysis to see if the U.S. could offer more assistance to the French. Radford, a naval aviator and an advocate of airpower, had commanded aircraft carriers in the Pacific during World War II. Only six months before the crisis of Dien Bien Phu he had been commander of naval forces in the Pacific and firmly believed that Asia, not Europe, should be the focus of U.S. foreign policy for the long-term future. As early as January 8, at a meeting of the National Security Council (NSC), Radford had suggested that American pilots, trained to suppress antiaircraft weapons, could do much even in one afternoons operations to save the situation at Dien Bien Phu. 66 Eisenhower restated that he would not commit U.S. ground forces to aid the French but he did not rule out U.S. air and naval intervention. A week later Radford (having Eisenhowers approval) agreed to support a French request for ten more B-26 bombers (without crews) and that a further twenty-five would be sent if the French had maintenance personnel to support them. Lieutenant General Jean Valluy, the French representative to the NATO Standing Group in Washington, had already requested 400 American ground-crewmen as the
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French were drastically short of trained and experienced maintenance specialists for their bomber aircraft and reiterated this requirement once more. Getting a guarantee that none of the American servicemen would be exposed to combat or capture, Radford submitted the request through channels to Eisenhower who directed that the U.S. Far Eastern Air Force send twenty-two B-26s and 200 USAF maintenance personnel to Saigon. 67 Radford then directed that American officers in Saigon develop a plan in which American airpower, primarily B-29 medium bombers based in the Philippines and carrier based aircraft from the USS Essex and USS Boxer operating off the coast of Indochina, would conduct a bombing campaign to destroy the Viet Minh artillery. He concluded that without artillery Giaps forces could not defeat the garrison at Dien Bien Phu. 68 Radford met the next day with Ely and when the question was raised about what the U.S. would do to assist the French if it appeared that the fortress was in jeopardy of falling, Radford replied that as many as 350 U.S. aircraft operating from carriers could be dispatched to conduct bombing missions to break the siege at Dien Bien Phu. The proposed plan, code-named Operation Vulture, could go into effect within two days after receiving a formal request from the French. However, only if it was approved by both the President and Congress. Ely left Washington believing that if the French government requested it, the U.S. would launch Operation Vulture, an air operation consisting of B-29 medium bombers and conventional weapons to prevent a disaster at Dien Bien Phu. Radford also advocated using atomic weapons if conventional weapons
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did not break the siege. This was in adherence to Eisenhowers New Look defense policy being proposed by Radford and others within the government which called for sharp reductions in U.S. ground forces and the reliance of nuclear weapons in their stead. Later he would state, We could have helped the French with air strikes. Whether these alone would have been successful in breaking the siege of Dien Bien Phu is debatable. If we had used atomic weapons, we probably would have been successful. 69 Eisenhower, in a meeting with Dulles on March 24, had discussed the idea of a single [air] strike [flown by American pilots in unmarked aircraft], if it were almost certain this would produce decisive results. He then added Of course, if we did, wed have to deny it forever. 70 The next day, Dulles met with the NSC and stated that before the Geneva Conference opened in April, the U.S. would have to know the answers two critical questions: 1) what would the U.S. do if the French decided to sacrifice Indochina by accepting terms that were unacceptable to the U.S.?; 2) what should the U.S. do if France quit Indochina altogether? Dulles stated that he believed the United States had to be prepare to execute one of two courses of action: either write off Indochina to communism or assume the full responsibility if the French left. Eisenhower had identified four conditions he wanted met before he would agree to American military intervention: 1) the Associated States would have to request assistance, 2) the United Nations should sanction the response, 3) a coalition of nations must join the United States response, and 4) Congress must authorize any proposed military action. 71
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Radford attempted to gain support from the Joint Chiefs of Staff for Operation Vulture. He called a special meeting of the JCS on March 31 to consider the necessity or desirability of recommending to Eisenhower that the U.S. offer France naval and air units for use in Indochina. The Army Chief of Staff, General Matthew B. Ridgway, argued that the formulation of policy was beyond the scope of authority of the JCS. Somewhat frustrated, Radford then met with the Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson and gained a formal request from him for the JCS to make a recommendation on what the United States should do if the French requested naval and air support. The request triggered a heated debate amongst the chiefs of staff with General Ridgway heading the opposing view. Having just completed his command of United Nations forces in Korea, Ridgway strongly believed that airpower alone would not save the garrison at Dien Bien Phu . . . I felt sure that if we committed air and naval power to that area [Dien Bien Phu and/or Indochina], we would have to follow them immediately with ground forces in support. 72 He also added, In Korea, we had learned that air and naval power alone cannot win a war and that inadequate ground forces cannot win one either. It was incredible to me that we had forgotten that bitter lesson so soon-that we were on the verge of making that same tragic error. 73 Each service staff had studied the potential use of nuclear weapons in Indochina, especially in the defense of Dien Bien Phu. The Joint Advanced Study Committee had concluded that three atom bombs could defeat the Viet Minh forces that surrounded the French fortress. 74 More importantly though was the
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fact that all of the planners did not agree that nuclear weapons would be effective and that more than likely the second and third order effects of using the atomic bomb could start a war with China and the Soviet Union and probably create an unfavorable reaction among European allies and would alienate the Asian nations the United States was rallying to resist communism. 75 The Armys G3 Plans division also conducted two studies on the use of nuclear weapons and had determined that their use in Indochina would be technically and militarily feasible76 and that their use would break the Viet Minh stranglehold on Dien Bien Phu. Ridgway believed these studies just reiterated the oversimplification of modern warfare that Radford and other military and political leaders were advocating. There were many in the government who believed the next war would be a nuclear one therefore, large armies were redundant and were a financial burden that could be greatly reduced. Ridgway had earlier dispatched a team of experts to Indochina from the U.S. Army on a fact finding trip to ensure the nations decision-makers had accurate data to base their decisions on before they committed troops to that theatre. The team consisted mainly of combat veterans from the Korean War who analyzed the enemy, the terrain, the weather, the logistics infrastructure on hand, and every aspect of planning and conducting operations in Vietnam. The team confirmed that the terrain favored guerrilla type operations with a mix of rice paddies, mountains, and jungle and that the area severely lacked the logistics to support large scale operations. The nearest U. S. base of operations was in the Philippines nearly 1,000 miles away and the nearest supply bases were in Japan
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almost 2,500 miles away. After he received and analyzed the report, Ridgway believed that it would take five divisions initially and another ten divisions to secure all of Indochina. 77 Ridgway submitted the report to the chain of command. Eisenhower read it and understood its implications. Ridgway believed it was this report that convinced the President to abandon the idea of committing ground forces to Vietnam. 78 Although most of the top U.S. civilian leadership did not support air intervention to save Dien Bien Phu, Vice President Richard Nixon did. A strong advocate for halting the spread of communism in Asia and having visited Indochina in 1953, he believed that the administration had not done enough to assist the French in Indochina. He also prescribed that a collective security system similar to NATO be constructed in the Far East. Nixon firmly supported both Operation Vulture and the use of nuclear weapons if necessary. 79 The day the Viet Minh captured strong-point Gabrielle he had stated, We have adopted a new principle. Rather than let the communists nibble us to death all over the world in little wars, we will rely in the future on massive, mobile retaliatory forces. 80 Leaving his options open, Eisenhower had Dulles begin formulating a plan that would become known as United Action. The background of it had been started by Dulles three years before when he proposed a regional security program while negotiating the Treaty of San Francisco with Japan. The intent was to build a coalition of nations committed to the defense of Indochina and the rest of Southeast Asia against communism. The U.S., Britain, and France would
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be the three major partners, supported by Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, the Philippines, and the Associated States. Eisenhower hoped that the establishment of such a coalition along with stern warnings to the Soviets and the Chinese might convince the French to maintain their campaign in Indochina and deter Chinese intervention. The bottom line for Eisenhower was that if forced to intervene in Indochina because of Chinese intervention or a French military collapse, he would do it from a position of strength and as part of a coalition. A multilateral effort would ensure that the U.S. could not be accused of conducting a war for colonialism and would force the French to share both political and military decision making in Indochina. On March 30, at Dien Bien Phu, after nearly a two week lull in the fighting, Giap began phase two of the battle of Dien Bien Phu. After completing many kilometers of trenches that stopped only hundreds of meters from the barbed wire obstacles that encircled the strong-points, he launched several mass human wave assaults. The French were facing odds from five to one to ten to one, and again with a Viet Minh division attacking a single French or Vietnamese battalion. 81 As the French became fully engaged at one part of their perimeter, another wave of Viet Minh assaulted an adjacent strong-point, forcing de Castries to commit his reserves early in the fight. Within twenty-four hours, he was out of reserves and had only one days supply of ammunition remaining. The fighting had not been all one sided. French counter-attacks forced two Viet Minh divisions back with heavy losses and recaptured sections of two key strong-points on the eastern perimeter. This was how the battle progressed for
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most of April. The Viet Minh would attack and make small gains or be bloodily repulsed. Since the beginning of the battle the French had killed or wounded nearly 10, 000 Viet Minh. 82 By the middle of the month Giap halted his mass wave attacks and once more focused on digging trenches to get his men even closer to the French positions so they would not be forced to attack over hundreds of meters of open terrain. The French garrison was now down to approximately 5,000 combat effective soldiers. In many ways it became reminiscent of the trench battles of the First World War where artillery dominated and attrition warfare was practiced on a daily basis. On April 3, Eisenhower instructed Dulles and Radford to meet with a congressional delegation that included the House Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson and Senator John F. Kennedy. The intent was to discuss the conditions that they believed would have to be met for them to approve the use of American military power in Indochina. Dulles and Radford were met by a storm of resistance. Johnson opposed the intervention outright. Kennedy was also against intervention and went on record stating No amount of American military assistance in Indochina can conquer an enemy which is everywhere and at the same time nowhere. . . 83 The members of Congress would only consider authorizing force if the U.S.s allies provided firm commitments of support. They demanded that there must be no more Koreas, with the U.S. providing 90 percent of the manpower. 84 On April 4, General Ely officially requested U.S. intervention on behalf of the French government. Realizing there was not enough time to go to the United
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Nations. Eisenhower was now convinced that the only way the U.S. could intervene was if he secured commitments from the other NATO powers, especially the British. Secondly, France would also have to agree to grant independence for her colonies in Indochina. He also knew it would take time to build a coalition. However, time was running out for the besieged garrison at Dien Bien Phu. Eisenhower sent Dulles to Europe to gain support for United Action but after several weeks of shuttle diplomacy, his tireless efforts only identified that there were major differences between the United States and its allies over the situation in Indochina. The British, led by Prime Minister Winston Churchill, were not convinced that the loss of Indochina would initiate the Domino Theory in Asia, and having allowed India its freedom, could not fathom committing British troops to a conflict to support French colonialism. The French stood firm and refused to consider conferring independence to the Associated States. As James S. Olson and Randy Roberts wrote in Where the Domino Fell: America and Vietnam 1945-1990, Operation Vulture and the larger proposal for United Action was compromised by French intransigence and the realities of international politics. 85 Eisenhower believed that both Churchill and Britains Foreign Secretary, Sir Anthony Eden demonstrated a woeful unawareness of the consequences by not taking action in Indochina. 86 While American military and political leaders in Washington were discussing and arguing the possible use of U.S. military power and intervention in Indochina, General Earle E. Partridge, commander of the US Far East Air Force,
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flew to Saigon on April 14 where he briefed the French leadership and brought a team of his leading bomber experts to conduct a study on the feasibility of bombing the Viet Minh positions around Dien Bien Phu. General Joseph D. Caldera, Partridges bomber commander, flew over Dien Bien Phu three times and determined that Operation Vulture was feasible as a daytime operation using conventional bombs. Partridge notified the Pentagon that he could put the operation into effect with seventy-two hours notice. 87 On April 22, Frances Foreign Minister Georges Bidault warned Dulles that nothing less than massive air intervention by the U.S. could save the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu. The following day Bidault produced an urgent cable from General Navarre which stated that if the U.S. did not conduct Operation Vulture, the French would be forced to order a cease fire at Dien Bien Phu. 88 Giap began phase three on April 24 by attacking strong-points Dominique D4 and Claudine C2. By the end of April, the Viet Minh outnumbered the French Union forces ten to one. The perimeter of the fortress, once a circumference of fifteen miles, had been reduced to a thousand-yard square. Navarres cable initiated a week of one of the most intense diplomatic negotiation periods in U.S. history which saw the French finally agreeing to Vietnamese independence, but refusing to take a back-seat to a coalition controlling the war in Indochina. Dulles reiterated that the President would require congressional authorization to commit U.S. military power in Indochina. On April 29 the NSC discussed plans for establishing a regional security organization for Southeast Asia and reviewed with the Planning Board the
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possible use of nuclear weapons in Indochina. Several of those at the meeting, led by Harold Stassen, administrator of the Foreign Operations Administration, proposed that the U.S. intervene unilaterally and with ground forces if necessary to save Dien Bien Phu. Vice President Nixon interjected that it was time to establish a Pacific Coalition without Britain and immediately dispatch a U.S. Air Force contingent to Indochina to demonstrate American support and resolve against future communist aggression in the region. The meeting ended inconclusively but the NCS did decide to hold up for the time any military action in Indochina until we see how Geneva is coming along. 89 This decision effectively sealed the fate of the French Union forces defending Dien Bien Phu. On 1 May after an intense artillery barrage, Giap launched a two division assault on strong-points Dominique and Eliane while a third division attacked Huguette 5, which was defended by only twenty-nine men. With fifty percent of all air re-supply drops falling into enemy hands, the garrison was running out of all supplies, most importantly ammunition. After fifty days of fighting the French had only 2,900 troops who were combat effective against approximately 30,000 Viet Minh. 90 Five days later the woefully under-strength 1st Colonial Parachute Battalion with 383 French and Vietnamese paratroopers, all volunteers, were dropped into the doomed fortress. American civilian contract pilots flying American C-119 cargo planes with French marking dropped 196 tons of vital supplies. One C-119 was shot down and its crew killed. The two pilots were the only U.S. casualties during the battle of Dien Bien Phu. For the French Union
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forces at Dien Bien Phu, the reinforcements and the supplies was a case of too little, too late. On May 6 the newly promoted Brigadier General de Castries telegraphed his thanks to President Eisenhower for his message congratulating the garrison at Dien Bien Phu for their stalwart defense and the next day, after 56 days of combat, the Viet Minh overwhelmed de Castries headquarters and the fighting ended. The French Union forces had suffered an estimated 1,142 killed in action, 1, 606 missing in action, 4,436 wounded in action with 429 dying of their wounds. Close to 10,000 French Union forces were captured at Dien Bien Phu of which 4,500 were wounded. More than half of those captured would die in Viet Minh captivity. 91 Giaps forces had suffered at least 22,900 casualties of which 7,900 were killed in action and 15,000 were wounded. 92 Within a week Giap had reformed his divisions and had them moving towards the Red River Delta and Hanoi. The French lost the battle of Dien Bien Phu for many reasons, the most critical were their underestimation of General Giap, his Viet Minh forces, and their ability to transport and emplace artillery around the French fortress. Giaps artillery then quickly shut down the major lifeline to the base only days after the battle began. The French also lost the logistics battle. Though the French Air Force was able to airdrop approximately one hundred tons of food, medicine, and ammunition a day into the garrison, it was not nearly enough to sustain the forces defending the encircled strong-points. At the same time, the French Air Force
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failed to interdict Viet Minh supply operations, largely due to the small amount of aircraft available to accomplish the mission. There were fewer than one hundred supply aircraft and just seventy-five combat aircraft available during the five month battle. A total of 10,400 air missions were flown during the 167 day siege of Dien Bien Phu (November 20, 1953 to May 8, 1954) and of those, 6,700 were supply or troop transport missions, the remaining 3,700 were combat missions. Twelve years later the weekly sorties flown by U.S. aircraft in Vietnam usually exceeded 25,000 sorties in one week! In supplying and defending Dien Bien Phu the French had forty-eight aircraft shot down over the fortress, another fourteen were destroyed on the runway there, and one hundred and sixty-seven were damaged conducting operations over the valley itself. 93 With too few aircraft available and not enough crews to fly them, it was a forlorn hope to expect the French Air Force to conduct both re-supply and combat operations to Dien Bien Phu and carry on their missions all over Indochina at the same time. Several military historians, to include Bernard Fall and Howard Simpson, and military leaders in position during the battle of Dien Bien Phu such as Admiral Radford and U. S. Air Force Chief of Staff Nathan Twining, believed that had the United States intervened militarily at Dien Bien Phu by conducting a bombing campaign against the Viet Minh and their logistics operations, the French would not have lost the battle. That being the case there would have been a much more positive outcome at the Geneva Accords for both France and the United States. 94 The future of Indochina, and most especially Vietnam may
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have been drastically different if not for the fall of Dien Bien Phu to the communists. Fall aptly concludes that Eisenhowers decision not to intervene was in effect a decision to abandon an ally who was fighting a war that the United States supported, both ideologically and materially, against communism. Thus Dien Bien Phu became a strategic military victory for the Viet Minh over the French and a strategic political victory over the United States. 95 During the three months negotiations that took place at Geneva after the fall of Dien Bien Phu, the United States took on the role as an interested nation and not as a belligerent or a principal.96 The French government once again requested American military intervention on the basis that they believed the Chinese might try to stall the talks while the Viet Minh continued their offensive operations in Indochina. Eisenhower directed the Joint Chiefs of Staff to develop a new set of contingency plans for deploying U.S. forces to Indochina and include the option to use of nuclear weapons if it were militarily advantageous to do so. He also had Dulles draft a Congressional resolution authoring the President to use military forces in Indochina. 97 But once again, the U.S. and France could not come to agreement on the conditions that Eisenhower wanted met for American military intervention to occur. In the end, the Viet Minh were forced by the Chinese and Soviets to agree to a cease-fire and a temporary partition of Vietnam that would allow both Viet Minh and French Union forces to regroup in the north and south, respectively
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above the agreed upon seventeenth parallel. It was also stated that the country would be reunified after elections took place in the summer of 1956. Ho and Giap were not happy with the results of the Geneva Accords but they would be patient and await further developments. Frances days in Indochina were numbered and for all intents and purposes her colonial rule over the region ended the day Dien Bien Phu fell. For the United States, Eisenhower and Congress had mixed feelings about the results of the Accords. French colonialism in Southeast Asia was over something many American political leaders believed should have taken place with the end of World War II. Though Indochina was now partitioned into two nations, with a communist north, the south still provided many opportunities to build a stable, non-communist government to oppose the Viet Minh. Dulles conducted a news conference the day after the Accords were signed and stated: The important thing [was] not to mourn the past but to seize the future opportunity to prevent the loss in Northern Vietnam from leading to the extension of communism throughout Southeast Asia from the Southwest Pacific. 98 The stage was now set for America to pick up the mantle against communism in Southeast Asia. The Seeds of Our Destruction In describing his third phase of operations against the French in which he espoused the total defeat of the French Expeditionary Corps in Indochina, Giap stated: The enemy will pass slowly from the offensive to the defensive. The blitzkrieg will transform itself into a war of long duration. Thus, the enemy will be caught in a dilemma: he has to drag out the war in
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and
order to win it and does not possess, on the other hand, the psychological political means to fight a long drawn-out war. 99
He would use this same strategy during the Second Indochina War to defeat the United States, using lessons learned against the French that the Americans failed to appreciate when fighting Giaps forces. Thus the battle of Dien Bien Phu truly became the Seeds of Our Destruction for the United States and its involvement in the Second Indochina War a decade later. The Battle of Dien Bien Phu was a major turning point of the Cold War. The defeat of the French forces there served as the launching point for the United States to officially take over the reigns as the lead defender in Southeast Asia. With the fall of Dien Bien Phu and the splitting of Vietnam into two separate but linked nations by the Geneva Accords, the United States became even more steadfast in pursuing its goal of stopping the spread of communism in Southeast Asia. The decision for the United States not to intervene at Dien Bien Phu and stay out of the First Indochina War would be hard to argue as anything, but a wise decision. American intervention at Dien Bien Phu or elsewhere in Indochina in 1954 would have risked a major confrontation with either the Soviet Union, the Chinese or both. At the time many U.S. political and military leaders believed that had a military confrontation taken place between any of the three nations over Southeast Asia it would have progressed quickly to the use of nuclear weapons. Eisenhower made the difficult decision to not intervene. Once the Geneva Accords established the partitioning of Vietnam into two nations he used that mandate to lay the foundations for establishing a foothold for democracy in South
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Vietnam and at the same time preventing the spread of communism in the region. The subsequent negotiations at the Geneva conference however set the conditions for Americas long-term commitment to Vietnam. Like the Versailles Treaty of 1919, which laid out an unsatisfactory peace after the First World War and was a contributing factor to start of the Second World War, the Geneva Agreement of 1954 set the stage for further conflict in Indochina. Though victorious on the battlefield at Dien Bien Phu, HoChin Minh and the Viet Minh did not attain their strategic objective of an independent Vietnam. This was largely because of pressure by the Soviet Union and China who dictated the terms that Ho would accept so that some stability would return to the region. Neither the Soviets nor the Chinese wanted to antagonize the United States into committing its military into Indochina and upset the strategic balance that would be gained by splitting Vietnam into two nations, one communist and one democratic, at least for the near future. For the U.S it started at first through its formation of the South East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) in September 1954, followed by ever increasing aid programs. By the end of the decade, when communist guerrilla activity in South Vietnam had greatly increased, the U.S. upped the ante by sending more and more advisors until by 1960 there were more than 700 American servicemen assigned in this role. 100 This was followed by the introduction of naval, air, and ground forces. In February 1965 two U.S. Marine battalions landed at Da Nang;
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within a year there were almost a quarter of a million American servicemen in Indochina. The subsequent Second Indochina War between North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and the United States would split the nation for more than a decade and its consequences are still with us today. That conflict has shaped how the United States government has conducted and continues to conduct foreign affairs today; its has greatly impacted the mission, size and components of our military services and when to use military force to achieve national objectives. The Weinberger and Powell doctrines of 1984 and 1990 respectively were both developed to prevent what happened in the early 1960s when the U. S. committed military forces to Vietnam with poorly stated or unclear political and military objectives. Both doctrines attempted to address these errors and stated that the United States should never commit military forces to combat unless the vital national interests of the nation or its allies were involved and that only if there were clearly defined political and military objectives. Both also clearly stressed that troops should not be committed to combat without a reasonable assurance of the support of the American people and Congress. The United States position as a global super-power today can be directly linked to the countrys involvement in the First Indochina War and the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. Events that occurred more than fifty years ago during the initial stages of the Cold War.
Bibliography: The Seeds of Our Destruction
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1. Beckett, Ian, Conflict in the 20th Century: Vietnam from 1945, Gallery Books, New York, 1987. 2. Colvin, John, Giap:Volcano Under Snow, Soho Press Inc., New York, 1996. 3. Fall, Bernard, Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu, J.B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, 1967. 4. Fall, Bernard, The Street Without Joy, Schocken Books, New York, 1975. 5. Devillers, Philippe and Lacouture, Jean, End Of A War: Indochina, 1954, Frederick A. Praeger, Publishers, New York, 1969. 6. Herring, George C., Americas Longest War: The United States and Viet Nam: 1950-1975, Second Edition, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1986. 7. Hess, Gary r., Vietnam and the United States: Origins and Legacy of War, Twayne Publishers, Boston, 1990. 8. Irving, R .E. M, The First Indochina War: French and American Policy 1945-54, Cross Helm Ltd., London, 1975. 9. Isaacs, Jeremy, and Downing Taylor, Cold War: An Illustrated History, 1945-1991, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1998. 10. The Undetected Enemy: French and American Miscalculations at Dien Bien Phu, John R. Nordell, Jr.,Texas A& M University Press, College Station, 1995. 11. Karnow, Stanley, Vietnam: A History, Penguin Books, New York, 1997. 12. Kaplan, Lawrence S. Denise Artaud, & Mark R. Rubin, Dien Bien Phu and the Crisis of Franco-American Relations, 1954-1955,,SR Books, Wilmington Delaware, 1990. 13. Maclear, Michael, The Ten Thousand Day War: Vietnam 1945-1975, Avon Books, New York, 1981. 14. Mitchell, George C., Matthew B. Ridgway: Soldier, Statesman, Scholar, Citizen, Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, VA., 2002. 15. Morrison, Wilbur H., The Elephant and the Tiger: The Full Story of the Vietnam War, Hippocrene Books, New York, 1990.
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&
16. Newcomb, Richard F., A Pictorial History of the Vietnam War, Doubleday Company, Inc., New York, 1987.
17. Office of the Joint Chiefs, The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the First Indochina War, 1947-1954, History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Office of Joint History, Washington D.C., 2004. 18. Olson, James S. & Randy Roberts, Where the Domino Fell: America and Vietnam, 1945-1990, St. Martins Press, New York, 1991. 19. ONeill, Robert J., General Giap: Politician and Strategist, Frederick A. Praeger, Publishers, New York, 1969. 20. Radford, William, From Pearl Harbor to Vietnam: The Memoirs of Admiral W. Radford, Edited by Stephen Jurika, Jr., Hoover Institution Press, Stanford, CA., 1980. 21. Ridgway, Matthew B., Soldier: The Memoirs of Matthew B. Ridgway, Harper & Brothers, New York, 1956. 22. Roy, Jules., The Battle of Dien Bien Phu, Harper & Row, Publishers, New York, 1965. 23. Simpson, Howard R., Dien Bien Phu: The Epic Battle that America Forgot, Brasseys Inc., Washington, 1994. 24. Wellard, James, The French Foreign Legion, Little, Brown & Company, Boston, 1974. 25. Windrow, Martin, The French Indochina War: 1946-1954, New York: Osprey Publishing, 1998. 26. Windrow, Martin, French Foreign Legion Paratroops, New York: Osprey Publishing, 2005. 27. Windrow, Martin, The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat Vietnam, Da Capo Press, Cambridge, MA, 2006.
in
1
Martin Windrow, The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam, Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2005), 233. See also Howard R. Simpson, Dien Bien Phu: The Epic Battle America Forgot, (Washington D.C.: Brasseys Inc., 1994), 1-3. 2 Michael Maclear, The Ten Thousand Day War: Vietnam: 1945-1975, (New York; Avon Books, 1981), 30. 3 John S. Bowman, The Vietnam War: An Almanac, (New York: Bison Books Corporation, 1985), 358. 4 Gary R. Hess, Vietnam and the United States: Origins and Legacy of War, (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1991), 34.
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James S. Olson and Randy Roberts, Where the Domino Fell: America and Vietnam 1945-1990, (New York: St. Martins Press, 1991), 22. 6 Edward Doyle, et al., Passing the Torch: The Vietnam Experience (Boston, MA: Boston Publishing Company), 26. 7 Olson and Roberts, .22. 8 Hess, 36. 9 Olson and Roberts, 22. 10 Hess, 38. 11 George McT. Kahin, Intervention: How American Became Involved in Vietnam, (New York: Knopf, 1986), 24. 12 Ellen Hammer, The Struggle for Indochina, 1940-1955 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1966), 159. 13 Ibid., 32. 14 Hess, 38. 15 Ibid., 39. 16 Olson and Roberts, 28. 17 Ibid. 18 Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History, (New York: Penguin Books, 1997), 185-186. 19 George C. Herring, Americas Longest War: the United States and Vietnam 1950-1975, Second Edition, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986), 11. 20 NSC 48-1, 23 December 23 1949, in U.S. House Armed Services Committee, United States-Vietnam Relations 1945-1967, book 1, 2:A-45. 21 Olson and Roberts, 28. 22 Karnow, 192. 23 Martin Windrow, The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and and the French Defeat in Vietnam, Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2005), 108-109. 24 Bernard B. Fall, Street Without Joy: The French Debacle in Indochina, (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2005), 33. 25 Ibid., 36. 26 Ibid., 38-39. 27 Windrow, 123. See also John Colvins Giap: Volcano Under Snow, (New York: Soho Press, Inc., 1996), 96. 28 Herring, 22. 29 Ibid., 24. 30 Ibid. 31 Wilbur H. Morrison, The Elephant and the Tiger: The Full Story of the Vietnam War, (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1990), 20. 32 Ronald H. Spector, Advice and Support: the Early Years, 1941-1960 (Washington, D.C., 1983), 115-121. 33 Eisenhower to Ambassador Douglas Dillon, May 6, 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower papers, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kansas, International File: France, 1953 (3), Box 10. 34 Herring., 25 35 Windrow, 205. 36 Karnow, 204. Bernard Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1967), 28. Navarres quote in reference to the end of the war in Indochina of A year ago none of us could see victory. There wasnt a prayer. Now we can see it clearly-like light at the end of a tunnel. would be his epitaph as the last French commander-in-chief in Indochina. 37 In mid 1953 the French had at least ninety battalions on static duties protecting lines of communications. Another thirty were defending forts at Lai Chau, Na-San, and the Plain of Jars. An additional twenty-five battalions were held in reserve. 38 John Colvin, Giap: Volcano Under Snow, (New York: Soho Press, Inc., 1996), 119-120. See also Martin Windrow, The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam, 209-214. 39 Fall, 281. See also Martin Windrow, French Foreign Legion, (New York: Hippocrene Books, Inc, 1971), 34; and Hugh Mcleave, The Damned Die Hard, (New York: Saturday Review Press, 1973), 246. Martins figures differ slightly with 10,482 killed. 40 Herring, 27.
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Karnow, 207. Colvin, 115-117. 43 Ibid., 120-121. 44 Martin Windrow, The French Indochina War 1946-1954, (New York: Osprey Publishing, 1998), 40. 45 Vo Nguyen Giap, Peoples War Peoples Army, (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Publisher, 1962), 166. 46 John R. Nordell, Jr. The Undetected Enemy: French and American Miscalculations at Dien Bien Phu, 1953 (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1995), 37. 47 Ibid., 57-59. 48 Ibid., 60. 49 Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, 40. 50 Ibid., 72. 51 National Archives, Washington, D.C., Military Reference Branch, record Group 218, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Chairmans File, Admiral Radford, 1953-1957, 091 Indo China, Box 59, address by Admiral Radford to the USMA student conference, Dec. 2, 1953. 52 Nordell, Jr., 64. 53 Bernard Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu, (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1967), 62. 54 Nordell, Jr.,136-137. 55 Robert J. ONeill, General Giap: Politician and Strategist, (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Publishers, 1969), 143. 56 Giap, 25. 57 Colvin, 130. 58 Ibid., 133. 59 Record of NSC meeting, January 8, 1954, FR, 1952-1954, XIII, 949-952. 60 Windrow, The Last Valley, 289. 61 Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, 159. 62 Maclear, 44. 63 Arthur W. Radford, From Pearl Harbor to Vietnam: The Memoirs of Admiral Arthur W. Radford, (Standford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1980), 391-392. 64 Office of Joint History, The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the First Indochina War, 1947-1954, (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2004), 152. 65 Olson and Roberts, 40. 66 Radford, 383. 67 Ibid., 385. 68 Olson and Roberts, 41. 69 Ibid. 70 Memorandum of conversation, Eisenhower and Dulles, March 24, 1954, Lot 64D199, Box 222, department of State Records; James Hagerty Diary, April 1, 1954, James Hagerty papers, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kansas. 71 Radford, 396. 72 Matthew B. Ridgway, Soldier: The Memoirs of Matthew B. Ridgway, (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956), 276. 73 Ibid., 277. 74 Memo, MacArthur to Secretary of State, 7 April 1954, FRUS, 1952-1954, Vol. XIII, 1270-1272. 75 Office of Joint History, 153. 76 George C. Mitchell, Matthew B. Ridgway: Soldier, Statesman, Scholar, Citizen, (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2002), 170-171. 77 Ibid., 172. 78 Ridgway, 277. 79 Stephen E. Ambrose, Nixon: the Education of a Politician 1913-1962, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), 342-344. 80 Olson and Roberts, 41. 81 ONeill, 153-154. 82 Colvin, 135-137.
42
41
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Richard F. Newcomb, A Pictorial History of the Vietnam War, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1987), 22. 84 Herring, 33. 85 Olson and Roberts, 44. 86 Eisenhower Diary, April 27, 1954, Eisenhower papers, Diary Series, Box 3, Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kansas. 87 Windrow, The Last Valley, 567-569. 88 George C. Herring and Richard H. Immerman, Eisenhower, Dulles, and Dien Bien Phu: The Day We Didnt Go To War Revisited, Journal of American History 71 (September 1984): 343-63. 89 Herring, 37. 90 Colvin, 140. 91 Windrow, The Last Valley, 623-624. 92 Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, 487. 93 Ibid., 452-453. Martin Windrows new book The Last Valley, states that only 19 aircraft were shot down conducting missions over Dien Bien Phu, He believes the other twenty-nine shot down were lost conducting missions elsewhere and may have only been indirectly supporting the fortress., 707. 94 Ibid., 459-463. See also Howard Simpsons Dien Bien Phu: The Epic Battle that America Forgot, (Washington, D. C.: Brasseys Inc., 1994). 95 Ibid., 460-461. 96 Herring, 38. 97 Ibid. 98 Dulles news conference, July 23, 1954. John Foster Dulles papers, Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton N.J. 99 Fall, Street Without Joy, 34. 100 Newcomb, 35.
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He ordered three divisions to encircle Dien Bien Phu and prevent

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Bibliography: The Seeds of Our Destruction

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