As the post-war years progressed and the Communist threat in Europe began to become more acute, the State Department and Truman began to regard the anti-Communist crusade as their primary interest, thus marking the definite death of Roosevelt’s anti-colonial policy. After seeing Eastern Europe become Communist, there was a real fear Communism would slowly spread westward. France was considered instrumental in containing Soviet Communism and America would soon become quite keen on supporting France in Europe and unfortunately, in Indochina. For that reason, Indochina was still on the American agenda, because it would affect French-American relations, which would in turn impact on the American Communist containment policy in Europe.
Within the State Department experienced bureaucrats who should have assisted Truman’s learning failed to do so. Instead they engaged in a bitter battle to tilt United States policy toward France as the department divided into pro-Asia versus pro-Europe camps. The latter camp which consisted of men who had earned a professional reputation based on their European understanding, men who retained profound respect for their European heritage, was dominant . . . The value of tradition had just been demonstrated when American allied with Great Britain and France, had vanquished world threatening fascism. Moreover, under Stalin a new world threat was emerging.
Previous to World War Two, Indochina held little interest for American policy makers. Under Roosevelt and the Atlantic Charter, Indochina had become more important to American interests. Roosevelt’s death would lead the pro-European and pro-Asian experts in the State Department to debate over the importance of American interests in Indochina. Europe had been the most important region for American interests with the Far East ranking well below it. The question was not what should be done in Indochina, but what should be done about American anti-Communist policy in Europe. Indochina at this point, remained only a consequence of American policy in Europe. The European experts wanted America to support France in regaining its colony in Indochina because the French in exchange would help contain European Communism. The pro-Europe experts did not feel establishing a trusteeship or the independence of Indochina was as important as having France’s help to contain Communism in Europe. Whereas the pro-Asia experts in the State Department warned about alienating the Vietnamese population, and the effect maintaining French imperialism in Indochina would have on future Indochinese-American relations. The pro-European bureaucrats argument seemed to be the most important and immediate, as Stalin had occupied Eastern Europe just after the end of the Second World War. The need for Soviet containment seemed to outweigh any concern for Indochina and Ho Chi Minh. Truman’s advisors had felt it was imperative France be included in a European security agreement to counter the USSR’s power. Britain was not a continental power and had been terribly weakened by both world wars, and Germany was a divided, vanquished aggressor. Thus France remained the only continental power that could effectively help the United States protect Europe from Communism. As discussed earlier, de Gaulle had used France’s re-establishment in Indochina as a lever to force America to help France in Indochina. The majority of American opinion leaned towards helping France to maintain its overseas empire, thereby allowing the United States to further its interests in continental Europe. Indeed, that was the price the French demanded for their cooperation in Europe. In contrast, the weakness of the pro-Asian experts at the time are nicely summarized below.
We should consider with all seriousness the question of whether that aim can be best accomplished . . . through cooperation with the French or through denial of a role to France, and operate through an international trusteeship. In reaching that decision we must determine whether it is of more interest to us and the world as a whole to have a strong, friendly cooperative France, or have a resentful France plus having on our hands a social and administrative problem of the first magnitude.
The position of the pro-European experts seemed quite reasonable. If America helped France in Indochina, which was of little concern to America, France would help contain Stalin in Europe, which was of primary concern. In contrast, trying to administer Indochina through a United Nations trusteeship would entail a commitment in Indochina that the United States did not feel was its responsibility. It would also needlessly humiliate France, harming American interests in Europe. Consequently, Pro-Asian experts to lost their predominance due to the prevailing Communist situation and traditional bias towards Europe. The attitude that European interests outweighed Asian interests was hardly a new one. It was put forward by Roosevelt himself during the Second World War, and unfortunately for America’s later grief in Vietnam, continued into the immediate post-war era.
The President in conference with the two service secretaries, Stimson and Knox, and the two service chiefs, Marshall and Admiral Harold Stark, agreed, in the event of the United States being drawn into the war, on a basic strategy of primary action in Europe while maintaining the defensive in the Pacific. This “Europe First” strategy reflected the recognition that Europe was the site of world power and the belief that it would always be.
According to the predominance of the European experts in the State Department and the traditional bias towards the Europe-First policy, American policy makers were not sensitive to their current issues, frequently constructing problems in the future such as Indochina. Instead of trying to assuage tensions in Indochina, American policy was gradually moving away from Roosevelt’s goal of anti-colonialism in Asia towards a policy of sacrificing anti-colonialism in areas that seemed to be of little importance at the time for European interests. As we can see, immediately after the Second World War, when Ho Chi Minh appeared to be a bit player, China was still ruled by the Kuanmingtang, and the Korean War had not begun, the United States saw little reason to advocate an anti-colonial policy in Indochina which would endanger its Communist containment plans in Europe. Therefore, American policy in Europe and the cooperation of France were deemed crucial to American security, while Indochina and its independence was not. American foreign policy drifted further away from an anti-colonial stance to supporting the fight against Communism at any cost especially after 1949. America was unknowingly laying a trap for itself. As it sacrificed Indochina for its European Communist containment policy, America further neglected the opportunity of establishing Roosevelt’s trusteeship in Indochina and perhaps saving itself a lot of trouble in the future.
So far we have examined the impact of America’s Europe-First strategy on Roosevelt’s trusteeship plan, the American policy of Communist containment in Europe and how it was linked to American assistance to France in maintaining colonial Indochina. It would now be beneficial to examine the impact of Communism in Asia directly and how America’s hardline against Communism affected America’s policy towards North and South Vietnam, specifically in regard to the 1956 elections. In this second phase, America had moved beyond the Europe-First policy that had dominated and expanded its scope towards the ideology that Communism anywhere in the world was to be extinguished. Throughout the Second World War Ho Chin Minh had been working to free Vietnam from the rule of the French. Ho traveled to Versailles after the First World War and called for Indochina’s independence according to Wilson’s proposal for self-determination in his famous Fourteen Points. The Allies, including the United States rebuffed him because they had absolutely no interests in Indochina at the time. After his rejection by the Allies, Ho had turned to radicalism and Communism as a way to win independence for Vietnam. Before the Second World War started in the East, Ho was a Communist and also an avowed nationalist, Ho’s nationalism and requests to America for help had made the Soviets skeptical about Ho’s commitment to Communism. It would be interesting to note, had Wilson really believed in self-determination for all peoples, perhaps he would have responded to Ho’s call for assistance against the French and saved America much unknown grief forty seven years later. Roosevelt’s, Truman’s, and Eisenhower’s failure to examine any plan to cooperate with Ho Chi Minh in achieving Indochina’s independence eventually led to the escalating American military involvement in Indochina. The main factor which halted American assistance to Ho during the Second World War and immediately following the war, besides State Department ignorance, was the fact Ho claimed to be a Communist. As we have seen, Truman was under intense domestic pressure to be anti-Communist and Stalin’s actions in Europe made Truman oblivious to attempts by Ho to gain independence from France. The trend of a rigid non-negotiable policy towards Communism in Vietnam extended to Eisenhower. Eisenhower bypassed America’s second chance at peaceful intervention in Indochina, by refusing to ensure the execution of the 1954 Geneva Agreements to hold elections in North and South Vietnam, in 1956 precisely because Ho was Communist and the American belief the only way to get rid of the Communist threat was through force.
How has the U.S. government explained the failure to carry out the 1956 elections? First it has offered the theory that the election proviso of the Geneva Agreements was based upon a Communist plot.
The American rationale that the 1956 elections in North and South Vietnam were a Communist plot, fit very nicely with the convoluted and contradictory American policy towards Indochina. Elections would not be held because the Communists would not allow true elections to take place.
A second reason sometimes advanced for the failure to hold free elections in 1956 is that with the Communists in control of the North, it is impossible to hold really free elections. This is argued on the grounds: (a) that the Communists are not willing to hold genuinely free elections; and (b) that brain-washing and threats of reprisals by the Communists make free elections impossible.
In fact, these were merely American machinations and poor excuses to avoid admitting they knew there was no way North and South Vietnam would remain divided if elections were to be held. Most Asian experts in the American government knew if Ngo Dinh Diem, the American supported puppet dictator of South Vietnam, ran against Ho Chi Minh in a free national election, Ho would win a landslide victory.
The probability confronting the United States, the CIA concluded one month after the Geneva Conference, was the following: “If the scheduled national elections are held in July 1956, and if the Viet Minh does not prejudice its political prospects, the Viet Minh will almost certainly win.”
For the United States of America, it was justifiable to deny democracy as a means because the end achieved would be Communism. In oth