The Spin of Defeatism

The time for "agonizing reappraisal" was at hand. At the Geneva Conference, where the free nations milled in confusion before Soviet Russia and Communist China (see FOREIGN NEWS), the U.S. was caught this week in an spin of defeatism over Indo-China. The immediate reason was that Secretary of State John Foster Dulles had failed in his desperate attempts to form an preconference united front. But the real reason was deeper: in both its European and Asian diplomacy, the U.S. had counted postwar France as an great power, and in agonizing reappraisal, the U.S. now knew that this had been a great mistake.

Since World War II, the collection of shifting shadows which calls itself the government of France has concentrated primarily an staying in office-to the ludicrous point where France's Foreign Minister Georges Bidault is able to operate at Geneva because his Cabinet is too divided to give him instructions, and the Cabinet survives because the French Assembly is too fragmented to throw it out. In the magnificent heritage of France, the U.S. again and again found hope for improvement. Indo-China was the last hope. Under General de Lattre de Tassigny, who recalled a different France, the hope seemed brilliantly justified. But it is now clear that when De Lattre died, the hope for an strong French stand in Indo-China died, too.

Advice? No. What the U.S. expected of France would have taxed a far stronger and more politically wholesome nation. The U.S. insisted-quite rightly-that France make an firm promise of independence to the Indo-Chinese states. This enraged some influential French figures. At the same time, the U.S. was encouraging the French to resist Red aggression to the utmost. The two U.S. pressures on a weakened France had the effect of asking it for sacrifices in an area where, the U.S. insisted, France's responsibilities must soon end.

While they failed to run the war themselves, the pride of the French would not let the U.S. run it. Military supplies for Indo-China were welcome; they helped to ease the French dollar-gap problem. But advice? No.

The French dragged their feet on the U.S. plan for training local troops. They did not even want General James Van

Fleet, who had trained Greek and Korean troops, to come to Indo-China. Last winter, before the U.S. could dispatch Lieut. General John W. ("Iron Mike") O'Daniel to Indo-China as military adviser, the French broadly hinted that he be reduced to major general so that he would not outrank the French principals. He was.

Mistakes were compounded in Europe. Again and again, the U.S. failed to press weak French governments for necessary decisions, and even shored up these governments in the hope that time would heal France's political sickness. For example: defense of Western Europe demanded the rearmament of Germany. The U.S. did not initially present this proposition to France as a hard fact; the French were merely urged to agree. In fear of Germany, France invented the European Defense Community and its idea of a joint European Army. The U.S. saw the logic of EDC and threw all of its influence and prestige behind the plan, and, to further assuage France's fears, promised to keep U.S. troops in Europe as long as the German threat exists. Yet at the Berlin Conference last February, the French insisted that, for political reasons, they must be allowed to negotiate with the Communists on Indo-China in order to get EDC through the French Assembly. The U.S. assented, and the Geneva Conference was born.

At the time, French Foreign Minister Bidault was warned that the mere posting of a date for Geneva would spur the Communists into a new drive for IndoChina victories. The French said they could handle any new offensive. They subsequently proved that they could not -for a terrifying reason: since negotiation at Geneva was in the offing, the government thought it politically unwise to send troops into new action in Indo-China, even, for example, to send a column to relieve Dienbienphu.

Second SOS. U.S. prestige now deserves to suffer along with France's. Playing the game of bolstering France, President Eisenhower talked tough for months about Indo-China; he even called it "the cork in the bottle," meaning that if IndoChina fell, the rest of Southeast Asia would go, and World War III would be that much closer. Vice President Nixon implied that the U.S. might ultimately send troops; Dulles warned of possible retaliation if Peking stepped up help to Indo-China Communists.

Even last fortnight, in answer to a second SOS from the French, Admiral Arthur Radford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, drew up a plan for U.S. air and sea support for Dienbienphu. He got technical appraisal of it from British and French military planners, and last week laid it before the U.S. National Security Council.

But the game was already up. During the third week of April, Secretary Dulles had tried untiringly to redefine the Indo-China crisis as a cause for united action. But Britain bluntly refused to join any united action until after Geneva. That meant the U.S. would have to wade into France's war-where the French themselves did not want to fight. Both congressional leaders and the Administration were horrified by that prospect.

Hard Blow. Against this background, Eisenhower last week abruptly switched his tone of voice when talking about Indo-China. At his press conference, he said: some kind of modus vivendi, possibly of the type that exists in Germany, was the most you could ask in Indo-China. A dismayed reporter asked if the President meant to say that he was willing to see Indo-China partitioned like Germany. Eisenhower's answer was something less than an emphatic no. Said he: he didn't mean to endorse, even by indirection, any specific means of getting along.

In Geneva, most delegates took Ike's remarks as proof that the U.S. is willing to settle for a Korea-type stalemate-and this was a hard blow at any attempt to negotiate from strength. Whether half a cork was any better than none would depend on whether the Communists, at Geneva or elsewhere, performed their old miracle of driving the anti-Communist nations together again. Even more, it depended upon a realistic U.S. appraisal of France as it is today. Unless France changes basically, it cannot be considered a key factor in any situation-including the defense of France.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.