U.S. Vietnam Policy in Eisonhower Administration

This research paper traces the evolution of United States policy toward Vietnam during the administration of President

Dwight Eisenhower (January 1953-January 1961) and discusses the

factors which shaped that policy and contributed to its ultimate failure. The focus of this paper is on the mind-set and operating assumptions of President Eisenhower and other key members of his national security team and their manifestation in Vietnam policy. Its theses are that:

(1) from the late 1940s and throughout the Eisenhower administration, American policy toward Indochina/Vietnam was strongly shaped by Cold War tensions and was dictated primarily by Cold War considerations --i.e. the imperative need as perceived by American national security policymakers to contain communist expansion in Indochina, and, after mid-1954, to prevent a communist takeover in South Vietnam;

(2) although the roots of American involvement in Vietnam during this period reflected a bipartisan political and policy consensus, domestic political conflict and controversy led during the Eisenhower years to a hardening and rigidification of American Vietnam policy which represented a distinctive Republican response to the threat of communism in Southeast Asia;

(3) the ineffectiveness of both the Vietnam policy inherited by the Eisenhower administration and the reorientation of that policy which began in 1953 was exposed by the Dien Bien Phu crisis of th

Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden met with Dulles in London where they effectively vetoed any plans to include Britain in Western military intervention in Indochina before the outcome of the Geneva negotiations were known. In their formal reply, dated April 24, 1954, the British Cabinet stated: "We are not prepared to give any undertaking now, in advance of the Geneva Conference, concerning United Kingdom military action in Indo-China." -on April 7 at his press conference Eisenhower explained to the public why he believed keeping Indochina out of the communist bloc was a vital American interest, by making his celebrated 'falling dominoes' remarks: "if someone sets up a row of dominoes, and knocks over the first one . . . it is certain that the last one will go over quickly." The concept of Southeast Asia as a region containing raw materials and markets of vital importance to the West and to Japan and of Indochina as the strategic key to control of the entire region was not new. What was new was that the President was seeking to clarify for the public the nature of America's vital interests in the region. Eisenhower may have made a decision not to intervene militarily to save the defenders of Dien Bien Phu as early as April 5 when