Elections Balked
July 5, 1971
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In July 1955, under the provisions of the Geneva agreements, the two zones of Vietnam were to begin consultations on the elections scheduled for the next year.
But Premier Diem refused to talk with the Communists. And in July 1956, he refused to hold elections for reunification. He asserted that the South Vietnamese government had not signed the Geneva accords and therefore was not bound by them.
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But the Pentagon account also cites State Department cables and National Security Council memorandums indicat ing that the Eisenhower Administration wished to postpone the elections as long as possible and communicated its feelings to Mr. Diem.
As early as July 7, 1954, during the Geneva conference, Secretary Dulles suggested that the United States ought to seek to delay the elections and to require guarantees that the Communists could be expected to reject.
In a secret cablegram to Under Secretary of State Walter Bedell Smith, who filled in for him after he withdrew from the Geneva conference, Secretary Dulles wrote:
“Since undoubtedly true that elections might eventually mean unification Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh, this makes it all more important they should be only held as long after cease‐fire agreement as possible and in conditions free from intimidation to give democratic elements best chance.”
Following similar reasoning, the National Security Council in May 1955, shortly before consultations on the elections were supposed to begin, produced a draft statement, “U.S. Policy on All Vietnam Elections.”
According to the Pentagon study, “held that to give no impression of blocking elections while avoiding the possibility of losing them, Diem should insist on free elections by secret ballot with strict supervision. Communists in Korea and Germany had rejected these conditions; hopefully, the Vietminh would follow suit.”
But on June 9, the account says, the Council “decided to shelve the draft statement. Its main features had already been conveyed to Diem.”
Secretary Dulles's ambivalent attitude toward the Geneva accords is also re flected in a cablegram he sent to the United States Embassy in Saigon on Dec. 11, 1955, outlining Washington's position toward the International Control Commission.
Neither Help Nor Hindrance
“While we should certainly take no positive step to speed up the present process of decay of Geneva accords,” it said, “neither should we make the slightest effort to infuse life into them.” In May 1956, in what the Pentagon account says is an “example of the U.S. ignoring” the Geneva accords, 350 additional military men were sent to Saigon under the pretext of helping the Viet names recover and redistribute equipment abandoned by the French.
