| This study examines the origins of the American commitment to an independent South Vietnam in the context of domestic and international politics, and the transition from French to American sponsorship of the government in Saigon.; Taking advantage of recently declassified documents at the National Archives and the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, it begins with a survey of the commitments inherited by President Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in 1953, and examines the political, bureaucratic, and strategic constraints which redirected the Republican policy makers' new approach to Indochina into familiar patterns of deference to French leadership in the region. It shows how the Eisenhower administration subordinated Indochina policy to Franco-American relations until the pressure of events in the spring and summer of 1954--the French defeat at Dienbienphu and the partition of Vietnam by the Geneva conferees--forced policy makers to the admit the failure of their association with the French.; In the aftermath of the Geneva Conference, U.S. policy emerged from the shadow of Franco-American relations. This study follows that process, and the American role in the decolonization of Vietnam, through the early months of the "Diem experiment," the Manila Conference and establishment of SEATO, the Collins mission to Saigon, and the Sect Crisis in the spring of 1955. It traces the shifting balance of power in Franco-American relations in the region that culminated in May, 1955, with the trilateral foreign ministers' meeting in Paris, the demise of the western powers' entente in Indochina, and the consolidation of Ngo Dinh Diem's government. In conclusion, it assesses the burgeoning political, economic, and military commitments assumed by the Eisenhower administration as it asserted American responsibility for making "Free Vietnam" safe for anti-communism. |
