When Ike Said No

Since World War II, American presidents have made some disastrous decisions taking the nation into pointless wars: George W. Bush’s search for nonexistent weapons of mass destructions in Iraq or LBJ’s major expansion of United States involvement in Vietnam being two of the worst. Eighty years ago, another president was faced with just such a critical step when the French government asked for United States help in its ongoing war to defeat Ho Chi Minh Communist forces in Vietnam. This time, the president said no.

By early 1954, France had been in an almost decade-long unsuccessful effort to regain control of its former colony in Vietnam. Despite an army of 500,000 troops in Vietnam, they found themselves in a desperate battle in Dien Bien Phu surrounded by Ho’s forces led by his best general, General Giap.

The United States beginning with President Truman had supplied the French with over $200 million in military aid with little to show for the effort. In early 1954, the French appealed for a major escalation of American military support. The Joint Chiefs of Staff led by Admiral Arthur Radford and General Nathan Twining of the Air Force came up with a plan of support. Called Operation Vulture, it called for 60 B-29 bombers stationed in the Philippines backed up with planes from two aircraft carriers to bomb Ho’s forces. There was even talk of using two or three tactical atomic weapons. A Pentagon study argued that “if properly employed” such action singlehandedly would win the war for the French. General Matthew Ridgway, chief of staff for the Army, argued vehemently against any such operation as an invitation to an open-ended conflict. Eisenhower, who admired Ridgway for his role in World War II and especially his handling of the Korean War, was impressed by his arguments.

There the matter stood when it reached President Eisenhower’s desk in the spring of 1954. Eisenhower’s actions in the crisis are a classic example of what the late presidential historian Fred Greenstein called Ike’s “hidden hand” approach to the presidency. Eisenhower’s experience in World War II where he led the largest coalition Army in history made him cautious when it came to major military operations. His handling of this potential quagmire is a textbook case of not allowing circumstances to control events.

When the matter came before the Cabinet and later in discussions with a smaller group of advisers both military and civilian, Eisenhower expressed sympathy for France’s plight. However, he insisted that nothing could or should be done unless three conditions were met: the French would have to recognize the independence of Vietnam, he must have the active support of the British, along with strong congressional approval. He knew none of these were likely to be met. Certainly, the French had no intention of withdrawing from Indochina at that time.

Despite claims that Eisenhower was naive or innocent politically or diplomatically, he had a long experience in resolving or dealing with just such complex matters in the past. As he once noted, he studied acting under General Douglas MacArthur for almost a decade. None of Eisenhower’s criteria for action were met.

Eisenhower wrote to Churchill, then serving the last years of his second premiership, and asked if Britain would join in and support American intervention in the Vietnam conflict. He knew what to expect and he got it. Britain, just recovering from a long conflict against Communist guerrillas in its colony in the Malay Peninsula, was less than a decade from a messy withdrawal from India. Britain had no interest in another Asian conflict.

Congress then led by the Democrats was equally unenthusiastic, especially the newly elected leader of the Senate, Lyndon Baines Johnson. The Democrats remembered how they had been blamed for the “loss of China” and their conduct during the Korean War and wanted no part of helping Eisenhower in resolving the Indochina problem. Johnson failed to remember the lesson of 1954.

Despite pressure from the French, and his own military advisers along with some prominent Republican political figures including Vice President Richard Nixon, Eisenhower rejected aiding the French. His reasoning is a textbook case of managing a crisis.

Although Eisenhower had first employed the concept of the “domino theory” with regard to Indochina, in June he argued that Vietnam was devoid of military significance for the United States and the West in general. He was “bitterly opposed” he said to helping the French as military intervention would absorb division after division of American forces to no good end. The Pentagon plan had talked of seven U.S. divisions being possibly employed in Vietnam. (That was two more than the United States used in Korea.) It was out of the question. Eisenhower also was bothered by the racial aspect of the conflict. The use of atomic bombs he found outrageous. He told the military that it was “crazy” to want to use atomic weapons. “We can’t use those awful things against Asians for the second time in less than ten years. My God.”

Dien Bien Phu fell in May, and the United States escaped a disastrous intervention in what eventually became an unwinnable conflict. The United States sent 800 civilian advisers to South Vietnam during the last four years of Eisenhower’s administration. Four died there. Eleven years later in July 1965, Lyndon Johnson took the fateful decision to escalate our involvement in Vietnam. He tried to elicit endorsement from Eisenhower that it was the right move, but he never got it. Eisenhower had learned the lesson of Vietnam, Johnson didn’t and it cost the United States 58,000 lives and the soul of the American nation deeply.

John P. Rossi is Professor Emeritus of History at La Salle University in Philadelphia.

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