The March of Folly_ From Troy to Vietnam - Barbara Wertheim Tuchman [159]
The debate of the departments—State, Defense, NSC and the intelligence agencies—continued without a solution, knotted as it was in a tangle of what-ifs: what if the Chinese entered; what if the French asked for active United States participation, or, alternatively, pulled out, as a strong current of French opinion was demanding, abandoning Indochina to Communism. Every contingency was examined; an interagency Working Group delivered exhaustive reports of its studies. Again there were few illusions. It was recognized that the French could win only if they gained the genuine political and military partnership of the Vietnamese people; that this was not developing and would not, given French reluctance to transfer real authority; that no valid native non-Communist leadership had emerged; that the French effort was deteriorating and that United States naval and air action alone could not turn the tide in France’s favor. The conclusion reached by President Eisenhower was that armed American intervention must be conditional on three requirements: joint action with allies, Congressional approval and French “acceleration” of the independence of the Associated States.
In the meantime, in proportion as a French slide appeared imminent, American aid increased. Bombers, cargo planes, naval craft, tanks, trucks, automatic weapons, small arms and ammunition, artillery shells, radios, hospital and engineering equipment plus financial support flowed heavily in 1953. Over the previous three years, 350 ships (or more than two every week) had been delivering war matériel to the French. Yet in June 1953 a National Intelligence estimate judged that the French effort “will probably deteriorate” during the following twelve months and if current trends continued could subsequently “deteriorate very rapidly”; that “popular apathy” would continue and the Viet-Minh “will retain the military initiative.” Whether taken as a prescription to withdraw from an inherently flawed cause or to bolster it by increased aid, the Intelligence estimate should at least have resulted in sober second thought. That it did not was due to fear that a cut-off of aid would mean losing French cooperation in Europe.
“The French blackmailed us,” as Acheson put it; aid in Indochina was France’s price for joining the European Defense Community (EDC). American policy in Europe was tied to this scheme for an integrated coalition of the major nations, which France feared and resisted because it included her late conqueror, Germany. If the United States wanted France’s membership and her twelve divisions for NATO, it must in turn pay for her holding back Communism—and incidentally holding on to her empire—in Asia. EDC would become operative only if France joined. The United States was committed to it, and paid.
The reason why the French with superior manpower and American resources were doing so poorly was not beyond all conjecture. The people of Indochina, of whom more than 200,000 were in the colonial army together with some 80,000 French, 48,000 North Africans and 20,000 Foreign Legionnaires, simply had no reason to fight for France. Americans were always talking about freedom from Communism, whereas the freedom that the mass of Vietnamese wanted was freedom from their exploiters, both French and indigenous. The assumption that humanity at large shared the democratic Western idea of freedom was an American delusion. “The freedom we cherish and defend in Europe,” stated President Eisenhower on taking office, “is no different than the freedom that is imperiled in Asia.” He was mistaken. Humanity may have common ground, but needs and aspirations vary according to circumstances.
There was no delusion or ignorance about the absence of will to fight in the Associated States.