Peace of a Kind

The balance of world power lurched, and tilted in favor of Communist power. While the U.S. looked on, France and England signed over 12 million Vietnamese and half a country to Communism. The U.S.. which had said it would never agree to partition, had made the mistake of committing its prestige without its power. Now it could only watch in distaste: in the words of the U.S. President, if he had no better plan, he was not going to criticize what others had done.

Doubt sucked at the foundations of the West's position in Asia. If an Asian had stood against Communism, what confidence could he have left that the West would, or could, support him? Listening to a radio crackling the news from Geneva, a Vietnamese journalist said bitterly: ""We've lost confidence in the French, and now we've lost confidence in the Americans and the British. The only place left to put your confidence is with the Communists, and I can't do that."

Around China's bulging flanks, nations began chattering nervously of nonaggression pacts. Such harmless-sounding pacts, industriously promoted by Chou Enlai, were, in fact, designed to exclude U.S. power from Southeast Asia, leaving non-Communist nations at the mercy of Red China's burgeoning colonialism. The West's countereffort--a Southeast Asia pact--has yet to get off the ground. The U.S. has not yet decided who should belong or how much should be guaranteed. The British are not in a hurry, nor looking to a pact with teeth.

The Closing Hours. Amidst all the relief felt for the ending of the Indo-China war and the acclaim for his dazzling display of diplomatic virtuosity, Pierre Mendes-France, the realist, had no illusions and said so. Geneva had been a disaster for France, forced on him by past mistakes. On paper, Mendes-France had got more last-minute concessions than any one had expected, but the agreements were full of potential booby traps. Biggest one of all: the agreements depended on Communist promises.

Ironically, the closing hours of Geneva had proved that the Communists were in reality desperately anxious for a ceasefire, though they played their hand without revealing the fact. The Communist Viet Minh in Indo-China were tired of living in mountain hideouts. The Red Chinese wanted a period of peace to consolidate their restive home front, and they were deeply apprehensive that the U.S. might intervene. The existence of these fears, even after the U.S. had plainly shown no enthusiasm to get involved in Indo-China, was a sad reminder that the whole of Indo-China might have been saved if the free world had long ago plainly showed its determination to save it.

Molotov, with his eye on Europe, stated publicly his own reason for wanting a ceasefire. Geneva showed, he said, that there was no dispute that could not be settled by negotiation. He scarcely waited to get back to Moscow before he put this strategy to work by formally suggesting a new four-power conference on "European security." As Molotov calculated, the timid and the neutralists set up an immediate cry against precipitate action on EDC or West German sovereignty, before "one more try" at agreement on Germany, Nobody explained why the Communists, having just divided Indo-China, should now be willing to unite Germany.

Crucial Date. After eight years and at the cost of 34,000 French and Vietnamese dead, a war had ended in defeat. However the U.S. tried to disassociate itself morally or politically, it was also a defeat for the U.S. In man's agelong struggle to win and keep its freedom, a crucial battle had been lost. Unless free men found fresh resolution and fresh, ideas in defeat, historians might yet mark Geneva as the first date in a new era: the decline of the West.

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