The End of the First Indochina War: A Global History by James Waite (review)

The main focus of this dense, detailed book is the international diplomacy that resulted in the signing of the Geneva Accords of July 1954. The end of the first Indochina War between France and the Communist forces of the Viet Minh, James Waite notes at the outset, was the “product of global Cold War forces and itself produced global consequences” (p. 2). His book sets out to explore that claim. This is well-trodden ground, and we now have many “national” histories that discuss the policies of the various actors that combined to produce the Geneva settlement, but Waite aims to bring these different perspectives together in one overarching synthesis and to underpin the whole edifice with his wide-ranging research. He uses primary sources drawn from French, U.S., British, Australian, and New Zealand archives, translations of Russian and Chinese documents put out by the Cold War International History Project, and assorted Vietnamese materials, which give voices both to the Viet Minh leaders of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) and to the non-Communist leaders of the Associated State of Vietnam.

Waite offers several insights into familiar events and charts the priorities and polices of the many players who had a say in the final outcome at Geneva. Particularly impressive is his treatment of the incoherent French attitude toward negotiations before the arrival of Pierre Mendès France on the scene in June 1954, the shifting role of French public and political opinion during the final year of the war, and the constant and necessary reminder that policy toward Indochina could not be divorced from the wider tensions induced in the Western alliance by the struggle over the European Defense Community. Waite correctly sees a major fault line developing between U.S. and French officials and military commanders over the consequences of the battle of Dien Bien Phu. Whereas U.S. officials thought that the war effort could continue despite defeat in the battle, the French could not see themselves struggling through another campaign season after such a setback, especially once Viet Minh forces were redeployed to the Tonkin delta (as was General Vo Nguyen Giap’s intention, despite the grievous losses suffered during the battle).

Waite gives some much-needed agency to the non-Communist Vietnamese nationalists, the “Third Force” in Vietnamese politics who not only were highly critical of the colonial dimension of Western involvement in Indochina but had a genuinely neutral vision for an independent Vietnam as an actor in the international system. Their leaders were, however, frozen out of the Geneva negotiations by the French. But perhaps the greatest dilemma was faced by the Communists leaders of the DRV, particularly in their relations with their Soviet and Chinese patrons. They should have approached Geneva with an overwhelming sense of confidence, considering the military situation on the ground, but the outside pressures on their negotiating position were formidable. The Soviet Union and China were both eager to see a settlement, the former as an element in the détente with the West it was seeking to promote, the latter because it did not want to see the Vietnamese Communists gain dominant control over the Indochina peninsula or to trigger U.S. intervention. The ominous prospect of U.S. involvement also threatened the chances of consolidating the DRV’s hold over the north and rebuilding its military resources after the previous few years of losses and exertions. Such intervention would also increase enormously the dependence of the DRV on its Chinese and Soviet backers, with undesirable consequences for the long term. Although Western leaders believed the DRV was in a strong position at Geneva, pressure for a compromise settlement leading to at least temporary partition was felt at the wider systemic level.

Waite’s account underscores once again the sharp Anglo-American clash over Indochina in 1954, when both Washington and London sought to contain any expansion of Chinese Communist power but had markedly different approaches and...