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THE INTERNATIONAL CONTSOL COMMISSION FOR VIETNAM; THE DIPLOMATIC AND MILITARY CONTEXT. by VIVIENNE BROSNAN B.A., U n i v e r s i t y of B r i t i s h Columbia, 1948 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS i n the Department of History We accept t h i s t h e s i s as conforming to the required, standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA March, 1975 In presenting t h i s t h e s i s in p a r t i a l f u l f i l m e n t of the requirements f o r an advanced degree at the U n i v e r s i t y of B r i t i s h Columbia, I agree that the L i b r a r y s h a l l make i t f r e e l y a v a i l a b l e f o r reference and study. I f u r t h e r agree that permission for extensive copying of t h i s t h e s i s f o r s c h o l a r l y purposes may be granted by the Head of my Department or by h i s r e p r e s e n t a t i v e s . It i s understood that copying or p u b l i c a t i o n of t h i s t h e s i s f o r f i n a n c i a l gain s h a l l not be allowed without my w r i t t e n permission. Department of The U n i v e r s i t y of B r i t i s h Columbia Vancouver 8, Canada Date i i ABSTRACT. On J u l y 21, 1954, Canada was asked to assume, with Poland and India, the supervision of the Cease F i r e Agreements (CFA) i n what had been French Indochina. The CFA marked the end of French rule i n Indochina, a rule that had never been unquestioned, and that, since December of 1946, had involved France i n a b i t t e r and c o s t l y war. At the end of 1953 a s e r i e s of events l e d to a decision to seek a negotiated peace i n Indochina. Af t e r eight years of f i g h t i n g that had drained away manpower and resources, France had l o s t c o n t r o l of large areas of Vietnam. The death of S t a l i n i n Russia brought new leaders to power who were anxious to secure a lessening of i n t e r n a t i o n a l tensions so that they could turn t h e i r a ttention to improving the l o t of the average Russian. The Chinese were about to embark on t h e i r f i r s t Five Year Plan, and wished to be free of the heavy burden that supplying the Vietminh war machine e n t a i l e d . The Vietminh and the Americans, on the other hand, seem to have come to the conference table only on the insistence of t h e i r a l l i e s . The Vietminh considered that f i n a l v i c t o r y was within t h e i r grasp and d i d not wish to stop short of t h e i r objective -c o n t r o l over the whole of Vietnam. The new Republican administration i n the U.S. was committed to " r o l l i n g back" Communism, and foresaw another v i c t o r y f o r Communism i n the proposed peace conference. Proceedings at the Geneva Conference soon showed the d i v e r s i t y and c o n f l i c t of aims among the p a r t i c i p a n t s . The U.S. soon r e t i r e d f o r a l l p r a c t i c a l purposes from active p a r t i c i p a t i o n , and f o r quite long periods there was not even an o f f i c i a l head of the U.S. Delegation present i n Geneva. The L a n i e l Government f e l l i n France during the negotiations, and L a n i e l was replaced i i i by Mendes France, largely on the strength of his promise to conclude a peace within thirty days. Britain and the USSR acted as co-chairmen of the Conference and were active in moving their allies closer together; they share the re-sponsibility for the eventual successful outcome of the Conference. Of the differences that developed between the two sides at Geneva, the most significant was the difference of opinion over the composition of an International Control Commission (ICC) to supervise the Cease Fire. A compromise was finally reached on India, Poland and Canada. During the first two years of the Commission's existence i t supervised the withdrawal and regroupment of forces provided for in the Geneva Agreement. Particularly in the evacuation of Haiphong and Hanoi the ICC was able to render valuable service. By the end of this two year period, however, the^FUFJhad left Vietnam, leaving the South Vietnamese to continue to enforce the Cease Fire Agreement, and the RVN had of course refused to consider itself bound by the Agreements. The Diem Government refused to contemplate the holding of elections that would have re-unified the country and brought to an end the ICC's task in Vietnam. Of a l l the members of the ICC, i t was India's foreign policy that most affected the decisions and the work of the Commission. Indian policy was non-aligned, and must even more importantly be clearly seen to be non-aligned. At the same time India had an almost instinctive dislike of Communism, a dislike that appeared in India's lukewarm support for anti-colonial struggles in Asia that were dominated by Communists. Although the Indian Delegation sided with the Poles more often than with the Canadians during the l i f e of the Commission, on important decisions that affected the South*s ability to maintain its security, India sided with the Canadians. After 1956, the Commission became increasingly ineffective. Its i v freedom to i n v e s t i g a t e was eroded, f i n a n c i a l support was l a c k i n g , and eventually the increasing tempo of the war i n Vietnam swept the ICC aside as l a r g e l y i r r e l e v a n t . The ICC i s only one of many peacekeeping operations i n which Canada has been involved. UN missions have tended to be popular within Canada, while service on the ICC has not been generally approved. In f a c t Canada has not been as n e u t r a l or as p a r t i s a n as public opinion has assumed. Certain condi-t i o n s tend to i n e f f e c t i v e n e s s i n peacekeeping missions, and these conditions have been present i n other missions as w e l l as i n the ICC. In recent years, Canada has been i n c r e a s i n g l y r e l u c t a n t to take on peacekeeping duties where i t i s judged the chance f o r e f f e c t i v e action has not been great. But Canada has not been involved i n peacekeeping simply because i t has suited her to be involved. In future dangerous and d i f f i c u l t s i t u a t i o n s the pressures on us to p a r t i c i p a t e might well be too strong to r e s i s t . V TABLE OF CONTENTS. Page No. NOTES .ON SOURCES : v i CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER I I . THE ROAD TO GENEVA 6 CHAPTER I I I . THE GENEVA CONFERENCE 20 CHAPTER IV. THE FIRST TWO YEARS 41 CHAPTER V. THE EFFECT OF INDIAN POLICY 59 CHAPTER VI. THE FINAL YEARS 83 CHAPTER VII. THE INTERNATIONAL CONTROL COMMISSION AS A PEACEKEEPING OPERATION 102 CHAPTER VIII. CONCLUSIONS - THE CANADIAN EXPERIENCE 124 BIBLIOGRAPHY 137 v i NOTE ON SOURCES. The Reports of the International Control Commission f o r Vietnam have been printed by the B r i t i s h Foreign O f f i c e , as have the proceedings of the International Conference on Korea and Indochina at Geneva i n 1954• The Canadian Department of External A f f a i r s has from time to time published statements and a r t i c l e s on Indochina i n i t s monthly p u b l i c a t i o n "External A f f a i r s " . P r a c t i c a l l y everyone involved i n the ending of the Indochina con-f l i c t and the withdrawal of the French has published Memoires. A f u l l account of the Geneva Conference, based on interviews and o f f i c i a l sources, i s found i n Lacouture and D e v i l l e r s , "La F i n d'une Guerre; Indochine, 1954". The Canadian Government has not made public the documents r e l a t i n g to Canadian service on the Indochina Commissions. One work prepared with access to these f i l e s i s invaluable as a source f o r material on the f i r s t year - Christopher Dagg's unpublished manuscript, "The Three Hundred Days". A copy i s i n the UBC i n s t i t u t e of Int e r n a t i o n a l Relations l i b r a r y , and: I under-stand that i t w i l l eventually be published by the Canadian I n s t i t u t e of International Relations. - 1 -CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION. On J u l y 21, 1954, Canada was asked to assume, with Poland and India, the supervision of the Cease F i r e Agreements i n what had been French Indochina. The Agreements had just been concluded, and were signed by the Commanders of the French Union Forces and of the People's Army of Vietnam. In March, 1973, the l a s t members of the Supervisory Commission set up under the Geneva Agreements l e f t Vietnam. In between l a y what Paul Martin has characterized as " ... i n many ways ... the severest t e s t to which i n t e r n a t i o n a l peacekeeping has been put."^" This paper describes the work of the International Commission f o r Super-v i s i o n and Control (ICC) i n Vietnam, with p a r t i c u l a r attention to the m i l i t a r y and p o l i t i c a l context within which i t operated. My own involvement with and i n t e r e s t i n the ICC f o r Vietnam began i n l a t e 1959. From December 1959 to A p r i l , 1961, I served as Senior P o l i t i c a l Adviser with the Canadian Delegation to the ICC i n Vietnam, and then f o r the next year I was desk o f f i c e r i n Ottawa, f o r Vietnam o r i g i n a l l y , eventually f o r a l l of Indochina. Events i n s i d e Vietnam and changes i n the foreign p o l i c y of other powers i n e v i t a b l y affected the way that the Commission was able to carry out the mandate given i t by the Geneva Agreements. The same i s true of a l l peacekeeping opera-t i o n s . Such operations, within or without the United Nations, have resulted when a group of nations, p a r t i c u l a r l y the Great Powers, have combined t o achieve an i n t e r n a t i o n a l l y acceptable s o l u t i o n to a dispute, and when the powers engaged i n the dispute have agreed to accept the settlement and the i n t e r n a t i o n a l force that i s to supervise i t . The settlement has seldom gone beyond an immediate Cease F i r e and a separation of forces, and the continuation of that Cease F i r e and the f i n a l s o l u t i o n to the problems that caused the o r i g i n a l dispute are always out of the hands of the peacekeeping body. On occasion, and both Vietnam and the Middle East are examples, the Cease F i r e has not been followed by an e f f e c t i v e - 2 -s o l u t i o n of the o r i g i n a l dispute. In that case the Cease F i r e eventually breaks down, and a renewal of h o s t i l i t i e s occurs. I t i s curious that i n Vietnam there has been a tendency to blame the peacekeeping body i t s e l f , the ICC, f o r t h i s break-down. I t i s the contention of t h i s t h e s i s that the ICC i n Vietnam accomplished a l l that i t was o r i g i n a l l y set up to do - the separation of forces a f t e r the Cease F i r e and the supervision of that separation f o r a period of two years. At the end of that time e l e c t i o n s were to have united the two halves of the country and ended the job of the ICC. Instead, the fundamental divergence between the two parts of the country became evident and f i n a l l y l e d to a renewal of h o s t i l i t i e s , with the Government i n the South openly supported by the U.S. and the government i n the North supported by China and the USSR, although l e s s openly and completely. In f a c t the p o l i t i c a l settlement envisaged i n the F i n a l Declaration of the Geneva Agreement of 1 9 5 4 can surely have been l i t t l e more than a pious hope. The Commander of the French Union Forces signed the Agreement on behalf of a l l the a n t i -Communist groups i n Vietnam, but during the Conference " ... a sharp divergence of p o l i c y developed ... between France, which intended to withdraw from Indochina, and 2 the State of Vietnam, which intended to exercise the r i g h t to govern Vietnam." "The Conference ignored the p o s i t i o n of the government who claimed to speak f o r the majority of the non-Communist community i n Vietnam. The p o l i t i c a l objectives of the governments representing the two communities i n Vietnam were i n d i r e c t c o n f l i c t , /and this7 became more and more evident i n the months following July, 1 9 5 4 . The Government of Vietnam, instead of c o l l a p s i n g , as many observers at the time expected i t to so, consolidated i t s p o s i t i o n , and by so doing i t achieved the a b i l i t y to r e s i s t i n pr a c t i c e the p o l i t i -c a l settlement which i t had opposed throughout the Geneva Conference."3 When Canada was asked to serve on the International Control Commission fo r Vietnam, l i t t l e was known i n t h i s country about Indochina. The s i t u a t i o n i n Indochina i n general and i n Vietnam i n p a r t i c u l a r came up f o r review i n l a t e 1 9 5 2 , when Canada decided to recognise the three States of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia as States "within the French Union." There was no great enthusiasm f o r recognition,.! and the quite severe r e s t r i c t i o n s on soverignty that these countries suffered, even at that l a t e stage, were w e l l understood. S t i l l i t was thought that i n t e r n a t i o n a l recognition might help to encourage more rapid progress to complete independence. In a radio interview on A p r i l 23, 1954, Mr. Lester Pearson was asked i n the course of a general tour d'horizon about the proposals for a Conference on Indochina which were then current. Mr. Pearson's comments could have been repeated almost verbatim f o r p r a c t i c a l l y any part of the world. He said that Canada was "interested and concerned", although, unlike the case of Korea, we had no d i r e c t r e s p o n s i b i l i t y . "As a P a c i f i c as well as an A t l a n t i c country, we are n a t u r a l l y extremely intere s t e d i n anything which can be done to s t a b i l i z e the s i t u a t i o n i n Indochina, and to strengthen the s e c u r i t y of Southeast Asia."^" I t i s probably true to say that Canadians i n general knew f a r more about the struggle•for independence i n India and i n Indonesia than they d i d about Indochina. The Background of the Conflict.* 5 The e a r l i e s t penetration of Vietnam by Europeans was by Portuguese mis-s i o n a r i e s . The Portuguese were e a r l y replaced by the French, and as happened so often i n the story of European c o l o n i s a t i o n , the f l a g eventually followed the mis-sionary and the merchant. The French occupation of Indochina was not completed u n t i l the l a t e nineteenth century, when Cochin China was made a colony, and Annam and Tonkin i n Vietnam became protectorates. (Laos and Cambodia became protector-ates i n the same period.) The Vietnamese themselves gained l i t t l e from the French occupation. Rubber trees were introduced into Vietnam, and i n the North minerals were mined, but the benefits a l l accrued to the French colons who came to Vietnam. Some educational f a c i l i t i e s were provided f o r Vietnamese, but i n 1924, of 600,000 ch i l d r e n of school age only 6,200 boys and 1,000 g i r l s were receiving an education, and higher education was l i m i t e d u n t i l 1918 to a combined f a c u l t y of medicine and pharmacy at Hanoi.^ Perhaps the main advantage that Vietnam derived from French r u l e was the f a c t that a middle cl a s s d i d develop out of the new opportunities f o r employment that were created by the French. This middle class l a t e r provided the leadership f o r an independent Vietnam. I t also of course provided the leadership f o r the various independence movements that began almost at once, p a r t l y because the p o s s i b i l i t i e s f o r advancement and f o r the use of the education so p a i n f u l l y acquired were l a r g e l y denied to Vietnamese. France never did develop a c i v i l service based on merit to s t a f f her empire as the B r i t i s h d i d . Positions i n the colonies were l a r g e l y the g i f t of p o l i t i c a l patronage, and most of those positions- were reserved f o r the French. Even policemen and customs o f f i c i a l s i n Vietnam were French, not Vietnam-ese. The Vietnamese had a long h i s t o r y of opposition to foreign occupation, and resistance movements soon sprang up. There was i n time some pro v i s i o n f o r Vietnamese representation on regional Consultative Assemblies, but the number of enfranchised c i t i z e n s was severely r e s t r i c t e d , and the Assemblies' charters con-f i n e d debates within narrow l i m i t s . The French a u t h o r i t i e s were successful i n blocking or d i s r u p t i n g a l l attempts by the Vietnamese to reform t h e i r government or to obtain some re l a x a t i o n of the r e s t r i c t i o n s on t h e i r l i b e r t i e s . The Indo-chinese Communist party was formed i n 1929. and i t was one among many groups k seeing greater independence f o r Vietnam. The a c t i v i t i e s of these groups was severely repressed, and t h e i r members were j a i l e d or e x i l e d . I t was the Japanese occupation i n 1941 that f i n a l l y gave Vietnamese n a t i o n a l i s t s t h e i r opportunity. The Japanese occupation was at f i r s t almost i n v i s i b l e . After the f a l l of France Vietnam was i n no p o s i t i o n to r e s i s t Japanese demands, and i n return f o r French co-operation the Japanese l e f t the network of French administration i n t a c t . In 1945 the prospect of imminent a l l i e d v i c t o r y l e d the French to organize the over-throw of the Japanese occupation. The Japanese, getting wind of the preparations, interned the French and seized power openly. Bao Dai was i n s t a l l e d as a puppet emperor. The new s i t u a t i o n found only the Communist-led Vietminh ready to e x p l o i t i t . In the period between the Japanese takeover i n March, 1945, and the defeat of Japan i n August, the Vietminh had "succeeded i n e s t a b l i s h i n g t h e i r authority, by sheer audacity, sense of strategy, and exaggerated claims to a l l i e d support...."' The A l l i e d powers had agreed to divide the occupation of Vietnam, with Chinese forces accepting the Japanese surrender north of the sixteenth p a r a l l e l , and B r i t i s h troops south of that l i n e . North of the sixteenth p a r a l l e l , the Chinese troops were "intent on e x p l o i t i n g to the f u l l the p o s s i b i l i t i e s of p r o f i t g that the occupation of Tonkin offered." They were not anxious to see the return of the French, and under t h e i r benevolent n e u t r a l i t y e l e c t i o n s were held which gave the Vietminh a c l e a r majority of Assembly seats. In South Vietnam the B r i t i s h , using mostly Indian troops, cleared the way f o r the return of the French. General Gracey went beyond h i s i n s t r u c t i o n s i n so doing, but i t seems u n l i k e l y that h i s a c t i v i t i e s were much disapproved i n London, having regard to B r i t a i n ' s anxiety to maintain her own p o s i t i o n i n her Asian colonies. In October, 1945, French troops returned to Cochin China, and General Leclerc embarked on "the p a c i f i c a t i o n of the countryside." Late i n 1945 conver-sations began between the French and the Chinese, and on February 28th, 1 9 4 6 , agreements were signed by which China agreed to withdraw her troops from the northern part of the country. While France had secured Chinese agreement f o r the return of her forces, Ho Chi Minn's agreement was another matter. But Jean Sainteny had been i n Hanoi since September, 1 9 4 5 , and negotiations continued almost non-stop u n t i l March 6, when an agreement was signed with Ho Chi Minh by which France recognized the DRVN as a free state, forming part of the Indochinese Federation and the French Union. French troops were to be allowed to occupy Vietnam, but i n f i v e years they were a l l to leave. The Vietminh signed the agreement because they had l o s t i n t e r n a t i o n a l support (Chinese and American), because they were economically unprepared to sustain a long struggle against the French, and because they hoped that p o s t - l i b e r a t i o n France would allow them to achieve independence peac e f u l l y . The general aims of the March 6 agreement needed c l a r i f i c a t i o n , and l a t e r conferences at Dalat and Fontainebleau were c a l l e d to s p e l l out the exact degree of - 5a -independence the Vietnamese state was to enjoy. Nothing was attained, and a modus v i v e n d i signed on September 14, 1946 d i d nothing to s e t t l e outstanding questions. The atmosphere became i n c r e a s i n g l y tense, and i n l a t e November French r e t a l i a t i o n f o r an incident i n Haiphong resulted i n the destruction of the V i e t -namese quarter with heavy c a s u a l t i e s . On December 19 f i g h t i n g broke out i n Hanoi, and Ho Chi Minh f l e d from the c a p i t a l . From that moment on the French had l o s t any p o s s i b i l i t y of seeing a p o l i t i c a l settlement, and the m i l i t a r y s i t u a t i o n deteriorated s t e a d i l y over the next eight years. In the end, and a f t e r a b i t t e r and c o s t l y war, France was to concede to force of arms f a r more than she could have attained by more generous concessions i n 1946. The Singapore S t r a i t s Times of December 30, 1946 saw the s i t u a t i o n with prophetic accuracy: "The p o s i t i o n i n Indochina now i s that France i s on the verge of a f u l l scale c o l o n i a l war - something that we hoped would never occur again i n the h i s t o r y of As i a . . . . Any c o l o n i a l power which puts i t s e l f i n the p o s i t i o n of meeting terrorism with terrorism might as well wash i t s hands of the whole business and go home.... Unless events take a very unexpected turn f o r the better, we are about to see a French army reconquer the greater part of Indochina, only to make i t impossible f o r any French merchant or planter to l i v e there outside barbed wire perimeters there-a f t e r . Whatever may be the s o l u t i o n to the problems of c o l o n i a l Asia, t h i s i s not i t . " ^ - 5b -CHAPTER 1 FOOTNOTES. 1. External Affairs, June, 1967, p. 222 2. Paul Martin, in a lecture at Columbia University on April 27, 1967, printed in External Affairs. June, 1967, p. 224 3 . ibid., p. 226 4. ibid., May, 1954, p. 162 5. Material for this section has been drawn from Ellen J. Hammer, The Struggle for Indochina, and Donald Lancaster, The Emancipation of French Indochina. 6. Lancaster, op. cit., p. 67 7. ibid., p. 120 8. ibid., p. 126 9. quoted in Hammer, op. cit., p. 188 - 6 -CHAPTER II. THE ROAD TO GENEVA. Any discussion of the International Control Commissions or of the recent history of Indochina must start with a consideration of the Geneva Agreements of 1954. The Agreements drew the boundaries and l a i d down guide-lines for the conduct of the states that emerged from the French Empire i n Indochina, and they defined the role of the International Control Commissions which were to observe and supervise the execution of the Cease Fire. But behind and beyond the actual wording of the Agreements, the attitudes and bargaining positions of the participating powers and the extent to which their main aims and objectives were either met or frustrated played a very considerable part i n dictating the course of future events i n Indochina. And since no peace-keeping operation can function unaffected by the context of events within which i t operates, the conflicting attitudes of the two sides towards the Supervisory Commissions, and the dissatisfaction with the Agreements themselves that was f e l t to a greater or lesser degree by a l l participants, influenced from the outset the scope and effectiveness of the International Commissions' work i n Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. A series of events, diplomatic and military, had occurred during 1953 which paved the way to a negotiated settlement. At the end of 1952 the military situation had further deteriorated for the French, with a Vietminh offensive into Laos, resulting in the establishment of a revolutionary Government i n the province of Sam Neua. On the diplomatic front, the death of Stalin i n March 1953 brought a perceptible lessening of the tensions of the cold war. This bore f r u i t i n Asia i n a lessening of Chinese intransigence at Panmunjom. The Korean armistice was signed on July 27, 1953* - 7 -With the end of Chinese involvement in Korea, i t was evident to the French Army that the Vietminh could expect to receive increased military aid from the Chinese. At the same time the French military position i n the v i t a l l y important Red River Delta area was becoming increasingly untenable. On May 9, 1953 General Navarre was appointed Commander of the French forces in Indochina. His objectives, as he had related in his memoirs, were "...creer les conditions militaires d'une solution politiques honorable qu' i l appartiendra de prendre le moment venu. w^ Perhaps the severest blow to rapidly ebbing French enthusiasm for the war i n Indochina was dealt by the Vietnamese Government in Saigon. Bao Dai called a National Congress, held from October 12-17, 1953• The Congress demand-ed complete independence and the right to leave the French Union, "Cette f o i s , le voile est dechire. En France, chacun a compris enfin ce qui etait, depuis le debut, s i c l a i r : meme victorieuse, l a France devra quitter L'lndoehine. .... Le climat parliamentaire evolue rapidement. L'idee s'y f a i t jour que l a France ne combat plus pour ses interets nationaux et que l'independance promise aux baodaistes,... aboutira simplement a l'arrivee au pouvoir d'ultra nationalistes tout aussi decides que le Vietminh a eliminer l a France de l a vie vietnamienne. Dans cette perspective, l a charge de^la guerre apparait soudain ecrasante, intolerable." At the end of 1953 the Vietminh, who had withdrawn the bulk of their forces from Laos, made another foray into that country, striking almost as far as Luang Prabang. In order to protect Laos from further attack, and i n the belief that the Vietminh could not supply a major attack i n the d i f f i c u l t and mountainous border terrain, the French established and garrisoned a f o r t i f i e d camp at Dien Bien Phu. The stage had been set for the f i n a l tragedy in the French campaign in Indochina. By the end of 1953 therefore, the increasingly shaky French position - 8 -i n Indochina, and Russian and Chinese desire for an easing of cold war tensions, combined to produce a general consensus i n favour of a negotiated end to the war i n Indochina. On October 2 Premier Laniel declared himself willing to discuss terms of settlement with the Vietminh, and this was followed by Ho Chi Minh's statement to the Swedish newspaper Expressen i n November that a negotiated end to the war was possible. In January and February 1954 Britain, France, the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. met in Berlin to discuss German re-unification and an Austrian treaty. The Berlin Conference failed to achieve i t s purpose but i t did achieve agreement for a meeting some weeks later i n Geneva to discuss Korea and Vietnam. Invitations were sent i n due course to Britain, France, the U.S.A., the Soviet Union, China, the DRVN, the Republic of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia for the part of the Conference dealing with Indochina. Convened i n Geneva on April 26, 1954 the Conference completed i t s deliberations on July 21. If war weariness, a steadily worsening military position, and a realization that even her Vietnamese a l l i e s were committed to bringing French authority i n Indochina to an end had brought France to the bargaining table, what considerations had influenced the Viet Minn? In fact, i t seems from the evidence that there was no great enthusiasm for a negotiated peace among the leaders of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRVN). Amid a dutiful chorus of support for the principle of negotiated settlement for Far Eastern disputes i n the press of Communistic bloc countries during the spring and summer of 1953, the DRVN press and Government leaders remained stubbornly silent. In August and September articles appeared in the Cominform Journal entitled "We Are Sure of Final Victory" by Din (probably Ho Chi Minh) and "People of Vietnam w i l l Win Final Victory i n Struggle for Freedom and National Independence" by Pham Van Dong.5 Then in November there was a major change i n Vietminh policy. At the opening session of the World Peace Council i n Vienna on November 23 the DRVN's Representative stated: "To stop the Vietnam war through peaceful negotiations i s completely necessary and also possible. We Vietnam people long for peace, and we stand for an end to the Vietnam war and peaceful settle-ment of the Vietnam question by means of peaceful negotiations."^ This was followed a few days later by an interview with Ho Chi Minh which was published i n the Swedish newspaper Expressen of November 29, 1953 i n which Ho stated that i f the French Government desired to solve the Vietnam problem by peaceful means, "the people and Government of the DRVN are ready to meet this desire." The DRVN Government leaders appear therefore to have given i n to pressure from the Chinese and the Soviet Union for a negotiated end to the Indo-china war. The most immediate and effective pressure probably came from China, whose help with war materials, training, advice, and even to a limited extent with personnel ( i t i s thought that there were Chinese anti-aircraft batteries at Dien Bien Phu) gave the Vietminh the capability for the f i n a l successful push i n 1953-54* The Chinese appear to have been i n part supporting the Soviet desire for a general lessening of international tensions, i n their advocacy of negotiations over Indochina and i n the display of a more reasonable attitude at Panmunjom that resulted i n the signing of a Korean armistice on July 27, 1953* But China's own best interests would be served by peace i n Indochina. Nineteen f i f t y three saw the beginning of the f i r s t Chinese Five Year Plan, with i t s emphasis on industrialization. The continued provision of quantities of military aid to the DRVN (estimated to amount to 3,000 tons per month in 1953 and 4,000 tons per month in 1954) would have severely hampered the attainment of this goal. Moreover the Chinese could not have welcomed the re-appearance of an American threat on their borders, recently banished from Korea, now show-- 10 -ing every sign of replacing the weakening French. Finally, Geneva offered the f i r s t chance for China to play a role on the world stage commensurate with her power and importance, excluded as she had been from international forums by American opposition. The main impetus for the Geneva Conference, on the Communist side, came from the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union remained the power most anxious to see the continuation of the Conference when i t threatened to break down, the country which was willing to foree concessions from her a l l i e s when their intran-sigence threatened the collapse of negotiations. The death of Stalin i n March, 1953 gave the leaders i n the Kremlin the opportunity they had sought to relax tensions and to turn energies and economic resources away from the demands of the cold war and toward improving the l i v i n g standards of the people of the Soviet Union. The growing strength of Germany i n the west and i n particular the threat of German rearmament through the proposed German participation in the European Defence Community (EDC) was the major pre-occupation of Soviet foreign policy. The Indochina war had weakened France to the extent that she was no longer able to contribute as effectively as i n the past to European defence. In this situation she was under pressure from the United States to agree to German troops making up the difference. A strong France was a far more acceptable threat so far as the Soviet Union was concerned than a resurgent Germany would have been. Europe was and always had been far more important in Soviet eyes than the Far East. The colonial Communist parties i n the Far East had been con-sidered largely as appendages of the Communist parties of the metropole, and the lead i n colonial matters was l e f t largely to their guidance. In 1946 and early 1947 i t seemed quite possible that France would elect a Communist majority to the Chamber of Deputies, and i n these circumstances an independent line by the - 11 -Indo-Chinese Communist party i n Vietnam could be more of an embarrassment than 9 an asset. The French Communists i n Saigon prepared a document for the Indo-chinese Communist Party, dated two days after the French had seized power i n the cit y on their return after the Second World War. The document advised the Vietnamese before they acted too rashly to consider whether their struggle w__met7 the requirements of Soviet policy." It warned that any premature adventures towards independence might "not be i n line with Soviet perspectives."^ Although the Soviet line in Indochina changed i n late 1947 and 1948, as i t be-came evident that the power and prestige of Communism had passed their peak i n France, Soviet attitudes as reflected i n the press were more anti-French than pro-Vietnamese.^" Soviet policy i n Vietnam therefore had always been concerned f i r s t with the requirements of Soviet national policy, and particularly with the requirements of Soviet policy i n Europe. The friendly assistance that the Soviet Union gave i t s Vietnamese brothers during the Geneva Conference was therefore a two-edged sword - i t increased the strength of the DRVN's bargaining position, but i t was exerted on behalf of the DRVN only to the extent that Vietnamese aims coincided with Soviet policy. A l l this i s not to say that a negotiated peace was entirely against the interests of the DRVN. The French were more war-weary than they had ever been, and i n these circumstances gains could probably be made more cheaply than on the f i e l d of battle. Moreover although the Vietminh forces were in effective con-t r o l of large parts of the countryside, they had yet to take a major urban centre. Haiphong and Hanoi were s t i l l i n French hands, and although they were next on the agenda for conquest, could not be taken without a costly struggle. Above a l l , the advantage of time was on the Vietminh's side. The military balance could only continue to go against the French with every day that passed. In these - 12 -circumstances, protracted negotiations that held out the hope of eventually end-ing the war peacefully would effectively immobilize the French while i t permitted the Vietminh to continue to widen the terr i t o r i e s under their command. What were the motives that influenced the other participants i n the Geneva Conference? For their part, the Laotians and Cambodians hoped to gain a clear statement of their independence and an undertaking that Vietminh troops would leave their territory immediately. The Government of the Republic of Viet< nam on the other hand was truly between the devil and the deep blue sea. It had no means of continuing the fight on i t s own, and realized that any concessions made by the French during the course of the negotiations could only be made ultimately at i t s own expense. The British were as anxious to bring an end to the fighting in Vietnam as the Russians were on their side, and for reasons more intimately concerned with events i n the Far East. The campaign against the Communist guerillas i n Malaya was at that time i n a c r i t i c a l phase. If a l l of Indochina had become part of the Communist bloc i t seemed l i k e l y that Thailand would follow and i f the Communist guerillas i n Malaya had a l l i e s i n a country with whom they shared a common border, the task of the British in Malaya would go from d i f f i c u l t to impossible. Sir Anthony Eden has said that "The restoration of peace i n Indo-china was the most dangerous and acute of the problems with which I had to deal 12 during my last four years as Foreign Secretary." Throughout the Conference therefore the British Delegation sought steadily to find some form of agreement that would permit the establishment of a buffer zone that would protect Malaya and the other countries of Southeast Asia from direct Communist pressure. They threw their considerable influence behind proposals that would buy security and independence for the southern part of the country at the expense of concessions i n the north. Of a l l the participants i n the Geneva Conference, the United States - 13 -appeared less certain of what i t really wanted and more divided i n i t s assess-ment of how to go about i t . American policy during this period often appeared as inscrutable to America's a l l i e s (and indeed to i t s own people) as i t did to i t s adversaries. Indeed, books have been written to try to explain the twists 13 and turns of U.S. policy at this time. American interest in and concern for Vietnam goes back to the period near the end of the Second World War when the A l l i e s were starting to re-draw the map of the world. United States concern to be l i s t e d i n the ranks of the anti-colonialists led to active discouragement of French efforts to return to Indochina and a good deal of sympathy and unofficial encouragement of Vietminh elements by U.S. personnel in I n d o c h i n a . W i t h the victory of the Communists in China there was a sudden demand for a re-appraisal of U.S. attitudes towards European colonies i n the Far East. There remained a great reluctance to support colonial powers jsfecf showed no signs of yielding to the legitimate aspirations of colonial nationalism, but the U.S. now was unprepared to support independence move-ments relying i n any way on Communist support. The situation i n Indochina there-fore presented great d i f f i c u l t i e s for American policy makers, and they attempted to meet both requirements of U.S. policy by providing assistance for the French i n the form of arms and money ( i t i s estimated that by 1953 the U.S. was underwriting two-thirds of the French effort i n Indochina) while prodding the French into meet-ing the demands of the nationalists i n Indochina. U.S. policy towards Indochina at this time was strongly influenced by events on the domestic p o l i t i c a l front. The Republicans took office in November 1952 after a long period of Democratic party rule. There would i n any case have been a natural tendency to redesign U.S. foreign policy from the atti c to the cellar, but the severe frustrations that the American people as a whole had f e l t i n seeing a l l their economic and military might unable to prevent the "Communist takeover" of China and a military stalemate i n Korea made i t inevitable that a "new look" i n - 14 -foreign policy would be one of the first tasks of the new administration. In fact by 1950 the former bi-partisan approach to foreign affairs in the United States was already coming apart. Many Republicans believed that bi-partisanship was essentially wrong - i t deprived the country of needed debate on foreign policy. Moreover as a matter of practical policies i t was unwise in that i t deprived the Republican party of recognizable issues of its own."^ The burden of continued vigilance against a potential enemy who could never be defeat-ed and would never grow weaker was increasingly seen as intolerable by a large number of Americans. The fi r s t blow for a new, recognizably Republican, foreign policy was struck by John Foster Dulles in an article published in Life. May 19, 1952. Denouncing the Truman policy of containment, he called for the liberation of those who lived behind the Iron Curtain. The only solution to reduce the threat of war was M... for the free world to develop the will to organize the means to re-taliate instantly against open aggression by Red Armies /toj strike back where i t hurts, by means of our own choosing."^ This became known as the theory of '•massive retaliation", and probably terrified America's allies more than i t did her enemies. The Republican Party platform, adopted in convention on July 10, 1952, was largely written by Dulles. It promised to "end containment", "end the neg-lect of the Far East", and "repudiate a l l commitments ... which aid Communist 17 enslavements." This party platform had a greater influence on the formation of American policy than platforms usually do, partly because the person most responsible for drafting i t soon became charged with the responsibility for con-ducting U.S. foreign policy - (Dulles became Secretary of State in November) but also because President Eisenhower considered himself bound by the provisions of 18 the party platform. The new Republican administration that assumed office at the end of 1952 - 15 -had therefore committed i t s e l f to a more activi s t role i n the Far East, to a more ri g i d opposition to Communism everywhere in the world, and to a promise that i t would not agree to any more people "disappearing behind the Iron Curtain". These commitments meant that the Administration was opposed i n principle to neg-otiations with the Communist bloc - indeed Eisenhower has said that he considered British f a i t h i n negotiations over Indochina "... unrealistic. To my knowledge the fact that Communists were to participate i n any international conference never 19 implied that they would either make concessions or keep promises." They also made i t inevitable that when concessions were made to the Vietminh at Geneva, and in particular when partition became the agreed solution, the United States would repudiate the Agreement. During 1953 while the French military position i n Indochina was grad-ually becoming more untenable, and while the French were f i n a l l y coming to the realization that a negotiated end to the war would have to be found, the Americans seem to have maintained their optimism concerning the outcome of the war. The French, dependent on U.S. aid i n Indochina, were no doubt largely responsible for giving the Americans this impression. Consequently when the chief of the French General Staff, General Ely, visited Washington on March 20, his gloomy assessment of the future of Dien Bien Phu and of the effect of i t s f a l l on the whole French effort in Indochina, f e l l like a bombshell. The f i r s t major Vietminh attack on the fortress had occurred from March 13-15, and revealed that the impossible had been accomplished - the Vietminh had succeeded i n carrying a r t i l l e r y and anti-aircraft guns to the top of the h i l l s surrounding the camp. Within these f i r s t few days of the battle outlying defences were captured, the a i r s t r i p was made i n -operable and from then on the French could supply Dien Bien Phu only by a i r - an impossible task for the meagrely equipped French a i r force i n Indochina. The news had a galvanic i f confused effect on American policy. Admiral Radford offered General Ely a massive U.S. bombing attack on Dien Bien Phu i f the - 16 -French thought that i t would be effective. But by the time that an affirmative opinion could be received from the French commanders on the spot, the Americans had had second thoughts about the offer - or perhaps i t i s more accurate to say 20 that the more cautious had prevailed over the advice of the interventionists. From then u n t i l the opening date of the Geneva Conference, U.S. policy appeared to be thoroughly contradictory, with the Government's point of view varying from day to day and depending on who happened to be the spokesman at the moment. The administration appeared to be divided between the interventionists, notably Admiral Redford, the Chief of Staff, and Vice President Nixon on the one hand, and those who were opposed to intervention unless a l l i e d Governments could be per-suaded to intervene too - the President, General Ridgeway, and probably Dulles belonged in the l a t t e r company. In the end, after a great deal of public f i s t -shaking, the non-interventionists won out and the U.S. did not go to war over Dien Bien Phu. Attempts to find a clear cut line i n the conflicting shifts of U.S. 21 policy during the weeks preceding Geneva have been made, but are unconvincing at best. In fact the Administration was caught between what would seem to be the demands of i t s new foreign policy for resolute opposition to Communist expan-sion everywhere i n the world, and the hard fact that neither Congress nor public opinion would support another war i n the Far East. Disillusionment over Korea had had a great deal to do with the Republican electoral victory i n the f i r s t place. A p o l l taken on Capitol H i l l by the Administration i n late April report-ed that "there were no more than five men at the most to be found in a l l of Con-gress who were positive and unequivocal i n their approval of quick and decisive 22 a c t i o n . " ^ President Eisenhower has summed up the requirements for U.S. action in Indochina at that time as being "... f i r s t ... a legal right under international law; second ... a favourable climate of world opinion; and third, favourable action by the C o n g r e s s . I n search of the latter two requirements, Dulles bent a l l his efforts towards achieving a promise of British intervention i n Indo-china. The British however refused to consider intervention u n t i l negotiations had been tried and f a i l e d . They were also quite aware that their agreement was needed lar^gely for American domestic p o l i t i c a l requirements, as Eden makes clear in his memoirs. "Sir Winston summed up the position by saying that what we were being asked to do was to assist i n misleading Congress into approving a military operation, which would in i t s e l f be ineffective, and might well bring the world to the verge of a major war." The effect on the outcome of the Conference of U.S. belligerence has been debated. Whether i t was in fact useful i n strengthening the French position or whether i t created i l l w i l l and suspicion while being unconvincing in i t s e l f as a credible threat, i s even now impossible to decide. What i t did do was to create a r i f t between the British and American Governments that was never really bridged over i n the Far East, and that eliminated one more possible prop for the Agreement obtained at Geneva. U.S. belligerence also had an entirely negative effect on neutral opinion i n Asia and particularly on Indian opinion. Since India was to become the key member of the body which was tosupervise the Cease Fire, the Americans might profitably have been a l i t t l e less cavalier i n their dismissal of public opinion i n the Third World. The day that the Indochina phase of the Geneva Agreement opened the assembled Delegates heard the news of the f a l l of Dien Bien Phu. The timing was too pat to be accidental. The Vietminh could probably have captured the fortress at any time after the i n i t i a l attack i n the middle of March, but f i n a l victory was delayed u n t i l i t would have maximum impact. In the interim the courage and the sufferings of the garrison had become the symbol of the whole French effort i n Indochina. The wisdom of choosing to make a stand i n that place had always been debatable, although perhaps the consequences could only have been clearly seen with the advantage of hind sight. The capture of the fort may have had l i t t l e real effect on the v a l i d i t y of the French position i n Indochina, although the French army lost i t s crack troops and with their loss the whole spearhead of the French effort i n Indochina was blunted. But psychologically the defeat marked the end of the French empire in the Far East, and both sides knew i t . The Geneva Conference to end the war could scarcely have had a worse beginning for the French. They were meeting a s e l f -confident, successful adversary across the conference table, and the course of future events on the battlefield i n Indochina only increased the determination of the DRVN Delegation. Finally i t was only the insistence of the DRVN's more power-f u l a l l i e s that forced concessions which brought the conference to a close. In the end i t was perhaps this fact more than any other that brought about the break-down of the Geneva settlement of 1954 and the opening of another chapter i n the long war i n Vietnam. - 19 -CHAPTER II FOOTNOTES. 1. quoted i n Lacouture et Devillers, La Fin d'une Guerre, p. 39. 2. ib i d , p. 43 3. A.W. Cameron, (ed.) Vietnam Cr i s i s , a Documentary History, Vol. 1 p. 218. 4. i b i d . , p. 223-4 5. King C. Chen, Vietnam and China. 1938-1954, pp. 285-6 6. A.W. Cameron, op. c i t . , p. 218 7. i b i d . pp. 223-4 8. King C. Chen, op. c i t . , p. 276 9. Bernard B. F a l l , "Tribulations of a Party Line: The French Communists and Indochina" Foreign Affairs. April 1955, p. 499 10. Harold R. Isaacs, No Peace for Asia, p. 173 11. W. Raymond Duncan, Soviet Policy i n Developing Countries, p. 174 12. The Memoirs of Sir Anthony Eden: F u l l Circle, p. 77 13. See particularly Robert R. Randle, Geneva 1954. and Victor Bator, Vietnam: A Diplomatic Tragedy. 14. c.f. Jean Sainteny, Histoire d'un Paix Manque. 15. Norman A. Graebner, The New Isolationism, p. 13 16. John Foster Dulles, "A Policy of Boldness" Life, May 19, 1952, p. 150 17. Republican Platform of 1952 quoted i n Current History. October, 1952, pp. 246-54 18. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, p. 194 19. ib i d . , p. 349 20. LAMUf<f*TLaaiei et Devillers, op. c i t . , pp. 73-77 21. See particularly Randle, op. c i t . 22. The Christian Science Monitor. Apr. 29, 1954 23. Eisenhower, op. c i t . , p. 340 24* Eden, op. c i t . , p. 105 25. For a f u l l discussion see Jules Roy, The Battle of Dien Bien Phu. - 20 -CHAPTER III. THE GENEVA CONFERENCE. The delegations gathered in Geneva on May 8 under the shadow of the f a l l of Dien Bien Phu. Their task was, as the Economist expressed i t , "... to try to find a modus Vivendi between the unacceptable and the unobtainable ....""'" Formal discussions in the Indochina phase of the Conference began on May 9. Be-fore the final settlement was reached on July 21, there had been eight plenary and eighteen restricted sessions. The plenary sessions promised to be "... a stage 2 for the striking of attitudes by both sides", and from May 14 until the final meet-ing, open sessions were therefore abandoned in favour of private meetings, either at restricted sessions, or more informally in talks between two or three of the participants. The trend of negotiations was influenced by two factors outside of the Conference - by the political scene in France, and by the progress of the war in Vietnam. French political l i f e had been increasingly embittered by the war in Vietnam, and the disaster suffered at Dien Bien Phu and the nearly imperceptible rate of progress observable at Geneva combined to topple the Laniel Government six weeks after the Conference had begun. The future of the European Defence Community was also a factor in the f a l l of the Laniel Government. Laniel support-ed the idea of German re-armament, and the Russians displayed an intransigence (particularly at the meeting on June 8) that made i t clear to the French Parliament that the Soviet bloc were not inclined to negotiate with the Laniel Government on 3 the question of Indochina. The Laniel Government f e l l on June 12, and was re-placed on June 18 by a Government headed by M. Mendes France. M. Mendes France was a member of the Radical-Socialist Party who had consistently denounced the war in Vietnam for the past seven years. He was - 21 -largely distrusted by his fellow deputies, but one sentence i n his declaration of intent seized the attention of the Chamber. He promised to submit his resigna-tion i f within one month, on July 20, he had been unable to obtain a Cease Fire i n Indochina.^ That promise obtained for him the support of the majority of the Chamber of Deputies. It also set a time limit on the Conference and inevitably had an effect on the shape of the f i n a l settlement. "Diplomacy has rarely been able to gain at the conference table what cannot be gained or held on the bat t l e f i e l d . " The words are those of Bedell Smith, the leader of the American Delegation, on his return from Geneva at the end 5 of the Conference. They deserve to be quoted at the beginning of every comment or criticism on treaties that end wars, for they express a great truism that i s often ignored. The progress of the war i n Indochina had a very marked effect on the progress of negotiations, and was reflected i n the f i n a l settlement. There i s not unanimous agreement on the state of the military balance sheet immediately after the f a l l of Dien Bien Phu and during the months that follow-ed. The disagreements i n great part reflect the rancors of French p o l i t i c a l l i f e , with Mendes France and his supporters endeavouring to show that the French forces were on the verge of humiliating defeat, and with Laniel and his supporters con-cerned to prove that there was no military reason for the concessions made at Geneva. General Navarre's testimony must also be approached with caution - as the commanding officer i n Indochina he was responsible for the decision to defend Dien Bien Phu, and he would naturally therefore wish to minimize the impact that the f a l l of the fortress had had on the French position in Vietnam. The f a l l of Dien Bien Phu, coming as i t did on the eve of the Conference's opening day, cast i t s shadow over a l l the proceedings. The heroic defense of the fortress, the no less heroic exertions of the Vietminh i n taking i t , had engaged the breathless attention of the world press for weeks. Certainly the importance - 22 -of the defeat was exaggerated i n the process. General Navarre i s undoubtedly-r i g h t i n claiming that the defeat was a grave t a c t i c a l reverse, but not a s t r a t e g i c one. The defense of the f o r t r e s s saved Laos, stopped serious reverses i n the Delta and i n other areas of Vietnam, and caused losses i n the Vietminh corps de b a t a i l l e i n greater proportions than the French.^ Nevertheless the French l o s s of crack troops could not be made up as e a s i l y as Vietminh losses - indeed V i e t -minh recruitment was made very much easier a f t e r t h e i r spectacular v i c t o r y . And the v i c t o r y had ominous lessons f o r the f u t u r e . The French were no longer faced with g u e r i l l a forces that would melt away at the f i r s t sign of r e a l l y strong oppo-s i t i o n , but with a determined foe that was w e l l supplied with sophisticated weapons and that had demonstrated the capacity to use them. The attack on Dien Bien Phu was not only on a f a r greater scale than anything the Vietminh had attempted up to then, the b a t t l e was also i n s i g n i f i c a n t respects quite d i f f e r e n t i n kind. From then on the p o s s i b i l i t y that armour and a i r c r a f t might be supplied by the Chinese haunted French m i l i t a r y planners i n Paris and i n Hanoi and Saigon. Apart from the psychological shock that the f a l l of Dien Bien Phu had del i v e r e d therefore, there were also serious m i l i t a r y repercussions on the French p o s i t i o n i n Indochina. Even before the f a l l of Dien Bien Phu, General Navarre had recommended abandoning attempts to hold a l l of Tonkin. "Place devant d ' i n e v i t a b l e options, je pense que c'est en Tonkin que doivent etre consentir l e s s a c r i f i c e s . Aussi bien, c'est sur ce t e r r i t o i r e que l a s i t u a t i o n p o l i t i c o - m i l i t a i r e s'est l e plus degrade au cours des annees passes ...."^ General Navarre recommended that essen-t i a l p ositions south of the eighteenth p a r a l l e l should be r e - i n f o r c e d at the ex-pense of r e t r a c t i o n s i n the d e l t a . The " d e l t a u t i l e " - zones around Hanoi and Haiphong and the road connecting the two c i t i e s - should be re-inforced and de-fended. Ultimately a f a l l back on the port of Haiphong was envisaged where the g French army could hold out, supported by a i r and sea power. The essence of t h i s strategy, p a r t i c u l a r l y the recommendation to con-- 23 -centrate French efforts south of the eighteenth parallel, became known as the "Navarre Plan" and received wide publicity at the time. Its acceptance by the French Defense planners made i t inevitable, i f the underlying military r e a l i t i e s had not already done so, that the f i n a l settlement for Vietnam would leave the Vietminh i n control in the north and the French in the south. The Committee of National Defense met in Paris on May 14 and 15 to con-sider the future of the war i n Indochina. The Committee met just a few days after the start of the Geneva Conference. There was no way of knowing i f the Conference would be successful i n achieving a settlement of the Indochina war -i n fact i t had just been made clear that i t was unable to do so i n the case of Korea. The Committee therefore decided that i n formulating measures to be taken for the prosecution of the war the most unfavourable conditions should be assumed -in a b i l i t y to achieve a settlement i n Geneva, and increased Chinese aid creating i n o effect 'another war'. The recommendations of the Committee were accepted by the Government and were sent as instructions to General Navarre. General Ely was sent to Saigon, accompanied by Generals Salan and Pelissie, to present the Govern-ment's directives. The Committee of National Defense set as the principal objectives, be-fore a l l other considerations, the safeguarding of the Expeditionary Corps. The situation below the eighteenth parallel was to be cleaned up to prepare for a withdrawal below that line i f the situation made i t necessary i n the future. North of that line, p o l i t i c a l considerations must not come before military ones. The French forces should withdraw, f i r s t to the "delta u t i l e " , and secondly, should i f necessary f a l l back on Haiphong where support by sea would be po s s i b l e . ^ Although these instructions seem to follow exactly General Navarre's recommendations to the Committee of Defense already quoted above, one part of the Government's directive was received by General Navarre with dismay. He was instructed to pull back French forces to the zone between Hanoi and Haiphong - 24 -within 10-15 days after receiving the directive. He felt that the proposed withdrawals would encourage a Vietminh attack, and, above a l l , would mean weak-ening the French position before the conclusion of the negotiations.^" Nor did he feel that an immediate offensive in the Delta was probable, - enemy losses and the nearness of the rainy season made i t unlikely that a f u l l scale attack 12 could be mounted before autumn. On General Navarre's recommendation, and with General Ely's agreement, French forces holding positions in the south and west were replaced by units of the new Vietnamese army. These units were also pulled back in late June, leaving most of the delta, including the Catholic bishoprics, 13 in Vietminh hands. The Committee of National Defense met again on May 26 to hear General Ely's report on his return from Vietnam. The deliberations of the Committee leaked to the press within a day or two. The Generals appear to have returned with a generally gloomy and alarming view of the situation in Tonkinj they re-ported that the French war map had deteriorated very much more than they had expected.^ Both Laniel and Navarre have denounced what they consider the over-reaction of the press and of the Mendes-France Government to the military situa-tion after Dien Bien Phu, and what they describe as a "peace at any price" a t t i -15 tude. The U»S. State Department is reported to have thought at the time that the French regroupment was a mistake that weakened the French negotiating position at Geneva.^ But was the French Government really stampeded into concluding a worse peace than i t might have obtained because of exaggerated fears of French military weakness? When the objectives of those who hold this view are com-pared to what was actually attained at Geneva, i t is hard to conclude that i t was. Nor does there seem to be much substance to this charge when the most optimistic assessment of the French military position is contrasted with the most pessimistic. - 25 -The optimists envisaged a really serious threat to the security of the French forces developing i n the autumn, when a re-constituted, strengthened and equipped 17 enemy would again face French troops. The pessimists thought that this s i t -uation would develop within a few weeks. Even i f we accept the optimistic view as the accurate one, would the Vietminh have concluded an unsatisfactory peace i n July when they could have obtained either a better agreement or a military v i c -tory i n September? The optimists have said that the French could have held out indefinitely i n Haiphong while the bulk of the French forces held a line along the eighteenth parall e l . But why should one assume that the Vietminh high command would be so obliging as to t i e up the bulk of their forces in attacking the French i n Haiphong? Is i t not more l i k e l y that they would have turned their major attention to i n f i l t r a t i n g south of the eighteenth parallel, and that the l i k e l y outcome of this scenario would have been the loss of south Vietnam as well as north? By a l l reports the eighteenth parallel i s more easily defended than the seventeenth, but i n view of the Vietminh's proven capacity for mountain war-fare and the French army's proven (and admitted) incapacity, this consideration does not seem to weigh very heavily. Those who claim that the French concluded an unsatisfactory peace i n Geneva have been vague about what they thought could have been attained. The French certainly hoped for a division along the eighteenth parallel, and Laniel 18 speaks vaguely of compensation for French concessions in the north. Neverthe-less, the seventeenth parallel guaranteed most of what the French considered. essential - a large enough area around Hue and Tourane and possession of B.C. No. 19 9 connecting Laos with the coast of Annam. And as far as "concessions" to the French in North Vietnam are concerned, i t i s hard to imagine that they could have been worth the paper they were written on. Once the Vietminh were in f u l l control north of the seventeenth parallel any concessions north of that line would depend entirely on Vietnamese good w i l l . - 26 -The Geneva Agreement was an unpalatable one for many people, on both sides. But i t is hard to escape the conclusion that i t accurately reflected what had been "gained /and/ held on the battlefield". The Geneva Conference lasted for nearly three months, and the discussions at times seemed to be headed for defeat. Near the end of June the main partici-pants a l l left - Eden to visit Washington, Molotov to return to Russia, and Chou En Lai to visit India. In their absence meetings continued between the military representatives of the two high commands, but made l i t t l e progress on the main issues. About a week before the end of the thirty days which Mendes-France had allowed himself for the conclusion of an agreement the leaders of the Delegations returned to Geneva, and in a last minute burst of activity the Agreement was com-pleted early in the morning of July 21. The U.S. Delegation took l i t t l e part in the negotiations leading to a settlement. The U.S. had come to Geneva reluctantly, and the American Delega-tion seems to have been composed in large part, with the notable exception of its leader, Bedell Smith, of those chosen primarily for the purity of their anti-communism. (Eden remarked of Walter Robertson, one of their number, that his approach was "... so emotional as to be impervious to argument or indeed to 20 fact ....") During the Conference the U.S. continued its efforts to set up a Defense Treaty that would protect Southeast Asia against Communist expansion as NATO had protected Europe. They failed at that time to make headway with this project, largely because of Eden's conviction that the formation of a mili-tary alliance would hinder the achievement of a negotiated settlement and his reluctance (and Australian and New Zealand reluctance) to take any steps in that 21 direction until every effort at negotiation had been tried and had failed. As the Conference proceeded the Americans were increasingly unhappy with the trend i t was taking. It was becoming apparent that the core of any agreement would be the division of Vietnam, abandoning at least part of the country - 27 -to the Communists. A good deal of the British, and also of the French, effort at the Conference had to be devoted to keeping the United States at the conference table. Eden has said "I had never known a conference of this kind. ... we 22 were in constant danger of one or another backing out of the door." At the June meeting in Washington Eden and Churchill succeeded in pinning the U.S. Government down to a l i s t of minimum terms which the U.S. (and Britain) would feel able to accept. The "seven Anglo-American points" as they became known, were communicated to the French Government. Both Governments de-clared themselves willing to respect an armistice agreement in Indochina which would: 1) preserve Laotian and Cambodian integrity and independence and assure the withdrawal of Vietminh forces. 2) preserve the southern half of Vietnam, and i f possible an enclave in the deltaj the dividing line to be drawn west from Dong Hoi. (Dong Hoi is about 50 miles north of the seventeenth parallel). 3) place no restrictions on the three states that would impair their capacity to maintain stable non-communist regimes, adequate forces for internal security, arms and foreign advisers. 4) contain no political provisions that would risk loss of the retained area to communist control. 5) not exclude the possibility of ultimate re-unification of Vietnam by peaceful means. 6) provide for the transfer of people from one zone to another. 7) provide effective machinery for international supervision of the agreement. The French Government agreed with the seven points (indeed at that stage i t was hoping to secure a division along the eighteenth parallel, north of the line mentioned in the Anglo American note). But in spite of strong French repre-sentations, Dulles at first refused to send a representative of ministerial rank to Geneva for the concluding phases of the Geneva Conference. He sent a message to Mendes-France on July 11, claiming that the French would be unable to persuade - 28 -the other side to accept the seven points. It would be more damaging than useful i f a high ranking American were put in the position of having to disso-2L. ciate himself from the Agreement. A few days later Dulles and Mendes-France met in Paris, and Mendes-France was able to persuade Dulles that there was a very good prospect that the seven points could be attained. Dulles agreed to send Bedell Smith back to Geneva for the concluding phase of the Conference. There were three main areas of disagreement between the two sides at Geneva - the status;; to be accorded the Communist "governments" of Laos and Cambodia, where the dividing line between the two Vietnams was to run, and the composition and duties of a supervisory Commission to control and supervise the Cease Fire. In his opening speech of the Conference, Pham Van Dong, the head of the Delegation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRVN) proposed that the Conference invite "the official representatives of the Government of Resistance of Khmer and the Government of Resistance of the Pathet Lao to take part in its 25 work". This proposal to inflate the importance of resistance "Governments" that were the creation of the DRVN was resisted by the non-communist delegations. The DRVN and its allies kept up the effort for over a month, but finally abandoned i t on June 16 after Eden had strongly hinted at the possible breakup of the Con-ference. On that day Chou En Lai visited Eden to talk about Laos and Cambodia. He said he thought he could persuade the Vietminh to withdraw from these two countries, and that China would recognise their royal governments, provided there 26 were no American bases in their territory. The question of partition represented a particularly ticklish problem. Apart from American feelings on the question, there were those of the South Viet-namese to be considered, and the Vietnamese Government had declared itself un-alterably opposed to the idea. The French were therefore unable to propose partition themselves, although most members of the French Delegation regarded - 29 -partition as inevitable. However, on May 25 in a speech in restricted session Pham Van Dong called for an exchange of terr i t o r i e s , with each side acquiring holdings that would be relatively large, and that would f a c i l i t a t e economic 27 activity and administrative control in each respective area. From then on the question where the dividing line would run became the main issue of the Conference. The DRVN began by suggesting a line around the sixteenth parallel, but suddenly at the end of June, shifted their demands to the twelfth or thirteenth parallel further south. The tougher stand may have been in part a bargaining ploy, but was more probably the result of the absence of Molotov and Chou En Lai from Geneva, both of whom exerted a moderating influence over the DRVN Delegation. The most important factor in the stiffening Vietminh position however was undoubtedly the changes in the military balance sheet that occurred at the end of June. It w i l l be recalled that French forces abandoned attempts to hold Tonkin except for the "delta u t i l e " . The strengthened Vietminh m i l i -tary position was undoubtedly reflected in a more intransigent attitude at the bargaining table. The question was not f i n a l l y resolved u n t i l the last twenty four hours of the Conference, when Molotov suggested that both sides compromise on the seventeenth p a r a l l e l . The clearest and most carefully detailed of the clauses of the Geneva Agreement are those concerning the implementation of the Cease Fire and the re-groupment of forces. The French were at f i r s t unwilling to talk directly to the Vietminh, but their i n a b i l i t y to get the Russians to intercede on the question of prisoners of war f i n a l l y brought them reluctantly to a face to face confrontation. Then on June 9 a Military Committee, headed by Colonel Ha Van Lau for the DRVN and Colonel de Brebisson on the French side began work on detailed plans for the Cease Fire and a regroupment of forces. One of the most vexatious questions of the whole Conference was that of the supervision and control of the Cease Fire. What a l l the western powers would - 30 -have preferred would have been a Supervisory Conimission under the direction of the United Nations, and the proposal was made by Eden at a plenary session on 28 May 12. But the fact that this proposal was rejected by the other side can have come as no surprise. The day before, M. Molotov had dealt with the question of a Supervisory Commission for Korea in a plenary session of the Korean Con-ference, and his statement slammed the door on any possibility of a role for the United Nations. "In the eyes of the peoples of the whole world the transform-ation of the United Nations into one of the belligerents has greatly impaired the authority of this international organization. In the situation which has arisen the United Nations has deprived itself of the possibility of acting as 29 an impartial international organ ...." Eventually, the Korean part of the Conference was wrecked on the shoals of disagreement over how supervision of the settlement was to be implemented. A declaration by the Sixteen Nations on June 15, 1954 (signed by Canada among others) declared that this question of the authority of the United Nations was one of "the principal issues between us ...." "Secondly ... i t is clear that the Communists will not accept impartial 30 and effective supervision ...."^ The sudden ending of the Korean Conference is thought to have shaken Chou En Lai and to have brought about the concession on Communist forces in Laos and Cambodia that saved the Indochina Conference, widely rumoured also to be in 31 imminent danger of break up. But i t probably had in the long run an effect on the provisions of the Agreement relating to the International Control Commissions for Indochina as well* It was now evident that this was an issue on which the Conference could founder, and therefore neither side was willing to push their requirements to the limit. How far apart the two sides were is evident from the record of the Conference. Western powers called for placing the implementation of the Agree-32 ment under the supervision of International Commissions. Detailed French proposals for thes Commissions w e c rcu ated by the French Delegation, and - 31 -summarised in a speech by M. Bidault on June 8. He called i n part for "... a complete supervisory system, partly fixed and partly mobile, and equipped with modern transport, communications, and observation f a c i l i t i e s . ... a solid organization, numerous and flexible enough to meet changing needs .... Decisions 33 ... w i l l i n a l l cases be taken by a majority vote". On the other hand the f i r s t proposals of the Communist powers envisaged supervision by only "mixed commissions composed of representatives of the b e l l -'s L igerent sides." (Speech by Pham Van Dong on May 10) However, on May 14 M. Molotov suggested " ... a supervisory commission composed of neutral countries 35 ....", and on June 8 he specified that this Commission could be composed of India, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Pakistan. In his reply to this speech, Mr. Eden referred to international supervision as " ... now the central issue before the Conference." He accepted the case for joint committees of the two belligerents, i n addition to international supervision, but said i t should be " ... clearly understood that their functions were mainly technical and clearly subordinate to the authority of an International Supervisory Commission." He suggested that the Asian Powers represented at the Colombo Conference - Burma, Ceylon, India, Indonesia and Pakistan - be asked to assume the responsibility 37 of supervisory arrangements reached at the Conference. The pattern for the Neutral Nations Commission proposed by the Communist powers was of course that of the International Commission which was supervising the Korean armistice. There Sweden, Switzerland, Poland and Czechoslovakia provided members for a Commission which had been thoroughly ineffective, with each side cancelling out the other. Bedell Smith, head of the U.S. Delegation, speaking in the Korean Conference on June 5, said that " ... the N.N.S.C. in Korea, which i s a pattern of whatiwe have been offered today, has been completely ineffective this sort of a supervisory commission means, at least, no 38 supervision at a l l . " - 32 -It was not until the closed meeting on June 16, after the break-up of the Korean Conference and when i t seemed likely that the Indochina Conference might also end in deadlock, that M. Molotov made a concession on armistice con-trol - he proposed a Commission composed of Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Poland and Czechoslovakia, a Commission in which, for the f i r s t time, a majority of non-39 Communist states was conceded. No further progress on the question of membership in the Commission was made until the last few days of the Conference. "The fir s t indication that the Conference might at last be on the verge of success came on the afternoon of July 18, when Chou En-Lai proposed .... that the supervisory commission should consist of India, Canada and Poland. After a l l the argument, this was a definite step towards us and the proposal was accepted by a l l three Western powers. From that moment the tangled ends of the negotiations began to sort themselves out."^ This was also the f i r s t time that Canada's name had been mentioned as a possible member. Canada had of course participated in the Korean phase of the conference that was going on concurrently with the conference on Indochina. John Holmes has said that "Canada had already acquired, over Korea and other issues, the reputation of being the most objective of the NATO countries, and i t is believed that Krishna Memon persuaded Chou En Lai that Canada would be the best Western candidate. " ^ The Geneva Agreements that were signed on July 21, 1954 were concerned almost entirely with ending hostilities. There was l i t t l e attempt to frame an enduring political settlement. In part this was the result of Mendes-France•s promise to the Chamber of Deputies. The desperate haste of the last few days before the expiry of the thirty days he had given himself caused the postponement of a l l considerations except those necessary for the achievement of an immediate cease fir e . The lack of a clearly defined long term settlement also reflected the lack of agreement between the delegations on this point. The Vietminh's - 33 -ambitions certainly extended well beyond the boundary at the seventeenth parall e l . But their military successes had been largely confined to the north (although there were areas i n the south under the Vietminh's control, notably the entire Camau peninsula south of Saigon) and their a l l i e s were not willing to back them in the immediate attainment of their aims in the south. The Vietminh had held out for elections within six months, but i n the last few hours of the Conference Molotov suggested a compromise of two years. The provision for elections i s not even mentioned in the Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilites for Vietnam - only in Article 7 of the Final Declaration, a Declaration that South Vietnam and the United States both refused to sign - in fact the Declaration was not signed at a l l , only i n i t i a l l e d by some of the participants. The "Geneva Agreements" consisted of three b i l a t e r a l Cease Fire Agree-ments (for Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia), a number of unilateral declarations, and the unsigned Final Declaration of the Conference. The Cease Fire Agreement for Vietnam provided for the fixing of a provisional military demarcation line and demilitarized zone (article 1, arts. 3-9). The regroupment of forces on either side of this line was to take place within three hundred days (art. 2). Articles 10-13 and 15 outlined principles and procedures governing the cessation of h o s t i l i t i e s and the movement of troops. Article 14 was later known as the "freedoms" a r t i c l e . Each party undertook to "refrain from any reprisals or discrimination against persons or organisations on account of their activities during the h o s t i l i t i e s " (article 14c), and to permit and help "any ci v i l i a n s residing i n _^ one zone7 who wish to go and l i v e i n the zone assigned to the other party." (article 14d) Articles 16-20 prohibit the intro-duction of fresh troops and military personnel (rotation or replacement was allowed) of additional military equipment (again replacements were allowed), of new military bases or of any base under the control of a foreign state. The points of entry for rotation of personnel and replacements of material are l i s t e d (art. 20). - 34 -Articles 28 to 47 govern the establishment and the functions of a Joint Commission and of an International Commission for Supervision and Control. Article 28 provided that responsibility for the execution of the Agree-ment "shall rest with the parties". The Joint Commission was given the responsi-b i l i t y for ensuring the execution of the provisions for the Cease Fire and re-groupment of armed forces and of the observance of the demarcation lines. It was to help the parties to execute the provisions of the Cease Fire, and to try to solve disputes between them (art. 33)• Article 35 governed the establishment and operation of "fixed and mobile inspection teams" of the International Commission. Article 36 l i s t e d the I.C.C.'s duties and responsibilites - the control, super-vision of movement of armed forces and of movement into the country of military personnel and arms. Provision was made for investigation (art. 38) and for report to the members of the Geneva Conference (art. 43)• Articles 41 and 42 dealt with voting in the Commission. Recommendations of the International Commission were to be adopted by majority vote, except for "recommendations concerning amendments or additions" to the Cease Fire Agreement (art. 41) and "when dealing with questions concerning violations or threats of violations, which might lead to a resumption of h o s t i l i t i e s . " (art. 42) In these cases, decisions of the International Commission must be unanimous. The Agreements for Cambodia and for Laos were similar i n their pro-visions, with the exception of those governing the introduction of fresh troops, military personnel, armaments and munitions. During the f i n a l hours of the Geneva Conference, the Cambodian Representative refused to accept restrictions on Cambodia's sovereignty that were implicit in sections of the draft Agreement dealing with military alliances and foreign aid in war material. Molotov f i n a l l y agreed that Cambodia - and Laos - should be permitted foreign military alliances i f they chose. Accordingly the Cambodian Delegation made a unilateral Declaration - 3 5 -quoted i n Article 7 of the Cambodia Agreement, that the Royal Government would not enter into any military alliance "not i n conformity with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, or as long as i t s security i s not threatened, the obligation to establish bases /for foreign forces/". Foreign military aid would not be solicited "except for the purpose of the effective defence of the territory." Articles 6 - 8 of the Laotian Agreement prohibited the introduction into Laos of reinforcements of troops or military personnel from outside of Laos, or the establishment of new bases. Some French forces were permitted to remain. Article 9 however stated that the introduction of munitions and military equipment was pro-hibited, except for a "specified quantity of armaments i n categories specified as necessary for the defence of Laos." And the Laotian Government made a separate Declaration in which i t promised not to enter into an agreement for a military alliance "not i n conformity with the principles of the Charter of the U.N. for of the C.F.A__7" or to establish bases on Laotian territory "unless i t s security i s threatened." The Laotian Agreement provided (Art. 14) that fighting units of the Pathet Lao "shall move into the Provinces of Phong Saly and Sam Neua". This art i c l e was to cause a good deal of d i f f i c u l t y i n the months ahead, with one side declaring that the two provinces were intended to act as a zone of permanent occu-pation, and the other that the provinces had only the same status as other re-groupment areas. The regulations governing voting in the International Commission (articles 41 and 42) had been the subject of a prolonged struggle during the Con-ference. The Communist powers had at f i r s t insisted on unanimity in a l l decisions of the International Commission, and the English and French negotiators had called for majority vote at a l l times. The compromise proved an acceptable one, and i n practice the Commissions were not to find themselves hampered i n their activities by provisions for unanimity that survived i n the Agreement. - 36 -The Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference contains thirteen para-graphs, most of which merely "take note" of certain clauses i n the Agreement on the Cessation of Ho s t i l i t i e s . Paragraphs 6 and 7 are the only significant additions to the Agreements. Para. 6 provides that "the military demarcation line i s prov-isional and should not in any way be interpreted as constituting a p o l i t i c a l or t e r r i t o r i a l boundary", and para. 7 mentions "free general elections by secret ballot. ... general elections shall be held i n July 1956, under the supervision of ... the International Supervisory Commission ...." Consultations were to be held between authorities of the two sides from July 20, 1955 onwards. The only place therefore that elections are mentioned at a l l i s i n the Final Declarationj and both Vietnam and the United States refused to be associated with the Declaration. The most serious weakness of the Geneva Agreements was their failure to provide adequate guarantees or sanctions against violations of the Agreements. Eden had given some thought to this problem, and his proposed solution was discussed dur-ing the v i s i t of Churchill and himself to Washington in June. Eden favoured a system "of the Locarno type", so that " i f the settlement were broken, guarantors could act without waiting for unanimity." In addition, he favoured a collective defense agreement, similar to the American proposals for SEATO. Eden's idea of a "Locarno" type agreement, a reciprocal defensive arrangement i n which each member gives guarantees, was inaccurately but firmly connected in American minds with Munich and the bad old days of appeasement, and was never implemented. Whether the idea would in fact have proved workable, and whether the co-authors of the Geneva Agreement would have been any more willing to take action under a Far Eastern Locarno than they proved willing to do under SEATO, i s debatable. But an arrange-ment of this kind might at least have had value i n establishing an "organization in being" to whom the International Commissions could report, and from whom they might have received guidance and direction from time to time. The Geneva Agreements provide for periodic reports from the International Commission to the membership of - 37 -the Geneva Conference (art. 43), and under the terms of this a r t i c l e the Commission has supplied the co-chairmen of the Conference, Britain and Russia, with interim reports of their a c t i v i t i e s . Occasionally they have asked for guidance and help. The co-chairmen publish the reports and send copies to other members of the Con-ference, but never on any occasion has the Commission received a reply to i t s requests for guidance. In the end the Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference was never signed. The United States refused to associate i t s e l f with the Declaration, although i t issued i t s own declaration taking note of what had been decided and undertaking not to disturb the settlement. The Government of Vietnam, unable to accept the partition of Vietnam, also refused to sign. It too issued a separate declaration, undertaking not to use force to resist the procedures for carrying the cease f i r e into effect. The Final Declaration was i n the end i n i t i a l l e d by seven of the nine participants, although the names of a l l nine were given i n a heading that l i s t e d the participants of the Conference. The three Cease Fire Agreements, for Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, were signed by the Commanders-in-chief of the French Armed Forces on the one hand, and by the Peoples' Army of Vietnam and of the Pathet Lao and Khmer Issarak forces on the other. In most of the world the signing of the Geneva Agreements was greeted with profound r e l i e f . This sentiment was not however universal, and the exceptions were significant. Although Bedell Smith on his return from Geneva referred to the Agreement as "the best which we could possibly have attained under the circumstances" opinion generally i n the United States thought that i t was only the best of a bad bargain. Angry speeches in Congress referred to "appeasement" and "surrender", and the administration emphasized that i t was "pursuing discussions... with a view to the rapid organization of collective defense in Southeast Asia in order to pre-vent further direct or indirect Communist eggression in that general area".^ The Vietminh leaders i n their talks with Western press representatives were vocal i n - 38 their disappointment at whati the peace settlement had attained for them. They blamed Chou En Lai and Molotov for agreeing to concessions that gave the Vietminh less than they should rightfully have attained, when within another year their forces could have driven the French from North Vietnam and could have taken most in of the south. Vietminh complaints have sometimes been dismissed as simply one-more move i n the game, but their assessment of their own military strength would seem to be f a i r l y accurate - or at the very least to be based on reasonable assump-tions. It should be remembered that the' Vietminh demands had stiffened considerably as the Conference went on, particularly i n the absence of Chou En Lai and Molotov. The concessions made i n the closing hours of the Conference were made by Molotov, not by Pham Van Dong. The Vietminh disappointment would seem to be genuine; i t was as poor an augury for the permanence of the settlement just attained as the American attitude was. International agreements sometimes represent the achievement of genuine and lasting compromises. A l l too often the achievements are largely semantic -the production of a formula that a l l can agree on and that conceals a fundamental disagreement on important points. The Geneva Agreement contains examples of both kinds of achievement. The provision for the temporary division of Vietnam into two parts, and the regulations covering the cease f i r e and the disengagement of combatants represented genuine compromises. Although the working out of these provisions was not free from incident, in general they were satisfactorily carried out. In other cases however the wording of the Agreements concealed fundamental differences of opinion which were revealed again when the Agreements began to be applied. The two most serious areas of disagreement were over the f i n a l p o l i t i c a l settlement and over the role of the International Commission. There was i n fact no agreement over a f i n a l p o l i t i c a l settlement. Neither South Vietnam nor the United States agreed to the provisions for elections, and when i n 1955 the South Vietnamese Government refused to hold consultations with - 39 -appropriate authorities i n North Vietnam leading to the holding of elections in 1956, there was nothing that could be done about i t . The truce so painfully established at Geneva repidly broke down, and the two halves of the country drifted into progressively more intensive warfare. Nor was the record of negotiations over the composition and role of the International Commission an encouraging sign for the future. The Communist states tried to obtain a Commission that would be powerless by the very fact of i t s composition, and that would be rendered even more helpless by the necessity of achieving unanimity on a l l questions. They tried to rest r i c t and hamper the scope of the Commission's ac t i v i t i e s i n every direction. The West won some significant concessions on paper regarding the nature and composition of the International Supervisory Commission, but the subsequent attitudes and reactions of the North Vietnamese party to the Agreements, and of the Polish member of the International Commission, could surely have been predicted from the record of the negotiations i n Geneva. - 40 -CHAPTER III FOOTNOTES. 1. Economist. May 8, 1954. Vol. 171, P. 430 2. Eden, op. cit., p. 118 3. Lacouture and Devillers, op. cit., p. 205 4. ibid, p. 223 5. New York Times, July 23 6. Navarre, Agonie de L'Indochine, p. 259 7. Ely, Memoiresr L'Indochine dans la Tourmente, p. 122 8. ibid, p. 123 9. idib, p. 128 10. Laniel, La Drame Indochinois, pp. 106-7 11. Navarre, op. cit., p. 269-70 12. ibid, p. 270 13 Ely, op. cit., p. 166 14. Lacouture and Devillers, op. cit., p. 165 15. Navarre, op. cit., p. 260, Laniel, op. cit., p. I l l 16. Randle, op. cit., p. 303 17. Navarre, op. cit., p. 271 18. Laniel, op. cit., p. I l l 19. Ely, op. cit., p. 203 20. Eden, op. cit., p. 113 21. ibid, p. 131 22. ibid, p. 128 23. ibid, p. 24. Lacouture and Devillers, op. cit., p. 247 Great Britain, Papers by Command, Cmd. 9186, p. 112 25. 26. Eden, op. cit., p. 129 27. Lacouture and Devillers, p. 188 28. Cmd. 9186, p. 127 29. ibid, p. 43 30. ibid, p. 101 31. Lacouture and Devillers, op. cit., p. 217 32. Cmd. 9186, p. 110 33. ibid, p. 140 34. ibid, p. 119 35. ibid, p. 131 36. ibid, p. 145 37. ibid, p. 152 38. ibid, p. 71 39. Lacouture and Devillers, op. cit., p. 218 40. Eden, op. cit., p. 141 41. J.W. Holmes, "Geneva 1954", in International Journal, Vol. 22 p. 458 42. The Geneva Agreements are printed in Cmd. 9239, pp. 6-42 43. Eden, op. cit., p. 132 44. New York Times, July 23, 1954 45. New York Times, July 22, 1954 46. ibid, 47. New York Times, July 24, 1954 CHAPTER IV. THE FIRST TWO YEARS. The three nations comprising the International Control Commission, Canada, India and Poland, began the task that was to become so much longer, harder, and more frustrating than any of them foresaw at the time, in moods ranging from cautious optimism (Canada) to euphoric enthusiasm (India). The Polish attitude can only be guessed at, but i t may be supposed that Poland wel-comed the opportunity to play an expanded role on the international stage and to increase her usefulness and therefore her influence within the Communist bloc. But i f conflicting attitudes towards the authority of the Supervisory Commission that had been revealed at Geneva had not dampened enthusiasm,then a consideration of the events taking place within Vietnam and i n the Pacific area should have done so. International peace-keeping forces often have to operate in an atmos-phere of distrust and rancour - i t i s after a l l the very i n a b i l i t y of the parties to agree that brings the international force onto the scene in the f i r s t place. But experience since 1954 has shown, and nowhere more vividly than in Vietnam, that intervention by outside interests can make the task of the peace-keepers an impossible one. This i s particularly true i f the interests concerned are those of the major powers. It seems a reasonable conjecture that i f the Inter-national Control Commission had i n fact undertaken the task i t appeared at the time to have assumed - to supervise the winding down of a colonial war - then i t s duties would have been creditably discharged. And as a matter of fact had their duties ended with elections in 1956 as the Cease Fire Agreement provided, the Commission's work would s t i l l have stood as a successful example of peace keeping, in spite of the escalating cold war i n the Pacific. Neither of these - 4 2 -conditions was to be f u l f i l l e d . The United States had come very close i n early 1 9 5 4 to intervening in the war in Indochina. Only vivid memories of the Korean conflict among the U.S. public and the reluctance of i t s a l l i e s prevented military operations that a large part of the administration and the armed forces believed to be necessary. Although the United States undertook to do nothing to upset the Agreements, i t refused to sign them or to agree to be bound by them. Neither would the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) sign the Cease Fire Agreement. The refusal of the Republic of Vietnam to accept the Cease Fire Agreement was particularly serious. Not only was i t s co-operation necessary i f the work of the Commission was to be effective i n South Vietnam, but the withdrawal of France from Vietnam (in accord with agreements signed between France and Vietnam in June, 1 9 5 4 ) l e f t the Cease Fire Agreement without a base in law. The Inter-national Control Commission decided simply to ignore this inconvenient fact and to operate as i f the R.V.N, were legally bound by the Agreement, and the R.V.N, usually found i t advisable to co-operate with the Commission. But the Agree-ment specifically stated (Art. 28) that the Parties were responsible for the implementation of the Agreement. South Vietnam's refusal to replace the French High Command Representatives on the Joint Commission, the body responsible for the implementation, after the departure of French troops i n April, 1 9 5 6 , l e f t the future of the Agreement i n grave doubt. Nor did events outside Vietnam contribute to the lessening of tensions and h o s t i l i t i e s or provide an atmosphere of trust and goodwill that would have been conducive to peace and unity within Vietnam. It i s ironic that Stalin's death should have brought a desire for a lessening of international tensions and a willingness to consider more pragmatic and less ideological solutions with-in the Communist bloc precisely at the moment when an opposite movement was taking place within the United States. U.S. foreign relations seemed often to be con-- 43 -ducted i n a f i t of bad temper, and b lus ter and threat characterized many, i f not a l l statements of U.S . p o l i c y . U.S . actions however, i n contrast to speech, were often c o n c i l i a t o r y . Up u n t i l l a t e 1961 the U.S . t r i e d i t s e l f to keep i t s a id to Vietnam w i t h i n the l i m i t s imposed by the Geneva Agreements, and i t put pressure on the Vietnamese to co-operate with the Internat ional Control Commission, even beyond the point where t h i s p o l i c y aroused Vietnamese resentment. Evidence now shows^" that the U.S. was i n favour of holding the e lect ions ca l l ed for i n 1956 by the Geneva Agreements, and t r i e d to persuade the Vietnamese to do so. Once again the good effect of these intent ions was l o s t . The advice of the Vietnamese to agree to e lect ions was secret , but the swing to approval once Ngo Dinh Diem had?proved obdurate was publ ic and voci ferous . The world can hardly be blamed for taking U.S . bel l igerence at face va lue . In p a r t i c u l a r the conclusion of the SEATO pact at Manila on September 8, 1954 with i t s protocols s p e c i f i c a l l y extending the protect ion of the pact to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia seemed to non-aligned states l i k e India as w e l l as to North Vietnam and China a d i r e c t threat to the Geneva settlement as w e l l as to peace i n the P a c i f i c area. The fact that the pact was defensive i n nature and that the help forthcoming was to be considerably less than automatic (nations would "act i n accordance with t h e i r cons t i tu t iona l processes" i n considering r e -quests for help - a c lear reminder that the U.S . would require Congressional approval fo r any act ion taken under SEATO) did not weigh nearly so heav i ly as the fact that a U.S. m i l i t a r y threat had now moved in to Southeast A s i a . China had made compromises at Geneva i n exchange f o r assurances that no U.S . bases would be permitted i n Southeast A s i a . The conclusion of the SEATO Agreement may w e l l have made China more w i l l i n g to support the DRVN i n equipping i t with the means to uni fy Vietnam by force i f necessary. The three members of the Internat ional Commission, and Canada i n p a r t i c u -- 44 -l a r , were given l i t t l e opportunity to prepare or to plan for the job that, i n Canada's case, was not to end u n t i l nineteen years later. The invitation from the co-chairmen was sent on July 21. The Commission's teams were required to be i n place by 8.00 AM on August 11, Peking mean time. India presumably had been able to give at least a l i t t l e time to the consideration of the implications of serving on the Commissions, since India's name had been on every short l i s t proposed for the composition of the Supervisory Commissions. Poland may have been given some advance warning by the Soviet Union. But the choice of Canada was a last minute compromise and the Department of External Affairs had no prior notice of the invitation to serve. The decision to accept had to be taken almost immediately, and planning was not only hurried, but was done with only the haziest idea of conditions i n Indochina - geographic, climatic and p o l i t i c a l -or of the l i k e l y effects that service on the Commissions would have on Canada's own interests. On July 28, 1954 Canada announced her decision to accept the responsib-i l i t y of membership (India and Poland had announced their acceptance a few days before). A preparatory Conference opened i n New Delhi on August 1, to make the necessary administrative arrangements. Tentative establishments were drawn up for the secretariats and requirements for accommodation for offices and l i v i n g quarters, for transportation, and for communications were a l l considered. By August 11 at least a few people from each delegation were present at each head-quarters - i n Hanoi for Vietnam, Vientiane for Laos, and Phnom Penh for Cambodia. (A group of army officers who came by a i r from Korea provided most of the i n i t i a l Canadian representation on the fixed and mobile inspection teams.) The Indian Air Force flew the Commissioners and staff from New Delhi to Indochina, and on 2 August 11 the three Commissions held their f i r s t meetings. At the f i r s t meeting of the International Commission for Vietnam a meeting had been arranged with the Joint Commission. The Joint Commission, com-posed of representatives of the two armed forces, French and Vietminh, had been - 45 -in operation since the Cease Fire in July 27. It was the Joint Commission, the body representing the two signatories of the Cease Fire Agreement, which was responsible for the execution of the Cease Fire Agreements. As Brigadier Sherwood Lett, the first Canadian Commissioner in Vietnam, emphasized in a radio interview on September 27, 1954, "I should like to make i t clear that the func-tions of the ^ /International/ Commission are supervisory, judicial and mediatory. It can make recommendations but cannot of itself enforce recommendations that 3 i t may make." This distinction between the functions of the International Commission and of the Joint Commission, between the obligations assumed by the parties and the duties of the International Commission, is extremely important. The fact that the International Control Commission was not responsible for executing or enforcing the Cease Fire Agreement is made clear in Articles 27, 28 and 29 of the Vietnam Agreement (and in comparable articles of the Laos and Cambodia Agreements), but the distinction was never clear in the public mind. Even to-day one will find writers who should know better declaring that the International Commission proved unable to enforce the Cease Fire Agreement. The International Commission may be fairly criticized for many inadequacies, but failure to secure compliance with the Agreement is not one of themj that is a task that was never entrusted to i t and that i t never assumed. The public failure to recognize that the International Commission had only "supervisory, judicial and mediatory" func-tions, led to unrealistically high expectations for the International Commission, and to consequent disappointment when these expectations were not fulf i l l e d . In the process the modest successes that the Commission could claim were lost sight of. The work of the International Control Commission for Vietnam might be considered to f a l l into roughly two periods - that of the first two years, and particularly of the first three hundred days, the period within which the "move-- 46 -ment of a l l forces of either party into a re-grouping zone on either side of the provisional military demarcation line w i l l be completed...." (Article 2 of the Cease Fire Agreement), and the remainder of the time u n t i l the f i n a l winding up of the Vietnam Commission in 1973* The Commission was originally expected to complete i t s work during the f i r s t two years. The holding of elections i n July 1956 as envisaged i n the Final Declaration would have l e f t nothing further for the Commission to do. During this early period the I.C.C. for Vietnam was concerned largely with supervising the regroupment of forces and the transfer of territory, with the movement of c i v i l i a n personnel from one zone to another according to their choice (article 14d), with the guarantee of "democratic freedoms" (article 14c) and with the clauses of the Agreement concerning the ban on the introduction of fresh troops and military personnel or of foreign military bases (articles 16-19). The Commission sent reports of i t s ac t i v i t i e s to the British and Soviet co-chairmen from time to time. (Because the responsibility for the supervision of articles 16-19 of the Agreement was to become a continuing and growing re-sponsibility, i t w i l l be best to postpone consideration of that part of the Commission's duties u n t i l Chapter VI.) Article 14c - Democratic freedoms. Article 14 of the CFA concerns " P o l i t i c a l and administrative measures in the two re-grouping zones" - i . e . north and south Vietnam. Section c direct-ed the parties to "refrain from any reprisals or discrimination against persons or organisations on account of their a c t i v i t i e s during the h o s t i l i t i e s and to guarantee their democratic l i b e r t i e s . " The war in Vietnam had been more than an anti-colonial struggle - i t had divided people along ideological lines as well. Although the vast majority of the Vietnamese wanted to bring about an end to French rule, they were not united i n their choice of the means to accomplish t h i s , nor i n their views about the kind of government they wanted after independence. - 47 -There was as bitter opposition to the Vietminh among some sections of the Viet-namese population as there was among the French - in fact the Catholic bishoprics of Phat Dien and Bui Chu had organised their own militia to fight against the Vietminh. The fate of the supporters of one party left behind in the territory of.the other therefore had rightly concerned the delegates at Geneva, and Article 14c was an attempt to protect these pockets of opposition. It failed completely in achieving its purpose, and was perhaps bound to do so, affecting as i t did the whole question of national sovereignty and the treatment extended to its own citizens by each government. The International Control Commission issued a press release on September 2, 1954 asking the parties to give wide publicity to the provisions of the Geneva Agreement regarding "democratic liberties" in gen-eral. It received petitions from individuals who complained that their rights were being infringed, and i t set up a "Freedoms Committee" to deal with these petitions. The Committee acted through the Commission's inspection teams to investigate complaints, and the Commission then, on the basis of these reports, made recommendations to the parties. The Commission received 17,397 petitions alleging violations of Articles 14c and 14d in the period from August 11 to December 10, 1954.^ In fact, "by the end of the three hundred days these rather than more purely military armistice terms of the Agreement had become the ICC's 5 principal pre-occupation." Although the Commission could properly claim some success so far as the implementation of Article 14d is concerned, i t is doubtful i f i t improved the lot of anyone whose cause i t espoused under Article 14c In North Vietnam the DRVN Government soon established its authority throughout the countryside, and petitioners were no longer allowed to approach the Commission's teams. South Vietnam had not signed the Geneva Agreement and resented the Commission's inter-ference with what i t regarded as an internal matter. In time the defense to a l l complaints from the north concerning the infringement of democratic liberties was that the people concerned were being prosecuted for a c t i v i t i e s that had occurr-ed since the Cease Fire. The Commission accepted this as an adequate defence. Article 14c became, even more than the other provisions of the Agreement, simply an occasion on the part of one of the parties, i n this case the DRVN, for propa-ganda against the other. Article 14d. Article 14d of the Agreement provided that, u n t i l the movement of troops was completed, civilians were permitted to move from one zone to another according to their choice. The Commission decided, and so advised the parties, that those affected by this section should not only be permitted to move, but should be actively assisted to do so.^ How far either north or south Vietnam was prepared for the large migra-tion from north to south i s debatable. Certainly the magnitude of the problem put an immense strain on the resources of the south, and on the ICC which was to supervise this movement. As much as one quarter of the formal meetings in the f i r s t eleven months were taken up with discussions of a r t i c l e 14d. Of 60 Mobile Teams deployed by the ICC during the f i r s t year in f i e l d investigations, t h i r t y 7 five were to investigate complaints about violations of a r t i c l e 14d. In a l l 892,876 northerners chose to move south of the seventeenth parallel within the time allotted. (In the other direction, 4>269 moved from south to north). The refugee problem received wide publicity - i t was undoubtedly the aspect of the Commission's work that aroused most interest in Canada, and there were questions in the House of Commons and frequent public statements by the Government on the issue. The migration was interpreted by the RVN as a resounding propaganda victory, and every effort was made to encourage as many as - 49 -possible to move south. On August 3, 1954 Diem delivered a speech in Hanoi in which he exhorted the population to " r a l l y to the south in order to continue the struggle for independence and l i b e r t y . " ^ He sent a message to President Eisenhower requesting American assistance i n the evacuation of c i v i l i a n s . The Seventh Fleet was ordered to s a i l for Indochina. American assistance arrived in another form. The Saigon Military Mission, the team headed by Edward G. Lansdale, occupied i t s e l f spreading rumours i n Tonkin about the dreadful fate in store for those who remained under Communist r u l e . 1 1 These tactics quite probably did have some effect on the movement of refugees, but how much i s debatable. They were perhaps as necessary to the success of the operation as the Watergate burglary was to the re-election of President Nixon. The DRVN complained frequently to the Commission that those who moved had been subjected to systematic, false propaganda, and that many who had moved to the south regretted i t and wished to return. The Commission's teams inter-viewed about 25,000 people in the refugee camps in the south, "and on the basis of this enquiry, reported that there was no foundation for the allegation that thousands of persons were victims of a systematic propaganda and many of them wished to go back to the PAVN^zone, and that none of the persons contacted by the teams complained of forced evacuation or expressed a desire to return to the PAVN zone." 1 2 The Commission received many complaints that the DRVN authorities were obstructing the passage of refugees. While admitting that the DRVN authorities had the right to set up necessary administrative machinery for regulating the issue of permits, the Commission held that: "... the administrative processes should not be so clumsy, slow and complex as i n effect to defeat the provisions of Article 14d."13 The Third Interim Report of the ICSC for Vietnam was sent to the co-- 50 -chairmen on April 25, 1955. On that date the Commission reported that progress in implementing Article 14d "... will continue to be unsatisfactory unless admin-istrative arrangements and the provision of transport facilities are urgently improved; ... i t is not possible to state at this stage that Article 14d will be implemented in f u l l within the time laid down.""L '^ The Canadian Delegation appended a note to this Report calling the co-chairmen's attention to this find-15 ing. The British Government then proposed to the Soviet Government that the two parties to the Agreement should be invited to continue to implement the pro-visions of Article 14d of the Agreement until the ICC was satisfied that the Article had been implemented in f u l l . ^ * In their reply the Soviet Government declined to consider changing the clauses of the Agreement in this way, but "... intimated that the Vietminh were willing to continue for one month the 17 evacuation ...." The ICC made its final report to the co-chairmen on the implementation 18 of Article 14d in the Fourth Interim Report, submitted in October, 1955. The Commission stated that at each stage there had been difficulties, due to the "narrow and complicated administrative procedures" of the PAVN, and /confusion/ and lack of system" in the areas under the FUFHC".^ "Religious, social and local influences" were used by both sides to try to persuade people to change their 19 zone of residence." However "... by 18th May the bulk of the persons who 20 wanted to change the zone of their residence had succeeded in doing so." This even-handed apportioning of blame did not accurately reflect the views of the Canadian Delegation, and i t accordingly submitted its own amendment 21 to this section of the Fourth Interim Report. The Canadian Delegation com-plained of "obstruction and hindrance" of its work on the part of the PAVN. On occasion, intending evacuees were "forcibly dragged away" to prevent their meeting 22 the team. These obstructions and hindrances amounted to "an organized plan." Article 14d had " s t i l l not been satisfactorily implemented."^ The Canadian - 51 -Delegation thought that the Commission should continue to help those individuals who had expressed a wish to move from one zone to another before July 20, and that a further extension of time should be granted for that purpose. When the record of the whole operation i s considered now, some years later, the Canadian Delegation's desire for s t i l l a further extension of time for Article 14d seems somewhat unrealistic. As the Delegation i t s e l f acknowledged, "... given the p o l i t i c a l and social circumstances existing i n Vietnam, ... the work that had been done by the Commission ... represents an achievement which should be recorded." Throughout both Canada and the United States, intense interest had been aroused i n the plight of the emigrants. Canadian team officers had witnessed at f i r s t hand the obstructiveness of DRVN authorities and the intimi-dation of those who wished to take advantage of the provisions of the Geneva Agreement, and the Canadian Amendment was an attempt to put this on the record. The supervision of Article 14d i s nevertheless one of the solid achieve-ments of the Commission during the early years. There can be no doubt that without the presence of the Commission teams very few would have been able to take advantage of Article 14d. The Cease Fire. Regroupment and Separation of Forces. The actual t i t l e of the Vietnam Agreement i s the "Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities in Vietnam." It i s signed by the Commanders in Chief of the two sides, and of the 41 articles of the Agreement, almost half are con-cerned with theCease Fire and Regroupment of Forces. These articles were the most carefully drafted of the whole, and are of course of least importance to the f i n a l solution i n Vietnam. During the long weeks at Geneva while the dele-gates were unable to make progress on the larger issues, representatives of the French army and the PAVN were meeting at Truong Gia to work out the details of the Cease Fire. The agreed articles were then incorporated i n the f i n a l Agree-ment. - 52 -The International Commissions were not required to supervise the actual Cease Fire. In Vietnam, the Cease Fire took place at different sectors of the country, at 8 AM on July 27, August 1 and August 11, 1954* The last Cease Fire had therefore taken place by the time the International Commission met for the first time. The Commission did however render considerable assistance at some stages of the evacuation of troops, particularly of French troops from North Vietnam. The Armistice Agreement provided that the French Union Forces were to withdraw from Hanoi within eighty days, from Hai Duong within 100 days, and from Haiphong, in the final stage of evacuation from North Vietnam, within three hun-dred days. A similar timetable was set for the evacuation of Vietminh forces from south and central Vietnam. Assembly areas were allocated in Vietminh controlled areas in the Plaine des Jones, the Camau Peninsula, , and in Central Vietnam in the provinces of Quang Ngai and Binh Dinh. The separation of French and Vietminh troops, intertwined over the whole of Vietnam and without clearly defined battle lines, and the transfer of cities and provinces, was an enormous undertaking. Before the regroupment period was over, as many as 250,000 troops, 950,000 refugees and dependents and released prisoners had changed zones, taking with them over 200,000 tons of military supplies and equipment. Perhaps as much as one third of the territory of Viet-25 nam formally changed hands. The Joint Commission bore the burden of planning and co-ordinating this process. The International Commission as observer and mediator became involved only with the final steps in the process; they were not required to supervise the withdrawal of troops into provisional assembly areas and in fact they were not even asked to be present. It was in the transfer of the cities, and particu-larly of Haiphong, that the International Commission was able to make the greatest contribution. The Saigon Government wished to remove as much equipment as possible, and ugly incidents threatened to develop. When the parties appeared to be deadlocked, the Commission was often able to suggest acceptable compromises and to get things moving again.^ The transfer of Haiphong, in the words of the historian of the period, 27 "stands out as the ICC's greatest success." By that time feeling was running so high between the parties that they were unable, even with the Commission's help, to arrive at acceptable solutions. Then the International Commission imposed i t s own solution on the parties, "based not on a compromise between a reasonable position and a less reasonable one (as was often the case) but on what seemed sensible, f a i r and practical. Once i t had imposed the solution i t refused to deviate from i t , rejecting or simply ignoring every attempt by auth-orities of either side to effect delays, to trim procedures to their advantage, 28 or to interfere with the other's actions." The Regroupment and Separation of Forces proceeded relatively smoothly because both sides wanted the operation to succeed, and because the clauses of the Agreement governing the separation of forces were carefully drafted and rep-resented an agreed position. The differences of opinion that arose needed to be resolved immediately, and the Commission exerted i t s e l f to help to solve them. In later years, when the problems that came before the Commission reflected a much more fundamental division, i t was often content simply to reflect the div-isions that existed between the parties and to make no real effort to solve them. Elections. The Cease Fire Agreement i t s e l f refers only in passing to the elections that were to be held to determine the f i n a l p o l i t i c a l settlement. Explicit reference to these elections i s found in para. 7 of the Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference, which provided that "... general elections shall be held in July 1 9 5 6 , under the supervision of an International Commission composed of - 54 -representatives of the Member States of the I.S.C....; Consultations w i l l be held on this subject between the competent representative authorities of the two zones 29 from July 20, 1955 onwards." Perhaps nowhere else i n the whole agreement i s the tendency of the Geneva Conference to sweep unsolved problems under the rug more clearly demonstrated than in this section of the Final Declaration. The Delegates at Geneva were simply unable to come to an agreement on the long term prospects for Vietnam, and rather than endanger the practical achievements in agreement on the terms of a Cease Fire, the whole question of arrangements for an election was l e f t to the future. The prospect of elections can have seemed l i t t l e more than a pious hope, depending as they obviously did on arrangements between the governments, one of which had specifically rejected both the Agree-ment and the Final Declaration. In due course the government of the southern part of the country refused to consider the question of all-Vietnam elections or to begin consultations with the DRVN authorities, marking their displeasure with the Geneva Agreement by a mob attack on the two hotels where the members of the International Commission were quartered, on the very day that consultations were supposed to begin. Both Britain and France were anxious to avoid any public repudiation of the Geneva Agreement, and urged Diem to agree to talk to the DRVN. Contrary to what i s generally supposed, the United States was not at f i r s t opposed to holding the elections. A draft policy toward all-Vietnam elections, produced i n May, 1955 "... held that to give no impression of blocking elections while avoiding the policy of losing them, Diem should insist on free elections by 30 secret ballot with s t r i c t supervision." In Korea and Germany similar sti p -ulations (free elections under International supervision) had been rejected. It seemed l i k e l y that these conditions would also be rejected i n Vietnam by the DRVN, and Diem's Government could have avoided the opprobrium of refusing to hold elections. Diem proved adamant, and i n a public statement on July 16 he refused - 55 -to consider any proposal from the Communists. The Geneva Agreement had not made the International Commission respons-ible for conducting the elections, or for making preparations for them. The Commission was not even responsible for bringing the representatives of the two zones together to begin consultations. It was merely to supervise the elections when they were f i n a l l y held. It could therefore do no more than look on help-lessly as i t became increasingly evident that the date when i t s duties might be concluded was retreating into the uncertain future, and as one of the two parties to the Agreement l e f t the scene. (On April 28, 1956, the French Union High Command informed the International Commission that the last of i t s forces had been withdrawn from Vietnam.) In the Fourth Interim Report, submitted to the co-chairmen in October, 1955, the Commission informed the co-chairmen that i t was "... faced with the prospect of continuing i t s activities indefinitely and ... so far as the zone under the control of the State of Vietnam i s concerned, without any sanction for i t s working It cannot, however, continue to function with any effectiveness unless the d i f f i c u l t i e s mentioned ... above ... are resolved satisfactorily by the co-chairmen and the Geneva Powers at a very 31 early date." The co-chairmen then sent a message (May 6, 1956) to the French Government inviting them to discuss the problem with the authorities of South Vietnam and to try to work out some practical arrangement that would enable the 32 Joint Commission to continue functioning. The International Commission bel-ieved that the Joint Commission was "an essential part of the machinery for the implementation of the Cease Fire Agreement, and that i t s non-functioning adversely affects the execution of the Agreement, particularly i n respect of the administra-33 tion of the demarcation line and the demilitarised zone." Essential or not, the Joint Commission simply ceased to exist. The Government of the RVN was prepared passively to allow the International Commission to continue to exist; i t was not prepared actively to assist i t to function - 56 -e f f e c t i v e l y . Moreover the South Vietnamese Government then and l a t e r displayed the most l i v e l y repugnance at the prospect of any d i r e c t dealings with repre-sentatives of the Communist Government i n the north. Besides r e f u s i n g t o serve on the Joint Commission they refused any longer to allow PAVN o f f i c e r s to serve as l i a i s o n o f f i c e r s to the International Control Commission i n the south, or to send South Vietnamese representatives to serve as l i a i s o n o f f i c e r s ; i n theanorth. This meant that from that time on the effectiveness of Commission i n v e s t i g a t i o n s was much reduced; no member of the International Commission spoke Vietnamese, and the teams were therefore forced to accept the version of statements offered by the p a r t i e s ' own i n t e r p r e t e r s when interviewing witnesses, without the check that would have been provided by the other party's representative. Whatever s a t i s f a c t i o n the members of the International Commission may have f e l t i n r e f l e c t i n g on the accomplishments of the f i r s t two years of the Commission's existence, they could not have looked to the future with any degree of confidence. C r i t i c s of the Commission's performance have often asked why i t did not wind up i t s a c t i v i t i e s i n 1956 when the prospect of e l e c t i o n s was shelved i n d e f i n i t e l y . Not one of the members, even Canada, who had been the most d i s -s a t i s f i e d with the performance of the Commission, seems to have s e r i o u s l y enter-tained the idea. When the proposal i s examined i n the l i g h t of events i n 1956, i t i s easy to see why. In the f i r s t place, the Commission could r i g h t f u l l y f e e l a sense of accomplishment i n i t s work f o r the f i r s t two years. A f t e r eight years of c i v i l war, Vietnam had known two years of comparative peace. The Geneva Conference had seemed close to f a i l u r e r i g h t up to the l a s t few days, and the precarious agreement achieved there seemed well worth t r y i n g to preserve. C e r t a i n l y the west had no cause t o believe that any change would be i n t h e i r favour. North Vietnam had found an i n t e r n a t i o n a l sjaunding board f o r i t s grievances, and had proved f a r more adept at dealing with the Commission than the South Vietnamese. - 57 -Neither China nor the Soviet Union was prepared for a direct confrontation with the United States, which had now completely replaced the French, and removing,the shield of the Cease Fire Agreement might have provided the occasion for one. Britain and France were both anxious not to upset the truce in Indochina, and the United States, although not enthusiastic, was more reconciled to the status quo than i t had been i n 1 9 5 4 * India's enthusiasm for service on the Commissions was undimmedj to India's statesmen i t was a perfect example of the five principles of peaceful co-existence (Panch Sheel) in operation. Poland maintained the objectives of the rest of the Sino-Soviet bloc. If therefore Canada had been determined to withdraw from the International Control Commission in 1 9 5 6 , she would have had to do so in the face of strong disapproval from a l l of her friends and a l l i e s , with the possible exception of the United States, and with the poss-i b i l i t y that the withdrawal of the Commission would have brought about the collapse of the Cease Fire Agreement. It was a responsibility that no Canadian Government could have undertaken. - 58 -CHAPTER IV FOOTNOTES. 1. Pentagon Papers, Gravel edition, p. 239 2. External Affairs. Feb. 1955, pp. 34-37 3. i b i d . , Oct. 1954, p. 299 4. First Interim Report of the ICSC in Vietnam, Cmd. 9461, p. 21 5. C. Dagg, "The Three Hundred Days"; Unpublished manuscript, Ch 4/21 6. F i r s t Interim Report 7. Dagg, op. c i t . , 4/24 8. Fourth Interim Report, Cmd. 9654 p. 30 9. i b i d . 10. D. Lancaster, The Emancipation of French Indochina, p. 343 11. Pentagon Papers, Gravel edition, p. 575 12. Fourth Interim Report, Cmd. 9654, p. 12 13. First Interim Report, p. 23 14. Cmd. 9499, p. 9 15. i b i d . , p. 4 16. i b i d . , p.3 17. i b i d . 18. Cmd. 9654 •19. i b i d . , p. 12 20. i b i d . , p. 13 21. i b i d . , pp. 19-24 22. i b i d . , p. 20 23. i b i d . 24. i b i d . , p. 24 25. Dagg, OP* c i t . , 4/21 26. i b i d . 27. i b i d . N/4 28. i b i d . 29. Cmd. 9239, p. 10 30. Pentagon Papers, p. 239 31. Cmd. 9706, pp. 18-19 32. Sixth Interim Report, Cmd. 31, p. 9 33. i b i d . , p. 10 - 5 9 -CHAPTER V. THE EFFECT OF INDIAN POLICY. The membership of most peace-keeping groups has been carefully chosen to provide as objective an assessment of the situation as can possibly be ob-tained. The case of the ICC i n Indochina was different; i t s membership was deliberately chosen to represent both sides i n the cold war. In these c i r -cumstances the views of the third member became v i t a l l y important, and i t i s not too much to say that as time went on the decisions of the ICC reflected con-siderations of Indian foreign policy as much as they did events in Vietnam. In these circumstances some understanding of what considerations affected Indian foreign policy, and how that policy changed over the years that the International Commission was : i n existence, becomes necessary in assessing what the Commission accomplished. The f i r s t , the most important, and the most obvious fact about Indian foreign policy i s that i t was non-aligned. At independence, when India could for the f i r s t time command the direction of her own foreign policy, Nehru chose not to align India with either of the great power blocs. The decision was Nehru's, for Nehru was for a l l practical purposes and for at least the f i r s t fifteen years of India's existence as an independent state, the sole arbiter of India's foreign policy. But the decision was f u l l y supported by the overwhelming majority of Indians, at least u n t i l the direct attack on India by China i n I960 brought discontent to the surface and public opinion forced a s t i l l reluctant Nehru to abandon at least some of his basic assumptions. There were several reasons for this general satisfaction with non-alignment, and one of them must surely be that the doctrine of ahimsa or non violence goes a long way back i n Indian history, and has been adopted by i n f l u -- 60 -ential figures i n Indian p o l i t i c a l l i f e from the Emperor Asoka to Gandhi. The policy moreover gratified Indian pride - i t gave India a distinctive voice in world councils, and one that was listened to with respect i f also occasionally with i r r i t a t i o n by the major powers. The knowledge that i n being i n favour of peace and against war they were on the side of the angels gave the Indians deep moral satisfaction, a moral satisfaction that often seemed moral arrogance to outsiders, conscious as they often were that the safety of the Indian position depended more on the current military stalemate than on anything within India's own control. The more immediate and practical reasons for non-alignment were des-cribed by Nehru. Non-alignment, he declared, was "absolutely essential for our own progress and growth. And i f there i s a war, big or small, i t comes in the way of that growth which i s for us the primary factor." 1 He did not think the lack of military a l l i e s would be dangerous. "I do not conceive of any kind of invasion or attack on India.... Any country attacking India merely adds to i t s 2 troubles." It was of course non-alignment that gave India her place on the Indo-china Commissions. Indians were inclined to go farther and to emphasize the impartiality of their position. But non-alignment i s not necessarily disinter-ested, and India was to find neutrality a d i f f i c u l t tightrope to walk. In truth of course India was not in any real sense indifferent to the outcome of the conflict between communism and i t s opponents, particularly where the conflict occurred in her own back yard. An analysis of Indian attitudes to the Korean war and to the struggle for independence in Burma, Indonesia and Indochina offers some interesting and instructive differences. India's attitude to the Korean war was not one of indifference to i t s outcome. India strongly objected to the U.N. Command's decision to carry the war beyond the 38th parallel, but the original invasion was also denounced.and - 61 -India supported the U.N. military action in Korea, although she refused to con-tribute troops. Nehru explained that a troop contribution would be beyond India's capacity, and would in any case make l i t t l e difference to the outcome of the war. However, India made what contribution she could (comparable for instance to New Zealand's) and an Indian Medical Mission was sent to South Korea. Throughout the Korean war the Indian Ambassador i n Peking was the un o f f i c i a l point of con-tact between China and the United Nations. India f i r s t proposed the formation of a repatriation commission, and this suggestion was accepted by the General Assembly and rejected by the Chinese and North Koreans. An Indian served as 3 chairman of the United Nations Repatriation Commission. In the early days of Indian independence, nationalist leaders i n Vietnam and i n Indonesia appealed to India for support i n their struggle for independence. The appeal struck a deep responsive chord among Indians of a l l levels. One of the p i l l a r s of Indian foreign policy was support for anti-colonial movements wherever they might be found i n the world, but i n particular i n Asia. There had been much indignation in India at the end of World War II that the British Government should have used Indian troops to suppress local opposition to the return of Dutch and French authority in Indonesia and Indochina. Nehru told a p o l i t i c a l r a l l y in Jaipur, "We have watched British intervention there with growing anger, shame and helplessness that Indian troops should be thus used for doing Britain's dirty work against our friends who are fighting the same fight as we."^ But i f Nehru was unwilling to see Indian troops intervening in Vietnam on behalf of the French, he was equally unwilling to see them intervene on the side of the Vietminh. When the Vietminh resumed h o s t i l i t i e s in November, 1946, after the bombardment of Haiphong, Ho Chi Minn sent a delegate to India to ask for Indian help. The request was made to Sarat Chandra Bose, a member of Nehru's interim cabinet and as older brother of the Subhas Chandra Bose who had formed an - 62 -army to fight against the British during World War II. Bose was sympathetic, and called on Indians "to rush in thousands and tens of thousands to help the 5 brave Vietnamese." The c a l l was answered enthusiastically i n many areas, and volunteers and supplies were collected for service with the Vietminh. But Nehru refused to make the necessary travel arrangements, or to allow Indian volunteers to proceed to Indochina on their own. An Asian Relations Conference was held in New Delhi from March 23 to April 12, 1947* At this conference, attended by delegations from twenty five Asian countries, Nehru was under great pressure to permit evident Indian sympathy for the Vietminh to be expressed i n more practical ways. As the Vietminh dele-gate said "We have used enough words about Asian unity. Now l e t us act."^ Nehru replied that the Government of India "could not give more than moral support." Nehru "did not see how the Government of India could be expected to declare war 7 on France." The mixed feelings that India had about the Vietminh i s reflected in the fact that there were indeed two Vietnamese delegations at the New Delhi Conference - one representing the Vietminh and one the rather ambiguous French-supported regimes of Cambodia, Laos and Cochin China. Indian reaction to the independence movement in Indonesia was very different. When negotiations between the Dutch and the Indonesian Republic broke down i n 1947, India brought the matter to the attention of the Security Council. In January, 1949, Nehru called a Conference on Indonesia in New Delhi. India denied a l l f a c i l i t i e s to Dutch aircraft and shipping, and persuaded Pakistan, Ceylon, Burma, Saudi Arabia and Iraq to apply similar sanctions. India sent a Red Cross medical unit to Indonesia, granted asylum to Sultan Sjahir, and extended g de facto recognition to the Indonesian Republic. The difference between the amount of help India was prepared to give to independence movements in Indonesia and Indochina i s too striking to be ignored. For the Vietminh the Indian Government was prepared to do l i t t l e more than to make - 63 -sympathetic noises i n favour of independence and to denounce the French. (Al-though India f i n a l l y did give some practical assistance to the Vietminh: i n response to public pressure, and after repeated requests from Ho Chi Minn, in February 1947 India prohibited French operational or combat aircraft from flying across India, although permitting ambulance and other non-military planes to 9 cross. Y In the case of Indonesia, Indian help went much further and was con-crete and valuable. The conclusion i s inescapable - the Indian Government dis-liked colonialism, but i t disliked Communism just as much. Where the two ele-ments of anti-colonialism and Communism were inextricably mixed, the Indian Gov-ernment would not betray i t s origins and i t s own emotional roots by supporting a colonial regime, but i t would not deliberately help a communist power to en-trench i t s e l f either. It i s interesting to speculate how Indian policy would have been altered toward Indochina i f a genuine and strong nationalist movement had evolved i n opposition to the Vietminh. Such speculation i s particularly interesting i n the light of the situation in Malaya, where Britain had declared her intention of not granting independence u n t i l the armed rebellion of the Malayan Communist party was crushed. The Indian Government openly condemned that rebellion. The Indian deputy minister of External Affairs declared that the Malayan insurgents were "bandits", and Nehru told a press conference i n Singapore i n 1951 that Indians disliked terrorism "intensely". "This method of terrorism i s degrading to the whole human race and reduces men to the level of beasts." 1^ Similarly i n Burma, where the Communists attempted to overthrow the government through armed rebellion, the Indian Government supplied the Government of U Nu with arms, ammunition and money, and i n March 1950 India contributed one sixth of the six million pound loan raised by five Commonwealth governments to assist the Burmese in their fight against Communism. At home Nehru cracked down hard on Communist terrorism wherever i t occurred, and banned the Communist party - 64 -i t s e l f i n a number of s t a t e s . 1 1 These two strands i n Indian foreign policy, a desire to be independent of both the cold war power blocs, and an almost instinctive dislike and distrust of Communism, were to influence Indian decisions on the International Control Commission. The two strands were to some extent incompatible, and gave to Indian actions on the Commission a certain a i r of unpredictability. Too often the inherent contradictions in the Indian stand led simply to paralysis. Where i t was not clear that Commission activity i n any particular circumstance could make positive contribution to halting the spread of Communist influence, and where a decision in favour of activity would on the other hand require the Indian member to decide i n favour of one side rather than the other, the Indians preferred to s i t on the fence; the inspection team was not despatched to investigate a par-ticular incident, or the letter of censure was not sent. There was a third factor influencing Indian policy on the International Control Commissions. The Indians saw their role as primarily one of encouraging and helping to create confidence and goodwill between the parties, of removing suspicions and de-emphasizing differences of opinion. They saw their role mainly as that of a mediator, not of a judge, and they hoped that the ICC could act to-gether to accomplish this task. It i s significant that Krishna Menon, in announc-ing the f i n a l communique issued by the advance committee of the ICC that had worked out administrative procedures, chose to emphasize that "every delegation displayed a genuine desire to reconcile differences and come to unanimous decisions 12 on every issue that was raised." The harmonious accord that was possible in organizational and procedural matters was not to last very long when important p o l i t i c a l questions arose - and could hardly have been expected to do so. But the Indian desire to avoid confrontation both within and without the Commission was emphasized again and again in public statements. As M.J. Desai, the f i r s t chairman of the ICSC i n Vietnam, described the task of the ICSC, i t s purpose was - 65 -"not to point the accusing finger but to investigate and lead both parties to 13 f u l f i l l assurances they had given at Geneva." Perhaps no tendency of the Indian member of the Commission was to arouse more frustration and i r r i t a t i o n in successive Canadian Delegations than this re-fusal "to point the accusing finger" i n cases where i t was warranted. But this approach of the Indian Delegation had deeper foundations than the passing demands of Indian foreign policy, nor was i t founded simply on the spinelessness and pusillanimity of individual Indians, as exasperated Canadians were inclined to suspect. The whole Indian attitude to law and ju d i c i a l procedure, although i t shared with Canadians a common background i n English common law, was profoundly influenced also by an indigenous Indian tradition that had never touched Canadian experience. The difference between Anglo Saxon and Indian conceptions of justice has been expressed as follows: "The adversary mode of western procedure ... i s expected to result i n a declaration that one side has won and the other lost. /Indian legal practise as expressed in7 village t r i -bunals, on the other hand, / t r i e s / to compromise differences so that parties to a case can go home with the appearance- at least of harmony and with their dignity intact.... The village tribunal, because i t s members reside among the dis-puting parties and find their own lives touched by their dis-contents, i s less anxious to find "truth" and give "justice" than to abate conflict and promote harmony."14 These two strands of legal tradition continue today to exist side by side, and a l l Indians have to some extent been formed and influenced by both of them. "India's dual legal system continues to exhibit three legal cultures: within the parochial system, where most legal be-haviour i s s t i l l to be found, non-official tribunals continue to use traditional procedure and customary law to settle dis-putes, maintain order, regulate change; within the national legal system, the o f f i c i a l administration of justice relies primarily but not exclusively on British legal ideas, procedures and law; and influencing both are the social norms of Brahman high culture law. "15 As Canadians, we are perhaps too ready to accept the norms of our own particular system as the only acceptable ones, the "justice" achieved by our own - 66 -j u d i c i a l system as the only possible definition of the word. Canadians should not forget that there are both other goals and other methods, and that these goals and methods are as honored and as valid for other societies as ours are valid for us. We need not necessarily accept the proposition that these other forms of justice are the best possible ways to tackle international problems, but we should at least understand that we are l i k e l y to encounter them i n serv-ing on international tribunals, and we should be flexible enough to recognise them for what they are and to retain at the very least our understanding, our equanimity and our temper i n dealing with them. Although the main goals of Indian foreign policy and the predisposi-tions and attitudes of Indians conducting that policy have remained reasonably constant since independence, the changing balance of power in the Pacific has exerted an-, influence on the ways that India has gone about attaining these goals. In particular the victory of the Communists in China and the conflict between American and Communist influence i n Vietnam have dictated shifts i n Indian policy. The anti-Communist bias of Indian policy has remained, but the fact that a powerful Communist state now exists on India's northern frontier has dictated greater caution i n expressing that bias. Nor have Indians been in favour of what they consider the frequently provocative American military presence in Asia, particularly as expressed in military alliance such as SEATO. Indian opposition to SEATO has been often expressed, and India refused to become a mem-ber. Indians have both privately and publicly warned Americans that China's fears for her safety must not be deliberately aroused. Tensions developed early between China and India over the Tibetan question. The KMT Government i n China had claimed sovereignty over Tibet, but i t was exercised so loosely that Tibet existed almost as an independent country. This situation suited India very well. Then in 1950 the new regime in Peking claimed and imposed f u l l authority over Tibet, and there was alarm and objection - 67 -from New Delhi. In 1954 the Chinese seized the opportunity with the Geneva Con-ference on Indochina to inaugurate a warmer and more relaxed era i n Sino-Indian relations. Chou En Lai visited India on his way to China during the Geneva Con-ference, and an agreement was signed between the two countries on the "five prin-ciples of peaceful co-existence", or panchasheel. The agreement was highly g r a t i -fying to Indian susceptibilities, based as i t was on Nehru's contribution to the philosophy of international detente, and i t alleviated Indian fears for Chinese intentions, with i t s provision for mutual respect for each other's t e r r i t o r i a l integrity and non-aggression. The era of goodwill begun so auspiciously on the eve of the ICC's debut continued, and reached i t s highest point a year later at the Bandung Con-ference of non-aligned states. "Sino-Indian friendship reached i t s zenith i n Bandung in April 1955. In the Bandung Conference of Asian-African nations, Chou En Lai and Nehru worked in closest co-operation with each other." It i s reason-able to infer that the removal of India's anxieties concerning the safety of her northern border and the relaxed and friendly attitude toward China that had been inaugurated in this new era would have made India anxious to avoid disturbing the new relationship by decisions in the ICC that would not be welcome to China. Then through the year 1959 steady Chinese pressure and a series of incidents on the northern boundary eroded the good feeling that had been bu i l t up over the previous five years. In January of that year Chou En Lai wrote to Nehru questioning the vali d i t y of the established border between India and China. In March there was an uprising in Tibet leading to h o s t i l i t i e s between the Tibetans and Chinese armed forces. The Dalai Lama fled to India, and a storm of anti-Chinese feeling swept through India. Nehru, with the whole basis of his foreign policy threatened, struggled to restore calm and to play down the incident. The Dalai Lama was granted asylum, but the Tibetans were refused any further help i n -side Tibet. In July and October there were border incidents, with Chinese troops - 68 -f i r i n g on Indian border p a t r o l s . On September 8, 1959, China formally l a i d claim to 50,000 square miles of Indian t e r r i t o r y . The Prime Ministers and teams of o f f i c i a l s met throughout I960 to t r y to s e t t l e the border question, but without success. Then i n September and October of 1962 the Chinese launched a f u l l scale attack i n both eastern and western sectors of the border. Indian troops proved to be badly prepared and supplied, and India suffered a rapid and humiliating defeat. On November 27, 1962, the Chinese troops suddenly broke o f f the engagement and withdrew, leaving behind the broken pieces of the Sino-Indian accord. But i n August, 1954, when the International Control Commission began i t s work t h i s unhappy break i n Sino-Indian r e l a t i o n s was not even a cloud on the horizon. In f a c t a new era of peaceful co-operation appeared to have been ushered i n . The far-reaching s i g n i f i c a n c e of Chou En Lai's v i s i t to New Delhi i n June, 1954 and of the agreement based on panchasheel that emerged from that v i s i t seems to have been only dimly perceived i n the west. To western statesmen whose experience of non-aggression pacts had made them c y n i c a l , the f i v e p r i n -c i p l e s of peaceful co-existence sounded l i k e pious p l a t i t u d e s . But Nehru and the Indian people took them s e r i o u s l y . Nehru believed that changes i n the d i r e c t i o n of Communist bloc p o l i c y a f t e r S t a l i n ' s death and p a r t i c u l a r l y the determination to bring about a negotiated settlement i n Indochina heralded a new era i n i n t e r -n a t i o n a l r e l a t i o n s . He believed that the Soviet Union and China were both genuinely seeking a period of relaxed tensions, and that t h i s development should be welcomed i n the west. The rather uneasy s i t u a t i o n that had existed on India's northern border a f t e r the Chinese army occupied Tibet appeared now to have been dissolved, and Nehru was very anxious that new confrontations between the United States and China i n Asia should not jeopardise the new era of entente. The Indian leaders believed that events had j u s t i f i e d t h e i r approach, and that con-f r o n t a t i o n and power p o l i t i c s were out of place i n the new atmosphere i n As i a . - 69 -They were correspondingly impatient with a l l who wanted to bring confrontation into the settlement of disputes, within or without the International Control Commission. If the Indians had been impressed with the peaceableness of Chinese policy, contrasted with what appeared to be the unwarranted belligerency of the Americans, they were equally impressed by what seemed to be the sweet reasonable-ness of the DRVN. "For at least two years after the Geneva Conference of 1954, India's relations with the DRVN were far more cordial than with the government 17 of South Vietnam." The DRVN had signed the Geneva Agreements, and had, i n Indian eyes, "in words and deeds largely demonstrated i t s willingness to implement 18 the Geneva Agreements." Not only had the RVN not signed the Agreement, i t took every possible occasion to express i t s dissatisfaction with the Agreement's provisions. (in i t s strident opposition to the Geneva pact, the RVN in fact often seemed less co-operative than in the event i t turned out to be.) When Nehru returned from a v i s i t to Peking in October, 1954, he stopped off i n Saigon, where the rancorous public demonstrations that greeted him on arrival contrasted unfavourably with the warmth and cordiality of his public reception i n Hanoi a few days earlier. Some months later the South Vietnamese Government chose the occasion of the anniversary of the signing of the Geneva Agreement (July 20, 1955) to demonstrate i t s dissatisfaction by mob attacks on the Saigon quarters 19 of the Polish and Indian officers serving in the ICC - attacks that can only have had o f f i c i a l sanction and approval. Throughout the history of the Vietnam Commission, this contrast, between the prudent and careful policy of the regime in the north toward the ICC and the intemperate f o l l y of the Saigon government, was to continue to plague the efforts of the Canadian Delegation to secure a f a i r hearing for the South's cause. Many a case with genuine merit failed to secure the approval of a majority on the Commission, simply because of inefficiency or sheer 'bloody-mindedness' on the part of South Vietnamese government or o f f i c i a l s . - 70 -1 A dispassionate appraisal of the survival chances of the two regimes i n 1954 can hardly have pre-disposed the Indians in favour of the regime i n the south. Vietnam south of the seventeenth parallel was divided among quarreling religious sects and their armies, and the capital city i t s e l f was under the thumb of the Binh Xuyen, a gang of river pirates who ran the gambling casinos and the police. The only advantage Diem appeared to enjoy was his certainty of American support. It would not be surprising i f the Indians had agreed with Eisenhower that in 1954 80 percent of the people were l i k e l y to vote for Ho Chi Minn. There was another factor. From my own experience, I should say that the prejudices of the individual members of Indian Delegations were not evenly divided between the north and the south. Although Indians, so far as I am aware, were always unanimous i n their disapproval of the heavy-handed dictatorship that existed i n North Vietnam, paradoxically the regime i n South Vietnam was disliked much more than the regime in the north. This undoubtedly arose partly because the members of the Commission were much more isolated i n North Vietnam than they were in the south, and i n large measure they were unaware of the day to day effect of government policy in North Vietnam. For a l l of the Saigon government's dislike of opposition and i t s attempts to eliminate i t , the defects and deficiencies of the administration i n the south were there for a l l to see. The individual mem-bers of the Indian Delegation were i r r i t a t e d beyond measure by the hypocrisies of the Diem government, in particular, i n South Vietnam. The Indians knew at f i r s t hand what a democracy was l i k e . They enjoyed free speech at home, and saw that a government could operate perfectly safely and effectively i n the face of often vigorous p o l i t i c a l opposition. In South Vietnam the government paid l i p service to individual freedom and to liberty and democracy, but i t persecuted and jailed and tortured a l l who were suspected of being less than enthusiastic in their support for those in power. The Indians tended to shrug their shoulders when these things happened i n the north - what can you expect of Communists after a l l ? - 71 -But in the south these were regarded as grave defects. I suspect that i t was this i r r i t a b l e contempt for what they saw as south Vietnamese hypocrisy that lay at the root of some Indian-Polish majority decisions against South Vietnam, and particularly where charges were violations of Article 14c, the article guarantee-ing the preservation of "democratic freedoms." Analysts have at times tried to divine the trend of Indian policy i n Southeast Asia by counting the number of times the Indians sided with the Poles against the Canadians in citing South Vietnam for violations of the Geneva Agree-ment, and subtracting the number of times they sided with the Canadians against the Poles. The arithmetical result i s then held to represent the extent of Indian sympathy for and support of North Vietnam. The lack of detail in most of the Commission's reports and the deliberately undramatic method of presentation perhaps make such simplistic methods inevitable. More sophisticated analysis yields rather more interesting results. In the early days of the Vietnam Commission, the differences and d i s -agreements among the three members of the Commission did not appear on the sur-face; unanimous decisions were arrived at and the f i r s t three Interim Reports of the ICC for Vietnam show unanimous conclusions. This situation reflected the over-riding Indian concern to achieve a consensus. The fact that this early period of apparent harmony co-incided with the Commission's period of maximum usefulness has always appeared to Indian observers as proof that the one was the pre-condition of the other. The parties were prepared to pay attention to the Commission when i t spoke with one voice; when i t spoke with many, i t lost i t s authority. This conclusion of course ignores the fact that the Polish Delegate was never independent - the Polish vote represented only what the DRVN wished or was prepared to concede. It could more reasonably be argued that the Commission's successes during the early period rested on Indian willingness to abandon attempts to achieve agreement between the parties and to impose a solution by the Commission where attempts to achieve agreement had evidently f a i l e d . The transfer of - 72 -Haiphong from French Union forces to the PAVN provides a good example. In the earlier transfer of Hanoi, the Commission "had tried to leave the two High 20 Commissions to work out their disputes between themselves." Haiphong, how-ever, presented a different set of problems. Disputes arose over what property and equipment was to be transferred to the south. The three hundred days during which withdrawals could be made were drawing to a close. In these circumstances delay helped the PAVN, for anything not evacuated by the May 18 deadline must be l e f t behind. The Indian chairman was not willing to carry inactivity to the point where i t would give one side an unfair advantage. "The i n a b i l i t y of the ... High Commands to work in concert ... caused a remarkable shift in the Comm-ission 's positions with respect to the role i t was willing to play i n the Hai-phong transfer. Whereas in November i t was willing to take the part of observer, and, i f necessary, of conciliator, i t had by February accepted the responsibility 21 for ruling on the justification for each and every removal ...." The Haiphong transfer took place on time, and the ICC solution, "imposed on the parties" was 22 "based on what seemed sensible, f a i r and practical," not on compromise. The f i r s t break in unanimity came with the Fourth Interim Report, when the Canadian Delegation submitted two amendments, one amplifying the record of the Commission's efforts to ensure freedom of movement for a l l those wishing to 23 change zones, (article 14d), and placing on the record i n greater detail the efforts of the DRVN to obstruct the free exercise of this right, and the other explaining the d i f f i c u l t i e s of the French High Command in f u l f i l l i n g i t s o b l i -gations i n South Vietnam where authority had been transferred to the Government of the RVN. The report does not show the Indian Delegation as disagreeing with the Canadian Delegation in principle, but as evidently being unwilling to blame one party more than the other. From the f i f t h interim report to the ninth (which covers the period up to January 31, 1959), the o f f i c i a l record of the ICC gives an impression of con-tinual violations of the Geneva Agreement by the South, and of largely Indian-Polish majority decisions. There were thirteen occasions on which India sided with Poland, and only six on which Canada and India formed a majority. The DRVN made good use of the o f f i c i a l figures; DRVN propagandists and their friends could quote an impressive number of times i n which the Commission had found the RVN guilty of non-co-operation or of violation of the Agreement (each citation usually covered a number of individual cases.) But as the Canadian-Indian majority noted i n the eleventh interim report, 11 ... there have been many instances of non-co-operation by both Parties which have impeded the work of the Comm-ission and i t s Teams. These have not in a l l cases reached the stage of formal citations because of evasions and lack of co-operation on the part of the Party concerned. For this reason the two Delegations agree that, i n the ex-perience of the Commission, the number of formal citations in i t s e l f i s no f a i r measure of the degree of co-operation received from either party. "^5 The DRVN recognized the value of the ICC as a means of presenting their case against the South, and the Commission was usually flooded with complaints from the DRVN's Liason Mission to the ICC. F u l l details concerning the alleged violations were provided, and usually within a few days of the event. (This fact alone was proof of the extent and effectiveness of the DRVN's agencies in the south.) The RVN of course did not have an equivalent network in the north, and most of their complaints concerned DRVN activities south of the seventeenth parallel, complaints that the Commission for so long refused to consider. But although the Commission's decisions i n favour of the DRVN were morally damaging to the south, not one in a l l this time had the effect of dimin-ishing the south's military potential or of weakening i t s security. Of the thirteen Indian-Polish decisions against South Vietnam, six concerned Article 21 (Prisoners of war and Civilia n Internees); two concerned Article 14c (reprisals or discrimination against persons or organizations on account of their a c t i v i t i e s during the h o s t i l i t i e s ) ; one was in response to a South Vietnamese failure to - 74 -supply information on MAAG (the U.S. M i l i t a r y Aid Advisory Group); one concerned time l i m i t a t i o n s on team movements; and only three were concerned with A r t i c l e s 16 and 17 (ban on the introduction of f r e s h troops, arms and munitions). Of the l a t t e r , two seem to be concerned with f a i l u r e to n o t i f y , and one disallowed the importation of armoured launches i n t o Vietnam before any c r e d i t s under A r t i c l e 17 had been established. "The Commission has, however, adjusted t h i s introduc-26 t i o n against a c r e d i t given subsequently." There were, however, some cases when the Commission agreed unanimously that arms and munitions had been imported i n t o Vietnam i n v i o l a t i o n of A r t i c l e 17. In most cases, these v i o l a t i o n s were probably t e c h n i c a l ones, and involved f a i l u r e to n o t i f y the Commission's teams i n time. In f a c t , of course, at l e a s t u n t i l m i l i t a r y operations i n South Vietnam increased a f t e r 1961, there was no need f o r the RVN to import war material i l l e g a l l y . A r t i c l e 17c of the Geneva Agreement f o r Vietnam provides that "war m a t e r i a l , arms and munitions which have been destroyed, damaged, worn out or used up a f t e r the cessation of h o s t i l i t i e s may be replaced on the b a s i s of piece f o r piece of the same type and with s i m i l a r c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s . " The French Union forces i n Vietnam had never suffered from want of equipment, and the c r e d i t s which established what they had possessed i n July, 1954, were ample to meet the requirements of the RVN forces u n t i l the i n t r o -duction of U.S. troops i n 1962. In other ways the voting of the Indian delegation shows India's concern to preserve the balance of strength i n Vietnam. The DRVN had never on any occasion n o t i f i e d the ICC of importation of war m a t e r i a l , nor had the Commission ever found any i n t h e i r routine checks, even though A r t i c l e 17c of the Agree-ment allows the DRVN also to import replacements f o r material used up or worn out. This does not mean that the Commission was unaware that war material had been imported. P a r t i c u l a r l y a f t e r I960, the DRVN did not even take great pains to hide the f a c t . (On one occasion the Commission team inspecting Gia Lam a i r p o r t outside of Hanoi saw helicopters with Russian markings in the process of being repainted.) If the Commission's teams were unable to stop the import of war material, they were nevertheless able to form a f a i r l y shrewd idea of the m i l i -tary strength of both sides - the teams were after a l l made up of trained m i l i -tary observers and were stationed at widely spaced teamsites within each country. The Indian awareness of North Vietnam's military strength may well have affected their decision with regard to American assistance to South Vietnam. Cn April 25, 1956 the Commission received a request for the entry of 350 military personnel of the U.S. Army Service Corps into South Vietnam, con-stituting a mission called TERM' - Temporary Equipment Recovery Mission - "whose duties would be to examine war material and military equipment lying in South Vietnam which was the property of the U.S. Government for the purpose of select-ing material to be exported from Vietnam and to protect and preserve this material." The Commission asked for assurances that the functions of TERM would be solely as described, and for further details. It was of course expected that this mission would soon complete i t s duties and leave. Complaints had also been received from the DRVN concerning the presence in Vietnam of the American training mission, the Military Aid Advisory Group (MAAG), a presence that was alleged to constitute proof of the existence of a military alliance between the U.S. and the Republic of Vietnam. Asked to comment, the RVN replied that MAAG had been in existence since 1950, and that i t had never 28 exceeded i t s original strength nor had there been any change in i t s a c t i v i t i e s . The Commission asked for further details, which the RVN was slow in supplying. This therefore was where matters stood at the end of 1959, up to the end of the period covered by the Ninth Interim Report. India had often appeared to be more sympathetic to Hanoi than to Saigon. But the Commission's decisions, although gratifying to the DRVN, were not ones that were really very important. The Indian Delegation during this time were able to postpone making a decision - 76 -on TERM or MAAG, although by the very act of postponement they were t a c i t l y allowing the existing military aid to South Vietnam to continue. On the question of subversion also the Indian Delegation dragged i t s feet. This problem w i l l be treated more f u l l y in the next chapter, but b r i e f l y the subversion issue refers to complaints the Commission had been receiving from the South Vietnamese Liaison Mission for years, charging that acts of terrorism and murder and of armed insurrection against the Government of the RVN had been planned and directed from north of the seventeenth parall e l . Subversion as such was not mentioned in the Geneva Agreement, and the Polish Delegation claimed that the South Vietnamese complaints did not, i n the legal phrase, "attract" the Geneva Agreement and therefore the ICC could not deal with them. The Commission's Legal Committee examined this question, and concluded, by an Indian-Canadian majority (June, 1956) that the complaints did attract the Geneva Agreement. When the Legal Committee report came before the Commission, the Indian member changed sides and voted with the Polish delegate to send the question back to the Legal Committee (November, 1956). What the Indian Delegation had done of course was to keep a l l i t s options open. The majority decision of the Legal Committee was there i f the Indians wanted to use i t , but i t could continue to be buried at the Committee stage i f they should not. The subversion issue was undoubtedly a very d i f f i c u l t one for the Indian Government. Whether or not the Hanoi regime was directing the insurrection i n the south went to the heart of the whole question of American intervention. If the Saigon Government was in fact threatened by an external danger, then the Ameri-can intervention was morally j u s t i f i e d . If on the other hand the war i n Vietnam was a c i v i l war, conducted by an oppressed people against a repressive regime, American intervention was much harder to justify. This explains the extreme sensitivity that both the Polish Delegation and the Government of the DRVN dis-played to the question of subversion. And i t also explains the reluctance of the Indian Delegation to have anything to do with the thorny question, as long as they could put o f f making a d e c i s i o n . A dec i s i o n e i t h e r way on the subversion question would i n e v i t a b l y have been interpreted as proof that the Indians had chosen one side over the other. U n t i l the end of 1959, then, the Indian Delegation appeared from the record to have been more favourably disposed to the DRVN than to the RVN. Then, beginning with the Tenth Interim Report a change occurred, and a series of d e c i -sions that were unfavourable to the DRVN was recorded by the Commission. Two separate and apparently unrelated chains of events explain the change. In December, 1959, there occurred the attack on the RVN army post at Thai Ninh near the Cambodian border that signaled a new phase i n the war i n V i e t -nam. Throughout 1959 the mounting assassination campaign had threatened the RVN Government c o n t r o l over v i l l a g e s a l l through Vietnam, and now p r a c t i c a l l y the e n t i r e f a r western part of the country passed permanently into the hands of the V i e t Cong. The end of 1959 saw a s i g n i f i c a n t worsening of r e l a t i o n s between China and India. In September, 1959, China had l a i d formal claim to 50,000 square miles of Indian t e r r i t o r y . Strained r e l a t i o n s culminated i n Chinese attacks on Indian border p a t r o l s i n September and October, 1962. Positions were becoming i n c r e a s i n g l y p o l a r i s e d i n Southeast A s i a , and the Indian Delegation was swept unhappily along i n the wake of the gathering storm. Decisions i n the tenth and eleventh Interim Reports and i n the Special Report to the co-chairmen of June 2, 1962, r e f l e c t e d that increasing Indian involvement. The l a s t two regular Interim Reports of the Vietnam Commission (the eleventh and tw e l f t h ) , show that the number of Polish-Indian majority decisions were now exactly balanced by the number of Canadian-Indian majority decisions -eleven each. But while the Polish-Indian m a j o r i t i e s were i n questions concern-ing A r t i c l e s 14c, 14d and 21 (ai r p o r t controls and the Demili t a r i z e d Zone), the Indian-Canadian decisions were f a r more s i g n i f i c a n t , a f f e c t i n g as they d i d i n several important ways the a b i l i t y of the RVN Government to r e s i s t the challenges - 78 -to i t s authority within Vietnam. These decisions concerned TERM, MAAG, Law 10/59 and Subversion. Mounting threats to the authority of the RVN Government res u l t e d i n the passing of a law that would i n e f f e c t substitute m i l i t a r y courts f o r c i v i l f o r crimes against the s t a t e . The Commission received a complaint from the PAVN Liaison Mission that t h i s law was being used i n ways that would v i o l a t e A r t -i c l e 14c In A p r i l , I960, the Commission decided (Canadian-Indian majority) that "... the law does not contain any provision s p e c i f i c a l l y designed to d i s -criminate against, or subject to r e p r i s a l s , persons or organizations on account of t h e i r a c t i v i t i e s during the h o s t i l i t i e s , and therefore Law 10/59 as such does 30 not a t t r a c t A r t i c l e 14c or any other A r t i c l e of the Geneva Agreement." TERM had o r i g i n a l l y been introduced i n t o Vietnam i n 1956. The Comm-i s s i o n had o r i g i n a l l y expected that i t s a c t i v i t i e s would end within a few months. There was widespread suspicion, no doubt w e l l founded, that TERM o f f i c e r s were being used to t r a i n Vietnamese troops. Now, i n December, 1959, the P o l i s h dele-gate i n s i s t e d that TERM be wound up immediately and the o f f i c e r s concerned be required to leave Vietnam within two months. The Indian Delegation voted with the Canadian to allow TERM'S extension f o r another f u l l year - u n t i l December 31, I 9 6 0 . 3 1 I f the Indian Delegation had hoped that the question of MAAG's l e g a l i t y could be postponed i n d e f i n i t e l y , i t was to be disappointed. In A p r i l , I960, the Saigon Government informed the Commission that i t had requested the U.S. Govern-ment to increase the strength of MAAG from 342 (the number i n Vietnam before the Geneva Agreement and the number that was therefore allowable) to 685. I t was pointed out that t h i s f i g u r e would s t i l l be below the combined strength of 888 MAAG and French i n s t r u c t o r s present i n Vietnam at the time of the armistice. Whether American Advisers could be permitted to replace French under the terms of the terms of the Geneva Agreement was f a r l e s s c e r t a i n , and a good case could - 79 -certainly be made that they were not. However, the Indian Delegation proposed simply sending a letter to the Government of the RVN stating that "the Commission had noted the contents of the party's letter pertaining to the subject and that the Commission understood that additional military instructors w i l l not be intro-duced except i n conformity with the procedure stipulated in Article l6f and g of 32 the Geneva Agreement." With the Polish Delegation dissenting, the letter was sent. Finally, the deteriorating situation in Vietnam caused the Indian Gov-ernment to decide at last to grasp the nettle of subversion. On June 24, 1961, a Canadian-Indian decision was taken that the Commission had "the competence and 33 duty to entertain and investigate such complaints." Subsequently the Legal Committee examined specific complaints and concluded that "there i s evidence to show that armed and unarmed personnel, arms, munitions and other supplies have been sent from the zone in the north to the zone in the south with the object of supporting, organizing and carrying out hostile a c t i v i t i e s , including armed attacks directed against the Armed Forces and Administration of the zone in the q i south." The Commission also concluded that i n receiving increased military aid from the United States after December, 1961, the South Vietnamese had been 35 guilty of violation of Articles 16, 17 and 19 of the Geneva Agreement. This report marked the high water mark of India's willingness to indict the north for i t s part in the c i v i l war i n Vietnam. A further Special Report to 36 the co-chairmen called their attention to the serious situation created i n Vietnam by U.S. bombing attacks on military installations in North Vietnam. The Indian Delegation refused again to couple U.S. action with the DRVN's direction of the war in the south, and i t was l e f t to the Canadian Delegation in a minority 37 report to do so and to quote from the 1962 Special Report to this effect. The Commission's decisions on Law 10/59, TERM, MAAG and Subversion placed a severe strain on relations between the DRVN and India. Violent demon-strations took place i n North Vietnam against both Delegations, but the main - 80 -force of the attack was against the Indians. Three months after the 1962 Special Report was made China and India were at war. The DRVN refrained from publicly supporting China in this event, perhaps as much because of concern to keep i t s relations with the USSR and China i n balance as out of tenderness for Indian f e e l -og ings. It was not u n t i l 1963 that the DRVN openly supported the Chinese. Was the trend of decisions that were unfavourable to the DRVN after 1959 attributable to Indian d i f f i c u l t i e s with the Chinese? The DRVN certainly thought so, and taxed the Indian Delegate directly with the charge. (The Indian Dele-gate denied that this was so.) As we have seen, however, these decisions were a l l in keeping with India's reluctance to see Communism make further gains i n Southeast Asia, and earlier events i n Indian foreign policy might have forecast their outcome. On the other hand would the Indian Delegation have been quite so forthcoming i f Indian relations with the Chinese had been better? Perhaps we can say tentatively that the decisions on increased U.S. military assistance would not have been different, but that the clear statement on subversion may well have been an involuntary g i f t from the Chinese. This does not at a l l mean that the Indian decision on subversion was based on p o l i t i c a l grounds without any regard for the merits of the case. If the Indians had thought that the RVN's case was unfounded, i t would have been only too glad so to decide at an early date, permanently burying an embarrassing issue that, as i t was, remained a bomb ticking i n the cellar for years. The Indians did try to balance their condemnation of North Vietnam with a finding that South Vietnam had also violated the Geneva Agreement, but the impact of the two statements was not equal. The DRVN had never admitted i t was implicated i n the c i v i l war in Vietnam. Both the U.S. and the RVN on the other hand freely admitted that the extent of U.S. aid was greater than that permitted by the Geneva Agreement, but they pleaded the necessity of combatting attacks from the DRVN. The Commission's decision provided support for that j u s t i f i c a t i o n . - 81 -Although, as we have seen, there i s l i t t l e support in the record for the proposition that India favoured the DRVN in i t s decisions, i n another way the demands of Indian foreign policy had an unfortunate effect on the way the Commission was able to carry out i t s duties. The f i r s t requirement of Indian foreign policy was perhaps less that i t should be non-aligned than that i t should be clearly seen to be non-aligned. As the inherently unstable situation in Vietnam drifted towards open warfare, i t became more and more d i f f i c u l t for India to avoid coming down on one side or the other. For as long as she possibly could India avoided commitment, and the easiest way to do this was to be as i n -active as possible - to postpone decisions for as long as possible, and above a l l to avoid conducting investigations that might turn up embarrassing results. As a consequence, what a b i l i t y the Commission might have had to make any con-tribution to peace was severely crippled. Although India welcomed her appointment to the ICC as an opportunity to play an active role i n an area that was important to her, the results of her involvement can hardly have been a subject for congratulation. The Indian his-tory on the ICC proves that in a fiercely contested game the lot of the umpire i s a hard one. In the end neither Saigon nor Hanoi wanted continued Indian involvement. The absence of India's name from every l i s t of proposed members for the new ICC's arising out of the US-DRVN negotiations may have been a r e l i e f ; i t must also surely have been a humiliation. - 82 -CHAPTER V FOOTNOTES. 1. M. Brecher, Nehru, a P o l i t i c a l Biography, p. 356 2. i b i d . 3. K.R. P i l a i , India's Foreign P o l i c y , p. 36 4. New York Times. January 1. 1946. p. 11 5. Times. London, January 22, 1947 6. Proceedings of the Conference, quoted i n K.G. Bhansali, India's Role i n the Settlement of the Indochina C o n f l i c t . Unpublished PhD Thesis, p. 31 7. i b i d . , p. 32 8. D.R. SarDesai, Indian Foreign P o l i c y i n Cambodia. Laos and Vietnam, p. 14 9. i b i d . , p. 18 10. i b i d . , p. 17 11. i b i d . 12. New York Times. August 7, p. 3 13. London Times. September 27, 1954, p. 18 14. L.G. and S.H. Rudolph, The Modernity of T r a d i t i o n : P o l i t i c a l Development i n India, p. 258 15. i b i d . , p. 254 16. P i l a i , op. c i t . p. 16 17. SarDesai, op. c i t . , p. 75 18. i b i d . , 19. Fourth Interim Report, Cmd. 9654, p. 16 20. Dagg, op. c i t . , p. L 1 21. i b i d . , p. L 14 22. i b i d . , p. N 4 23. Cmd. 9654, PP. 19-24 24. i b i d . , pp. 24-25 25. Cmd. 1551, 1961 26. Eighth Interim Report, Cmd. 509, 1958 27. Sixth Interim Report, Cmd. 31, 1957, p. 25 28. Seventh Interim Report, Cmd. 335, 1957, p. 17 29. I was present at a meeting of the Vietnam Commission l a t e i n I960 when i t appeared f o r a moment as i f the Indians might be on the point of bringing the subversion question back from the Legal Committee. The e n t i r e P o l i s h Delegation turned green and clutched the edge of the t a b l e . 30. Eleventh Interim Report, Cmd. 1551, 1961, p. 9 31. Tenth Interim Report, Cmd. 1040, I960, p. 19 32. Eleventh Interim Report, p. 18 33* SarDesai, op. c i t . , p. 203 34. Special Report to the co-chairmen, Cmd. 1955, 1962, p. 7 35. i b i d . , p. 10 36. Cmd. 2609, 1965, February 13, 1965 37. i b i d . , pp. 12-15 38. SarDesai, op. c i t . , p. 208 39. i b i d . , p. 202 - 83 -CHAPTER VI. THE FINAL YEARS. July 21, 1956, the date on which elections were to be held that were to unite a l l of Vietnam, passed with scarcely a ripple to mark the occasion. When the RVN refused to send delegates to confer with the DRVN on preparations for the elections, there was nothing that the Commission could do except to take note of the fact. But no member, even Canada, which was always the- most anxious to limit commitments, seems to have seriously contemplated winding up the Commission. John Holmes has said that by the summer of 1955 he was "already convinced there would be no elections, and I raised the question whether we should stay on or not." 1 But "We never walked out because we feared the vacuum that would be created i f we did."' If the members could have foreseen that their task would last for another sixteen years, and that i t would be carried out i n increasing ineffectiveness and frustra-tion, would their reactions have differed? At the time, what was certain was that the situation i n July 1956 was i n f i n i t e l y preferable to that of July 1954* The withdrawal of the Commission would have been the sign of the collapse of the Geneva Agreements, and would probably have been followed by a renewal of the bitter fighting that had torn Indochina into r i v a l factions. No member of the Commission would have cared to take the responsibility for bringing about the collapse of the Geneva Agreement, no matter how shaky the structure might have been. By 1956, both North and South Vietnam appeared to be more evenly matched than two years before. The French army l e f t in April of that year, but the Americans were pouring aid into Vietnam, both economic and military. Diem had subdued the sects, with their private armies, and the area south of the seventeenth parallel seemed more settled and unified than i t had been. The enormous influx of Catholic refugees had placed a great strain on the regime, but with foreign aid - 84 -they had been settled and provided a bloc of support for the new President, Ngo Dinh Diem, and a pool of talent for the new Government. (The fact that so many northerners were i n positions of power i n Diem's government was of course a weak-ness as well, because their prominence was often resented by the Cochin-Chinese who formed the bulk of the population.) In the north, great strides had been made with the help of Soviet and Chinese aid, but the regime was s t i l l not com-pletely in control. The over-zealous application of a land reform scheme copied from the Chinese and i l l suited to Vietnamese conditions had resulted i n a great burst of resentment against the Government. In October a f u l l scale rebellion was under way among some small farmers, and the army had to be called out to subdue i t . There were several shortages of food i n the North, which had even under the French been a net importer of food. The Geneva Agreements had been a compromise, as a l l such Agreements are. The Communist bloc secured the greater advantage because they held the stronger position m i l i t a r i l y , and this too i s characteristic of a l l Agreements that end wars. The Soviet Union and Chinese wanted a period of peace and consolidation, and so they were willing to restrain the Vietnamese and to bring the fighting to an end before North Vietnam's ultimate goals had been won. In exchange, they gained assurances that Indochina would be neutralized. The North Vietnamese were promised elections that they, and undoubtedly every one else too, expected would give them the South peacefully in two years time. By 1956, i t was evident that the situa-tion as i t had been stabilized by the Geneva Agreements had been very much altered. The U.S. had replaced France as the main friend and support of South Vietnam, and i t was unlikely that the new situation would be acceptable to the Russians or the Chinese, l e t alone the DRVN. The DRVN had other reasons besides frustrated ambitions to seek to re-unify Vietnam by force. Most of Vietnam's mineral resources and what industry there was was located north of the seventeenth parallel, but the area had never been self-supporting in food production. Access to the rice producing areas of - 85 -the Mekong Delta was therefore v i t a l l y necessary to North Vietnam i f i t was to feed i t s own population. In several respects therefore the chances for long term success of the ICC's peacekeeping had worsened. The Commission was no longer operating in an area that had been neutralized, but in one in which at least two of the Great Powers were in direct confrontation. No other peacekeeping mission has had to operate in these circumstances. (It i s significant that when a confrontation situation evolved in the Middle East, the heretofore successful UN peacekeeping operation had to be withdrawn. When i n 1967 Egypt f e l t strong enough with Soviet aid to tackle Israel, she asked UNEF to leave. The UN force was with-drawn immediately, and i t has never gone back.) The ICC was not equipped to undertake a peacekeeping job that would last for years. It had no organization to report to, no-one to provide l o g i s t i c support, no-one to alter i t s terms of reference when they became out of date. With per-sonnel that never exceeded a few hundred, i t was responsible for protecting the "Democratic l i b e r t i e s " of those who might be persecuted for what side they had chosen to fight on before 1954. for preventing the import of war material over amounts allowed under the Geneva Agreement, for preventing armed attacks across the border. It i s worth remembering for purposes of comparison that UNEF's "sole important duty" was to prevent i n f i l t r a t i o n over the border, and that i t required a force of 5,000 men and an annual expenditure of approximately $17,250,000 to patrol a frontier of less than 200 miles, more than half of which ran through a 3 desert. Even then sporadic raids across the border occurred. The ICC was more-over required to operate i n the territory of parties, one of which had never con-sidered i t s e l f bound by the Geneva Agreement, and the other had in practise bent every effort to frustrating the efforts of the ICC to f u l f i l l i t s obligations. In the early months, particularly during the f i r s t three hundred days, the Commission made a useful contribution, not only i n the lessening of inter-national tensions, but useful i n the opinion of the parties. Both sides wanted - 86 -to end the fighting and separate their forces with as l i t t l e further bloodshed as possible, and were happy to have the ICC around to settle disputes. But once the period of re-settlement and re-location had been completed, the ICC could only be a nuisance i f i t were to do the thorough job of investigating and reporting that i t was supposed to do. Both sides settled down to using the Commission for what-ever propaganda advantage they could get out of i t , and frustrating any effort of the Commission to prevent them from doing what they wished to do. In the process, the prestige and authority of the Commission simply drained away. The mere pass-age of time also diminished the authority of the ICC. In the beginning, when the Geneva Conference was fresh i n men's minds and when the Commission's activities commanded the attention of the world's press, i t s recommendations were l i k e l y to be heeded because flouting the authority of the Commission would be sure to bring unfavourable publicity. Five years later the Commission was no longer news; i t s pronouncements could safely be ignored because they were unlikely to attract much attention. During the f i r s t few months of the Commission's l i f e , practices developed or gaps i n the Agreement became evident that were to affect very much the day to day operations and the effectiveness of the Commission. The methods were perhaps not of great significance at the time, but they were to become so later. The f i r s t part of the Cease Fire became effective six days after the signing of the Geneva Agreement, the last twenty one days later. There was no time to think out pro-cedures ahead of time - the Commission had to devise i t s methods as i t went along. This involved "... taking decisions on such fundamental and crucial issues as the right of the Commission and i t s teams to move freely i n Vietnam, the c r i t e r i a to be used when determining whether a violation of the Agreement had occurred, the extent to which the Commission should take the i n i t i a t i v e i n verifying the implementation of the clauses of the armistice agreement, and the degree to which the Commission could dictate i t s w i l l to the two High Commands. In short, the decisions made were - 87 -of such a nature that they determined the Commission's course and, indeed, i t s role i n Vietnamese affairs, not only for the short term but for the duration of i t s existence. ... later ... the Commission was to become infle x i b l e , unable or unwilling to change i t s direction or to reform i t s methods once they had been set. It was to become an organization unduly bound by precedents, many of them unfortunate and many dating from the three hundred days."^ Some of the factors which were to influence the capacity of the Comm-ission to do the job assigned to i t , particularly for the long term, were finance, freedom to investigate, and the rule of precedent. Finance. It was decided at Geneva that the costs involved in the operation of the Joint Commission and of i t s Joint Groups, and of the International Commission and i t s inspection teams, would be shared equally between the two parties. The contributions were established in detail at the i n i t i a l meeting of the Supervisory powers (India, Canada and Poland) i n New Delhi in 1954. The pay and allowances of a l l personnel were borne by the Supervisory powers. "Common Pool" expenses -food, lodging, medical services and transportation to and from the home country of Delegation personnel was borne by the contributing powers - China, France, the U.K. and the U.S.S.R. - in equal shares. Local expenses - particularly local transport - was assumed by the parties to the Geneva Agreement (i.e. the DRVN and France) i n equal shares. France later claimed that she had paid more than her legitimate share, and i n December 1956 the French National Assembly voted to allow no further sums for the expenses of the Commission. In fact when India raised money to f i l l the gap, France claimed a refund for previous overpayment. When the French High Command withdrew from South Vietnam in August, 1956, the French Liaison Mission went too, and the Liaison Mission had provided transport for the ICC in both the North and the South. - 88 -Contributions were always late, and the Commission was perpetually i n dire s t r a i t s . This was particularly serious so far as expenses for l o c a l trans-port were concerned. The original equipment was never replaced, and became increasingly hard to repair. It was a l l too easy for both parties, who were each responsible for the care and maintenance of Commission vehicles in their own zone, to claim that patrols could not be undertaken because the Commission's cars and jeeps were under repair or were unsafe. The problem was so serious that the provision of transport to be owned and maintained by the Commission i t s e l f became one of the principal aims of the Canadian Delegation at the second Geneva Con-ference on Laos i n 1962. Freedom to investigate. The Geneva Agreement did not give the International Commission the power to move freely in a l l parts of Vietnam. Fourteen Fixed Team sites were named i n the Geneva Agreement, seven in the north and seven in the south. (These sites were also the points of entry for rotation of personnel and replacement of mat-erial.) The Commission was also empowered to establish mobile inspection teams, and the zones of action of the mobile teams were to be 'the regions bordering the land and sea frontiers of Vietnam, the demarcation lines between the re-grouping zones and the demilitarized zones. Within the limits of these zones they shall have the right to move freely...." "Beyond the zones of action as defined above, the mobile teams may, by agreement with the command of the party concerned, carry out other movements within the limit of the tasks given them by the present agree-ment." (Article 35) The wording of Article 35 restricted the movement of mobile teams, but not of Fixed teams. During the early months of the Commission's l i f e the Canadian Delegation fought hard to give the teams as much freedom and independence as poss-ibl e . Communist bloc delegations at Geneva had insisted that any supervisory - 89 -body should respect the independence and sovereignty of the Parties. At an early meeting of the ICC, the three Delegations were in accord that Fixed Teams should have complete freedom of movement throughout Vietnam. Then the PAVN liaison Mission insisted on a s t r i c t interprepation of Article 35, and the Polish Delegation changed i t s stand.^ Authorities both north and south of the seventeenth parallel insisted on advance notice of a l l team movements "so that necessary arrange-ments could be made for the teams' security." "The ICC found i t s e l f in a d i f f i c u l t position. It was anxious to maintain the element of surprise, but i t had also insisted that the Parties be completely responsible for providing transport, accommodation and services necessary for the operation of the teams. Ultimately the ICC found i t impossible to object i n principle when the Parties argued that i f they were to discharge their responsibilities properly, they had to have advance notice of team movements."^ The teams were also limited to some extent i n what they could accomplish by their mere size. It had been established at the preliminary meeting in Delhi in July 1954 that fixed teams were to consist of six members, and mobile teams of three. The d i f f i c u l t y of increasing their strength lay i n the reluctance of the three supervisory governments, particularly Canada, to increase significantly what was already an onerous drain of manpower. The result was that "During the period of maximum coverage, ... the 3,500 mile long land and sea frontier of Vietnam was n under the sporadic surveillance of only 96 men." When i t i s remembered that much of this frontier region i s mountainous, i t i s evident that close control over the import of arms or military personnel was simply impossible. In this respect i t was much easier to see what came into South Vietnam than what came in in the North, simply because everything that arrived in the South had to come by sea at points where the Commission's Fixed Teams were stationed, while in the North imports could also come across a land frontier, one that was i n most places mount-ainous and inaccessible. - 90 -The rule of precedent* The unfortunate effect of the rule of precedent has been mentioned. It was perhaps natural that the Canadians and Indians, with a legal system that was governed by precedent, should make use of this method in deciding cases before the Commission. Although i t probably saved re-arguing points that had already been decided, and to that extent seems to have been an inevitable development, i t gave the Commission's procedures an undesirable r i g i d i t y . The Commission "... was to become inflexible, unable or unwilling to change i t s direction or to reform i t s methods .once they have been set. It was to become an organization 8 unduly found by precedent, many of them unfortunate ...." The Indian Delegation in particular often seemed adept at finding precedents to prevent the Commission acting where they might have found activity embarrassing. During 1961 for i n -stance, the Indians managed to block a team investigation of alleged intrusion of armed personnel into the western part of the demilitarized zone because of some 9 peculiarity i n the way that the investigation had been asked for. The undesirable reliance on precedent that developed in Commission prac-tise was undoubtedly a function of the lack of the kind of continual supervision and oversight that the UN Secretariat was able to give i t s peacekeeping operations. Other peacekeeping bodies have not had to look to past practise for guidance be-cause the Secretariat could exercise continued direction. The Indians have found precedent a comfort in deciding which way to cast the deciding vote - a decision i n accord with past practise i s far less visible an indicator of policy than a new departure would be. Liaison Officers. In the early days of the ICC, the ICC's teams were always accompanied by liaison officers of both parties. This was a useful measure - for one thing i t was to come extent a check on the accuracy of the translation that was provided by the teams' interpreter. No member of a Commission team was l i k e l y to speak - 91 -Vietnamese, and the translators the Commission could employ would be l i k e l y to be under the control of the Government of the area. But when the French l e f t Vietnam and the Saigon Government assumed their duties toward the Commission, they refused either to provide representatives on the Joint Commission or to allow liaison officers of the PAVN to accompany Commission teams south of the seventeenth pa r a l l e l . The ICC had completed i t s responsibilities for a good part of the Geneva Agreement by July 31, 1956. What remained was responsibility for the supervision of Article 14c, "democratic freedoms"; Articles 1-9, the demili-tarized zone: and Articles 16-20, a ban on the introduction of fresh troops, military personnel, arms and munitions. Article 14c. Of these responsibilities, Article 14c rapidly became, for a l l practical purposes, a dead letter. Perhaps i t was inevitable that i t should be so, for outside interference i n a government's treatment of i t s own citizens i s something that few governments would be prepared to tolerate for long. The question never became an issue i n the Horth simply because a close and effective control over the population once the Government's authority had been established prevented anyone approaching the Commission with complaints. On the other hand the Commission was bombarded with complaints from the North about the treatment i t s supporters were receiving i n the South. For a time the Commission's teams were able to investigate these complaints, but the Saigon Government eventually refused to permit them to do so any longer. On April 11, 1957 the ICC informed the co-chairmen that the GRVN had decided "not to give any more replies to the complaints /under Article 14c7 and not to permit investigations of such complaints through the machinery of Mobile Teams .... The Commission i s therefore no longer able to supervise the imposition of this Article by the Government of the Republic of Vietnam....""''^ The Government of the RVN did i n fact relent so far as replying - 92 -to the Commission's l e t t e r s was concerned, but they never again allowed a mobile team i n v e s t i g a t i o n . The Commission's a c t i v i t y i n r e l a t i o n to t h i s a r t i c l e there-fore consisted thereafter i n re l a y i n g the complaints of the PAVN L i a i s o n Mission to the RVN, and sending the RVN's rep l y back to the L i a i s o n Mission. The standard r e p l y to the Commission's enquiries under A r t i c l e 14c was that the people concerned were under arr e s t not because of a c t i v i t i e s p r i o r to the cessation o f h o s t i l i t i e s , but because of i l l e g a l a c t i v i t i e s since the Cease F i r e . The RVN's attitude toward the ICC was not enhanced by the f a c t that the Commission was d i l i g e n t i n enquiring about alleged v i o l a t i o n s of A r t i c l e 14c, while i t continued to defer consideration of complaints about the kind of a c t i v i -t i e s that had l e d to the arres t s i n the f i r s t place. Ban on the introduction of fr e s h troops and m i l i t a r y supplies. The Commission did i t s best to discharge i t s r e s p o n s i b i l i t i e s under t h i s chapter of the Geneva Agreement, with more success i n the South than i n the North. In the South a War Materials Register was established, and c r e d i t s were regi s t e r e d f o r a l l war m a t e r i a l used up, destroyed or exported. Imports were checked against the r e g i s t e r , and i f there was no c r e d i t f o r the equipment con-cerned, the Government was ordered to export i t again. In general, i n the e a r l y years the Americans d i d attempt to l i v e within the terms of the Geneva Agreement, although c e r t a i n l y they did t r y to st r e t c h the terms of the Agreement as f a r as pos s i b l e . "Theyembarrassed the Canadians from time t o time by some of the pro-posals they thought up to strengthen the Vietnamese without t e c h n i c a l l y v i o l a t i n g the terms, but there i s no doubt that t h e i r record was r e s p e c t a b l e " . 1 1 In the North, the Government never reported the import of war mate r i a l , and the Commission was never able to catch them i n the act, although i n l a t e r years the DRVN d i d not even trouble to hide modern arms or equipment of foreign make once they had been imported. The teams were able to move only a f t e r n o t i c e , - 93 -and there were many occasions when they were not permitted to leave the team-s i t e s f o r days at a time. As the s i t u a t i o n south of the seventeenth p a r a l l e l deteriorated, the Americans began to press harder against the r e s t r i c t i o n s i n the Geneva Agree-ment. For as long as possible the Commission (or at l e a s t the Canadian-Indian majority on the Commission) accommodated the build-up of personnel within the l i m i t s established by the number of combined French and American i n s t r u c t o r s i n 12 Vietnam i n 1954> but f i n a l l y the Americans intervened on a scale that exceeded the l i m i t s allowed, and a l l three members of the Commission found that t h i s 13 in t e r v e n t i o n was i n contravention of the Geneva Agreement, although the Canadian and Indian members found that these h o s t i l e a c t i v i t i e s i n the South against the RVN had been i n c i t e d , encouraged and supported from the North. 1^ John Holms has said of t h i s aspect of the Commission's a c t i v i t i e s : "... i n the North the ICC was unable to observe v i o -l a t i o n s of the arms con t r o l s t i p u l a t i o n but never able to maintain adequate inspection to be assured that no v i o l a t i o n s were taking place. In the South the struggle was with the i n d i f f e r e n c e and reluctance of the a u t h o r i t i e s and the pe r s i s t e n t e f f o r t of the Ameri-cans to press the terms of the Agreement f a r t h e r than they could properly be stretched. The v i o l a t i o n s i n the South were, needless to say, observable, and the at t i t u d e of the Americans was negative but decent. The Commission was i n a p o s i t i o n to prove Southern but not Northern v i o l a t i o n s . The Southerners and Ameri-cans i n e v i t a b l y complained and i n c r e a s i n g l y i n s i s t e d that the known i f not proved disregard of the arms co n t r o l provisions by the Communists not only j u s t i f i e d but made e s s e n t i a l t h e i r doing l i k e w i s e . " Subversion. From 1959 to 1962 the most d i f f i c u l t problem that the Commission faced was what came to be known within the ICC as the subversion is s u e . When i t became evident that the elections c a l l e d f o r i n the Geneva Agreement would not take place, the RVN began to experience widespread challenges to i t s authority throughout Vietnam. These challenges were p a r t i c u l a r l y serious when they took the form of assassination of government o f f i c i a l s , teachers and welfare workers. The pattern began to emerge in 1957, and by 1961 there were 4,000 assassinations a year. Those who had watched the experience of the French i n Vietnam began to see a similar sequence of events developing again.^ Contact between the v i l l -ages and the Government was broken, too many good men were lost, and too many others discouraged from supporting or serving the government. In Vietnam, the DRVN claimed that these troubles were a manifestation of opposition to the Gov-ernment i n the South, and that this opposition was completely independent of any direction or encouragement from outside. The RVN on the other hand claimed that irregular forces had been l e f t behind and had not been repatriated north of the seventeenth parallel after the Cease Fire with the deliberate intention of siezing power later on. Both the French and later the RVN called the ICC's attention to evidence that i t had found supporting this contention, particularly evidence of arms and munitions that had been hidden after the Cease Fire. In the United States the question who was responsible for the war in the South was of academic interest u n t i l the increasing cost of the war to the American people and the wide exposure of the war on TV screens across the nation made the Vietnamese war the overriding and passionate issue of the 60*s. In looking for the origins of the war, both sides espoused the theory that would give their own argument the greater moral advantage. The hawks saw the matter entirely as an insurgency directed from outside the RVN, the doves were equally convinced that the only explanation was to be found i n spontaneous opposition to the oppressive regime of Diem and his American supporters. The question was undoubtedly muddied by the American (perhaps we should say North American) tendency to see a l l good on the side you are supporting, and a l l e v i l in your opponents. Since neither side has been above manufacturing evidence to support i t s own case, and since a l l the evidence i s not in any event available, definite conclusions are not possible. But enough evidence i s available to support the conclusion that both sides are - 95 -p a r t i a l l y right and partially wrong. There was strong and vigorous opposition to the Government i n the South, and the policies of the Government increasingly alienated the population, but the seriousness of the threat and ultimately the success of the opposition was undoubtedly dependent on outside encouragement and support - there i s plenty of evidence that that encouragement and support existed. 17 The Pentagon Papers give a frank and persuasive assessment. It i s long and involved, but the following quotations give a f a i r summary of the report's conclusions on this question. "The primary question concerning Hanoi's role in the origins of the insurgency i s not so much whether i t played a role or not - the evidence of direct North Vietnamese participation...is now extensive - but when Hanoi intervened i n a systematic way. Most attacks on US policy have been based on the proposi-tion that the DRV move on the South came with mani-fest reluctance and after massive US intervention i n 1961 so much of this argument as rests on the existence of genuine rebellion i s probably valid. .... Moreover there were indications that some DRV Leaders did attempt to hold back southern rebels on the grounds that "conditions" were not ripe for an uprising. Further, there was apparently division within the Lao Dong Party hierarchy over the question of strategy and tactics in South Vietnam. However, the evidence indicates that the principal strategic debate over this issue took place between 1956 and 1958j a l l information now available (Spring 1968) points to a decision taken by DRV leaders not later than Spring, 1959. actively to seek the overthrow of Diem. Thereafter the DRV pressed toward that goal by military force and subversive aggression, both in Laos and South Vietnam."^ "The evidence supports the conclusions, therefore, that whether or not the rebellion against Diem i n South Vietnam proceeded independently of, or even contrary to directives from Hanoi through 1958, Hanoi moved thereafter to capture the revolution. There i s l i t t l e doubt that Hanoi exerted some influence over certain insurgents i n the South throughout the years following Geneva, and there i s evidence which points to i t s preparing for active support of large-scale insurgency as early as 1958 in early 1959 ... the DRV ... undertook to provide strategic direc-tion and leadership cadres to build systematically a base system in Laos and South Vietnam for subsequent, large-scale guerrilla warfare. Persuasive evidence exists that by i960 DRV support of the insurgency in - 96 -i n South Vietnam included material as well as per-sonnel." ' The French became disturbed about continued subversive activity i n the southern sector soon after the Cease Fire came into effect. In mid December of 1954 the accusation was made during a debate in the French National Assembly that i t was "common knowledge" that demobilized Vietminh were really men destined to form a Vietminh administration in South Vietnam. The French complained of activities of Vietminh assassination squads and the presence of Vietminh arms caches. "The 20 Commission did l i t t l e more than subject them to perfunctory examination." Both the French and the Vietminh had made use of guerrillas during the course of the war. The French had made an unsuccessful attempt at Geneva to include in the Agreements a specific provision calling for the disarming of army irregulars who were not regrouped. "... whether the units or personnel were "regulars" or "irregulars" ... did not matter; the maintenance of a military structure by one High Command in the other's zone would constitute a violation 21 of the Agreement in either event." "According to evidence later put before the Comm-ission - convincing evidence so far as the Canadian Government was concerned - the DRVN authorities did not confine themselves to leaving behind p o l i t i c a l activists and other sympathizers in South Vietnam; evidence also indicated that the DRVN authorities also l e f t military personnel behind, not demobilized guerrillas who would be returning to c i v i l i a n pursuits, but trained military cadres who remained i n contact with Hanoi and whose task i t was to continue hostile activities against the Government of South Vietnam and that these authorities, through personnel in South Vietnam who were responsive to Hanoi, directly inter-fered in the adminstration of the southern zone - a l l violations of the Cease Fire Agreement." An account of how the RVN's complaints about subversion fared i n the Commission has already been given i n Capter V. Finally the increasingly serious situation in South Vietnam forced the Indian Delegation to consider the whole question, at the same time that their deteriorating relations with China made them - 97 -w i l l i n g to take a d e c i s i o n that would c e r t a i n l y be b i t t e r l y resented by the DRVN and by i t s friends and supporters. The issue that f i n a l l y convinced the Indian Delegation that i t had to act was the p u b l i c outcry over the kidnap and murder of C o l . Hoang Thuy Nam, the Chief of the Vietnamese Mission i n charge of r e l a t i o n s with the International Commission. The RVN alleged that the a u t h o r i t i e s i n the North were implicated 23 i n h i s capture and murder. The complicity of the North has never been proved i n t h i s case, (indeed i t seems on the face of i t u n l i k e l y that they would have been responsible,) but the impatience of the South Vietnamese with the Commission's d i l a t o r i n e s s i n dealing with t h e i r complaints f i n a l l y overflowed. For a while Indians and Poles on the Commission were i n some personal danger - t h e i r cars were surrounded and attacked and r i o t s reminiscent of the J u l y 1955 attack on the Majestic Hotel took place. In November, 1961, the Commission met to consider the a l l e g a t i o n s of the RVN, and evidence was sent to the Legal Committee f o r examination - not to see i f the a l l e g a t i o n s were warranted, but i f they a t t r a c t e d pi any provision of the Geneva Agreement. The Legal Committee reported ( P o l i s h Member dissenting) that i t had examined the complaints, and concluded that A r t i c l e s 10, 19, 24 and 27 of the 25 Geneva Agreement would f o r b i d the kind of behaviour complained o f . I t went be-yond t h i s narrow i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of i t s i n s t r u c t i o n s , however, and examined the mass of evidence that the RVN had presented to substantiate i t s claim that the i n s u r r e c t i o n i n the South was being supported from the North. I t concluded that i n s p e c i f i c instances there was evidence to show "that armed and unarmed personnel, arms, munitions and other supplies have been sent from the zone i n the North to the zone i n the South with the object of supporting, organizing and carrying out h o s t i l e a c t i v i t i e s , i n c l u d i n g armed attacks d i r e c t e d against the Armed Forces and 26 Administration of the zone i n the South." The Commission accepted the con-clusions reached by the Legal Committee (the P o l i s h Delegation dissented.) - 98 -The Special Report of June 2, 1962 represented the high water mark of the activities of the ICC in Vietnam. The Legal Committee report had prom-ised to provide "in due course a f u l l report setting out in detail the complaints made by the South Vietnamese Mission, the evidence forwarded in relation to these 27 complaints, and our specific observations thereon", but in spite of continual efforts by the Canadian Delegation to get the Legal Committee to act'on this question, i t never did. The eleventh Interim Report of the ICC in Vietnam cover-28 ing the period February 1, I960 to February 28, 1961 and submitted on September 18, 1961 was the last regular report that the Commission ever made. On February 12, 1965, the North Vietnamese authorities demanded the withdrawal of the Comm-ission's teams. The DRVN asserted that i t was no longer able to guarantee the teams' security because of US air strikes. In the late sixties, restrictions on the movements of teams in the South practically eliminated their activities there too. The Commission came to l i f e briefly on February 13, 1965 when i t 29 -.. sent a further special report to the co-chairmen drawing the co-chairmen's attention to the amount of US aid to the RVN and to the fact that 30 "military action had been taken against military installations in the DRVN". The report went on to state "These documents point to the seriousness of the 31 situation and indicate violations of the Geneva Agreement." The Canadian Dele-gation, while agreeing that a report should be made to the co-chairmen, dissented from the terms of the majority report and submitted a minority statement. The Canadian Delegation thought that the majority report gave "a distorted picture 32 of the nature of the problem in Vietnam and its underlying causes" and went on to note that the South Vietnam Mission had "brought to the Commission's attention mounting evidence to show that the Government of North Vietnam has expanded its aggressive activities directed against the Government of South Vietnam and has infiltrated growing numbers of armed personnel and increasing amounts of military equipment into South Vietnam for the purpose of overthrowing the Government of - 99 -33 South Vietnam by forc e . " In the l a t e s i x t i e s , the war i n Vietnam continued to escalate i n scale and i n t e n s i t y , and the ICC seemed i n c r e a s i n g l y an anachronism. I t stayed on, l a r g e l y because i t might prove to be an instrument of mediation or because i t might have some u s e f u l function to f i l l i n the disengagement of troops when the war was f i n a l l y over. At l e a s t that was the Canadian Delegation's reason f o r remaining. The Canadians never aquiesced i n the state of somnolence that the Commission seemed to have f a l l e n into a f t e r 1965. "Canada from time to time sought to have the Commission f u l f i l l i t s t r a d i t i o n a l function, e.g. i n v e s t i g a t i n g and reporting on the s i t u a t i o n i n the d e m i l i t a r i z e d zone; but the other members did not agree with t h i s approach. Between 1964 and 1968, the Canadian Govern-ment which was p u b l i c l y putting forward peace proposals of i t s own, also t r i e d to i n t e r e s t the other governments on the Commission i n using the Commission as a ve h i c l e f o r "bringing the pa r t i e s c l o s e r together"; to t h i s i n i t i a t i v e the others' response was unenthusiastic." In 1964 and 1965 the Canadian Commissioner on seve r a l occasions c a r r i e d messages to the DRVN from the US Government while i n the course of o f f i c i a l v i s i t s to Hanoi. Five messages were c a r r i e d i n a l l , and on three occasions a r e p l y was brought back from the DRVN. Separately, i n 1966, the Canadian Government sent Chester Ronning, a r e t i r e d diplomat and Far Eastern s p e c i a l i s t , to Hanoi as a s p e c i a l representative. "Mr. Ronning's mission, which took him twice to North Vietnam, was c a r r i e d out with the knowledge and approval of the US Government and brought an o f f e r of Canada's good o f f i c e s as a means of i n i t i a t i n g d i r e c t peace t a l k s . There was no thought of mediation. The in t e n t i o n was merely to s t a r t a dialogue between the contending sides. Although that l a t e r happened, t h i s 35 1966 Canadian e f f o r t came to naught." The Commission i n Vietnam came to an unhappy and un d i g n i f i e d end. In 1972, India r a i s e d i t s diplomatic representation i n North Vietnam from a consulate to an embassy, leaving i t s representation i n Saigon at the consular l e v e l . The - 100 -move mortally offended the South Vietnamese Government, which i n s t r u c t e d the Indiana to leave. The Commission transferred i t s headquarters back to Hanoi, where i t was not to remain f o r long. In March, 1973 the o l d International Control Commiss-i o n , composed of Canada, India and Poland was replaced by a new International Commission f o r Control and Supervision, composed of Poland, Hungary, Indonesia, and, f o r a while, Canada. - 101 -CHAPTER VI FOOTNOTES. 1. J . Holmes, "Geneva, 1954", International Journal, V o l . XXII, No. 3, P. 480 2. i b i d . , p. 481 3. Wainhouse, op. c i t . , p. 289. 4. Dagg, op. c i t . , p. 4/18 5. i b i d . , pp. B9-12 6. i b i d . , p. B/56 7. i b i d . , p. 6/38 8. i b i d . , p. 4/18 9. See Eleventh Interim Report, Cmnd 1551, 1961, p. 7 para. 8 f o r a p a r t i a l and incomplete account. 10. Cmnd. 2834, Misc. No. 25 (1965) Documents r e l a t i n g to B r i t i s h involvement i n the Indo-Chinese C o n f l i c t , p. 128 11. J . Holmes, op. c i t . , p. 475 12. See Tenth Interim Report, Cmnd. 1040, para. 47 and Eleventh Interim Report, Cmnd. 1551, para. 50 13. Special Report to the co-chairmen, June 2, 1962, Cmnd. 1755 para. 20 14. i b i d . , para. 9(3) 15. John Holmes, "Techniques of Peacekeeping i n Asia", i n A l a s t a i r Buchan, ed. China and the Peace of Asia, p. 245 16. • B. F a l l , op. c i t . , p. 360 17. Pentagon Papers, Gravel E d i t i o n , V o l. 1, pp. 242-346 18. i b i d . , p. 260 19. i b i d . , p. 265 20. Dagg. op. c i t . , p. F/26 21. i b i d . , p. F/6 22. i b i d . , p. F/23 23. Cmnd. 1755, para. 8 24. i b i d . , 25. i b i d . , p. 6 26. i b i d . , p. 7 27. i b i d . , 28. Cmnd. 1551 29. Cmnd. 2609 30. i b i d . , p. 4 31. i b i d . , 32. i b i d . , p. 12 33. i b i d . , p. 13-14 34. Paul B r i d l e , "Canada and the International Control Commission i n Indochina, 1954-72", i n C o n f l i c t and S t a b i l i t y i n Southeast A s i a . M.W. Zacher and R.S. Milne, ed., p. 432 35. i b i d . , p. 433 - 102 -CHAPTER VII. THE INTERNATIONAL CONTROL COMMISSION AS A PEACEKEEPING OPERATION. Peacekeeping has been defined as "an i n t e r n a t i o n a l device that came i n t o use a f t e r World War 1 to denote i n t e r n a t i o n a l action to deter, discourage, prevent or terminate threatened or ac t u a l h o s t i l i t i e s " . 1 The d i s t i n c t i o n i s often drawn between "peace observation" and "peacekeeping", the l a t t e r being des-cribed as "a form of c o l l e c t i v e action by which a considerable m i l i t a r y force i s 2 used to bring about a cessation of h o s t i l i t i e s " . I f Korea, the Congo and Cyprus are examples of "peacekeeping", then Kashmir, Indonesia, UNEF and the ICC i n Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia are c l e a r l y examples of "peace observation". The d i s t i n c t i o n i s not often maintained i n casual speech, and w i l l not be i n the course of t h i s chapter, but i t i s nonetheless a u s e f u l d i s t i n c t i o n . More than a question of semantics i s involved here, f o r "peacekeeping" has a f i n e p o s i t i v e r i n g to i s that i s lacking i n "peace observation", and undoubtedly the widespread use of the former term has l e d to u n r e a l i s t i c expectations, p a r t i c u l a r l y of course i n the case of the Indochina Commissions. The deployment of a large m i l i t a r y force to bring about a cessation of h o s t i l i t i e s has been used only three times i n the e n t i r e h i s t o r y of i n t e r n a t i o n a l action to prevent wars, and the enormous costs involved would alone be enough to ensure that t h i s method w i l l not be the one u s u a l l y chosen. Peace observation i s not a new phenomenon - about t h i r t y disputes were dealt with under the League of Nations from 1920 to 1940. They u s u a l l y involved disputed claims a r i s i n g out of the break up of the Austrian-Hungarian and Russian Empires and were therefore i n Europe. In most cases only Europeans, including - 103 -always at l e a s t one o f the Great Powers, served as members of the League's i n v e s t i g a t i v e Commissions. Japan and the USA were on occasion represented, and two Canadians succeeded each other as members of the Governing Commission of the Saar. But the Saar Commission was the only one on which Canadians served. Canadian lack of i n t e r e s t i n peace observation, i n marked contrast to the events a f t e r World War 11, was of course symptomatic of Canadian lack of i n t e r e s t gen-e r a l l y i n i n t e r n a t i o n a l ' o b l i g a t i o n s , and r e f l e c t e d Canada's conviction that she l i v e d " i n a f i r e proof house f a r from inflammable- materials. A f t e r the second World War had swept away the comfortable convictions that Senator Dandurand expressed so eloquently, Canadian attitudes to involvement i n m u l t i-national e f f o r t s at keeping the peace changed r a d i c a l l y . "For Canadians t h i s art and science has become of s p e c i a l i n t e r e s t because we have been involved i n i t more than almost any other country, and i t has, i n f a c t , been incorporated 3 i n t o our image of our r o l e i n the world." Canadians have served on nearly every United Nations force, and, outside the United Nations, on the International Control Commission i n Indochina. P a r t i c i p a t i o n i n the Indochina Commissions came e a r l y i n the Canadian experience with peacekeeping operations, and has gone on f o r longer than any other. Before 1 9 5 4 Canadians had served on the UN m i l i t a r y observer Group i n India and Pakistan (Kashmir), Canadian troops had fought i n Korea, and from February, 1 9 5 4 Canadians had served on the UN Truce Supervisory Organization i n P a l e s t i n e . Canadian experience on UN bodies has therefore l a r g e l y developed side by side with experience i n Indochina, and the contrast between the two kinds of operations has often been p a i n f u l . The apparent i m p a r t i a l i t y of Canadian p o l i c y on UN groups has contrasted unfavourably with the advocacy of one side's p o s i t i o n that Canadians have had to assume i n Indochina. Widespread public approval within Canada f o r our r o l e i n UN missions has not been echoed f o r our r o l e i n Indochina, where Canadians have often seemed advocates of the unpopular side i n an unpopular - 104 -war. Above a l l , the apparent success of many UN missions has made the Indo-china Commissions seem more i n e f f e c t u a l than perhaps they deserve to do. Perhaps a c l e a r e r idea of how the Indochina Commissions i n general and the Vietnam Commission i n p a r t i c u l a r compare to other methods of keeping the peace can be gained i f we examine a representative sample of UN operations. United Nations Special Committee on the Balkans (UNSCOB) UNSCOB was created by General Assembly Resolution of October 1, 1947, to enquire into alleged border v i o l a t i o n s along the f r o n t i e r between Greece on the one hand and Albania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia on the other, and to use i t s good o f f i c e s to s e t t l e disputed matters. The Secretary General was to supply s t a f f f o r the Committee and to "enter i n t o a standing arrangement with each of the ' four Governments concerned to assure ... f u l l freedom of movement and a l l necessary f a c i l i t i e s f o r the performance of i t s functions."'* The Commission of Investigation set up by the Committee consisted of eleven delegates, from A u s t r a l i a , B r a z i l , China, France, Mexico, the Netherlands, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, the United States, Poland and the USSR. A subsidiary group was established at Salonika to investigate alleged border v i o l a t i o n s . Albania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia refused to co-operate with the group, and the Soviet Union also refused t o co-operate decl a r i n g that the establishment of the group went beyond the terms of the Security Council r e s o l u t i o n . On the spot i n v e s t i g a t i o n s were therefore r e s t r i c t e d to the Greek side of the border. Five observation posts were established on the border, each c o n s i s t i n g of four observers from the delegations with s i x a u x i l i a r y personnel from the S e c r e t a r i a t . A l l delegations were therefore not represented at each observation post. The groups were l e n t mobile and radio equipment, a i r c r a f t and crews, radio operators, mechanics and i n t e r p r e t e r s by the various delegations, p r i n c i p a l l y by the US, and by the UN S e c r e t a r i a t . The Commission conducted on the spot i n v e s t i g a t i o n s , interrogated wit-nesses and monitored radio broadcasts. The Commission i n i t s report concluded - 105 -that Greece's three northern neighbours had "encouraged, a s s i s t e d , trained and supplied the Greek g u e r r i l l a s i n t h e i r armed a c t i v i t i e s against the Greek Gov-ernment,"^ and made c e r t a i n proposals. The P o l i s h and Soviet Delegations objected to the conclusions and the proposals. On December 7, 1951, UNSCOB was di s s o l v e d . The p o l i t i c a l s i t u a t i o n i n Greece had been s t a b i l i z e d , and threats from g u e r r i l l a a c t i v i t i e s had almost d i s -appeared. Although these f a c t o r s were the most important, the UN operation undoubtedly made an appreciable contribution. Pal e s t i n e . The United Nations Truce Supervisory Organization (UNTSO) The United Nations became involved i n Palestine a f t e r A p r i l , 1947 when the B r i t i s h gave notice of t h e i r i n t e n t i o n to surrender t h e i r mandate over P a l e s t i n e . The problem has been continuously before the Organization since that time. There have been more than ten UN Committees, groups or authorized i n d i v i d u a l s with some r e s p o n s i b i l i t y f o r peace observation and f a c t f i n d i n g . Of these the most import-ant have been UNTSO and the UN Emergency Force (UNEF). A Security Council Resol-u t i o n of November 16, 1948 c a l l e d on both p a r t i e s to seek agreement with a view to an immediate armistice. Negotiations were conducted under the chairmanship of a UN mediator, and resulted i n four separate armistice agreements - with Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and S y r i a . Each agreement provided f o r a Mixed Armistice Commission (MAC) to supervise the t r u c e . The Commissions consisted of an equal number of members chosen by each side, with a chairman designated by the Chief of S t a f f of UNTSO. UNTSO, although i t had been r e c r u i t e d o r i g i n a l l y f o r the e a r l i e r Truce Commission, continued to e x i s t a f t e r the armistice. I t furnished the personnel and services needed to observe and maintain the Cease F i r e and to perform the functions assigned by the Mixed Armistice Agreements. O r i g i n a l l y personnel f o r UNTSO was provided by Belgium, the US and France, but a f t e r 1953 membership was expanded to include o f f i c e r s from Denmark, Sweden, Canada, New Zealand and other countries. - 106 -As time went on, i t became established that the j u r i s d i c t i o n of the MAC's was confined to the consideration o f v i o l a t i o n s of the Armistice Agreements that had already taken place and had been brought to the MAC's by one of the pa r t i e s , and UNTSO's functions were l i m i t e d to providing personnel and services to the MAC's. The MAC's were not of uniform ef f e c t i v e n e s s . When the boundaries were c l e a r l y delimited and followed formerly w e l l recognized boundaries, (eg. that between I s r a e l and Syria and Jordan,) there were not many i n c i d e n t s . In the case of the Syrian f r o n t i e r , the i n s t a b i l i t y of the Syrian Government and the b i t t e r -ness that divided the two countries ensured however that what v i o l a t i o n s occurred would be serious ones. On the Jordanian and Egyptian f r o n t i e r s there were " l i t e r a l l y thousands of i n c i d e n t s . " "The vast number of border incidents arose more from the a r t i f i c i a l nature of the boundary than from p o l i t i c a l tensions. The boundary l i n e frequently divided v i l l a g e s from the f i e l d s which supported t h e i r populations, from t h e i r sources of water, and even from t h e i r cemet<gries. There 7 had never been an i n t e r n a t i o n a l boundary l i n e i n t h i s area." The Security Council r e s o l u t i o n of August 11, 1949, noted that "the several Armistice Agreements ... provide f o r t h e i r supervision by the Parties them-selves, r e l i e s upon the Parties to ensure the continued a p p l i c a t i o n and observance of these agreements." The machinery of the MAC's and of UNTSO proved inadequate to deal with the s i t u a t i o n . Increasing b i t t e r n e s s and tension and an increasing number of border v i o l a t i o n s f i n a l l y r e s u l t e d i n the I s r a e l i invasion of Egypt on October 29, 1956. The I s r a e l i attack came as a complete surprise to UNTSO. The I s r a e l -Egypt MAC had had no advance warning of I s r a e l i m o b i l i z a t i o n , even i n an area where observers were stationed. The I s r a e l i attack was followed by combined B r i t i s h and French attacks on the Suez Canal. When the United Kingdom and France vetoed a Security Council r e s o l u t i o n c a l l i n g on I s r a e l to withdraw i t s forces from • - 107 -Egypt, the s e c u r i t y Council c a l l e d an emergency session of the General Assembly to deal with the problem. The U.N. Emergency Force. From t h i s emergency session of the General Assembly came the d e c i s i o n to place a U.N. force i n the area between the I s r a e l i and Egyptian f o r c e s . That force was made up of contingents from UN member states "other than permanent members of the Security Council." The f i r s t UNEF forces were a i r l i f t e d to Egypt on November 15, and by March 8, 1 9 5 7 the l a s t of the I s r a e l i , E nglish and French troops had withdrawn. The composition of an objective group, even leaving out permanent mem-bers of the Security Council, was by no., means an easy task. In an aide memoire of January 23, 1 9 5 7 , the I s r a e l i Prime M i n i s t e r had declared that on no account would I s r a e l agree "to the s t a t i o n i n g of a foreign force, no matter how c a l l e d , i n 9 her t e r r i t o r y , or i n any of the areas occupied by her." Egypt was w i l l i n g to allow the s t a t i o n i n g of UN troops i n her t e r r i t o r y , and so UNEF was able to operate only.on the Egyptian side of the l i n e . Egypt now began to r a i s e d i f f i c u l t i e s about Canadian troops forming part of that force, p a r t i c u l a r l y since the regiment perhaps unfortunately selected was named the Queen's Own R i f l e s . The Canadian Government's proposal f o r a UN force f o r Suez had not met with unanimous approval at home. There were many who believed that Canada should have followed A u s t r a l i a and New Zealand i n supporting the B r i t i s h at the UN. An Egyptian rebuff now on the question of Canadian troops would have been extremely embarrassing. In the end the Egyptians were persuaded to accept a Canadian con-t r i b u t i o n i n the form of administrative and supporting troops."^ The Secretary General obtained the consent of the Egyptian Government to s t a t i o n the UN force i n Egypt. That such consent was necessary seems to have been generally accepted. "The keystone of the theory of n e u t r a l p o l i c i n g opera-t i o n s i s the p r i n c i p l e of consent. Without consent the operation, by d e f i n i t i o n , - 108 -would be coercive: thus, f o r the General Assembly at l e a s t , both i l l e g a l and p o l i t i c a l l y unwise: i l l e g a l because the Assembly has no authority to coerce; p o l i t i c a l l y unwise because i t would r i s k i n c i t i n g opposition by a Great Power."1"'" The General Assembly i n t e n t i o n to make UNEF completely independent of the Great Powers proved impossible to obtain. Both the US and B r i t a i n have on occasion provided l o g i s t i c support f o r the f o r c e . The employment of a large number of troops to separate the two sides secured the success of UNEF, compared to the f a i l u r e i n t h i s area of the I s r a e l i -Egyptian MAC and UN observers. Focussing i n t e r n a t i o n a l attention on t h i s troubled area probably also did much to reduce the number of incidents a f t e r UNEF was i n place. " I t seems c e r t a i n the i n t e r n a t i o n a l concern f o r maintaining the armistice, and a willingness to take p o s i t i v e action i n connection with v i o l e n t breaches, 12 influenced a l l the countries i n the area to pursue more peaceful p o l i c i e s . " But although UNEF has been accounted one of the success s t o r i e s of UN p o l i c i n g operations, i t s contribution to peace i n the area was only temporary. No progress was made i n obtaining a l a s t i n g settlement, i n f a c t perhaps progress was not p o s s i b l e . I t might even be said that peace observation forces, i n t e r -vening before a f i n a l m i l i t a r y s o l u t i o n i s reached, may even prevent the e s t a b l i s h -ment of a l a s t i n g peace. As General Burns has remarked, "... the UN has obliged the Arabs and the I s r a e l i s to stop t h e i r war, but i t cannot oblige them to make peace. Usually peace i s made when one side has won such v i c t o r i e s i n the war that i t s opponent sees that i t would be better to agree to the v i c t o r ' s terms rather than continue, and f i n d i t s e l f i n worse p l i g h t . Or both sides become so exhausted or t i r e d of the armed c o n f l i c t that they p r e f e r compromise or a negotiated peace to continued f i g h t i n g . Neither of these conditions obtained when the UN succeeded i n stopping the f i g h t i n g i n Pal e s t i n e . Both sides claim that they could have defeated the other and have attained t h e i r objectives but f o r the interference of the United Nations." 1- 3 Throughout 1966 and 1967 incidents m u l t i p l i e d i n I s r a e l ' s other f r o n t i e r s , p a r t i c u l a r l y the Syrian f r o n t i e r . F i n a l l y I s r a e l i Prime M i n i s t e r Leon Eshkol - 109 -warned the Syrians that i f terrorism continued, "we s h a l l choose the time, the place, and the means to counter the aggression." As leader of the Arab bloc, Nasser responded by moving troops across the Suez Canal. On May 17, Nasser asked the Secretary General to withdraw UNEF from i t s positions along the I s r a e l i border. U Thant r e p l i e d that the UN force would leave i f the Egyptians asked i t to do so. On May 18 Nasser asked that the force be withdrawn from Egypt. The " s i x day war" followed soon a f t e r . Lebanon• In 1958, both Lebanon and Jordan accused the Government o f the United Arab Republic of i n t e r f e r i n g i n t h e i r domestic a f f a i r s . Both complaints were brought before the Security Council. The Government of Lebanon claimed that armed bands from S y r i a were i n f i l t r a t i n g Lebanon, and that the UAR was waging a v i o l e n t radio and press campaign against the Lebanese Government, c a l l i n g on the population to overthrow the established government. The Security Council adopted a r e s o l u t i o n , on June 10, c a l l i n g f o r the dispatch of an observer group to Lebanon. The f i r s t reconaissance by UN observers began two days a f t e r the Security Council r e s o l u t i o n was adopted. The observers were drawn from UN personnel already serving on UNTSO, and included a Canadian. By June 25, ninety f i v e observers, supplied by eleven UN members, were on duty. Roads and border zones were p a t r o l l e d , and permanent observation posts established, although the mountainous t e r r a i n i n the border regions made observation d i f f i c u l t . In i t s reports to the Security Council, UNOGIL stated that i t s p a t r o l s had reported s u b s t a n t i a l movements of armed men, but i t was not possible to say i f they had i n f i l t r a t e d from outside. "... there i s l i t t l e doubt, however, that the vast majority was i n any case composed of Lebanese." 1^ In the middle of J u l y tensions i n the area increased g r e a t l y with the overthrow of the Government of Iraq. US troops were landed i n Lebanon and B r i t i s h troops i n Jordan. - 110 -There continued to be a dif f e r e n c e of opinion between UNOGIL and the US concerning the extent of outside influence on events i n Lebanon. "The moun-tainous t e r r a i n i n which the group operated created problems i n spotting i n f i l -t r a t i o n . During the period when Lebanon was under French mandate, the French found i t d i f f i c u l t to f u l l y suppress the smuggling of arms by the Syrians who operated i n the same t e r r a i n notwithstanding the presence of thousands of armed French s o l d i e r s . In comparing the performance of UNOGIL with a handful of men, and that of the thousands of armed French s o l d i e r s , i t i s not s u r p r i s i n g that the 15 former was handicapped i n carrying out i t s mission." The s i t u a t i o n i n Lebanon was f i n a l l y resolved by President Chamoun deciding not to seek r e - e l e c t i o n . President Chamoun was the candidate of the C h r i s t i a n , pro-western f a c t i o n i n Lebanon, and i t was h i s decision to seek r e -e l e c t i o n contrary to the terms of the Lebanese c o n s t i t u t i o n , that had aroused the opposition of the Mohammedan, pro-Arab sections of the country. With the removal of t h i s problem the c r i s i s i n Lebanon evaporated. Yemen. In September, 1962, a republican r e v o l t overthrew the r o y a l government i n Yemen. The republicans were supported by President Nasser of the United Arab Republic, and Saudi Arabia sent a i d to the r o y a l i s t s . An agreement f o r a phased withdrawal of Egyptian troops i n exchange f o r a h a l t to Saudi Arabian aid to the r o y a l i s t s was secured a f t e r negotiations supervised by the US. The UN was to play a role i n observing and v e r i f y i n g the disengagement. On June 13th the advance party of the Observation Mission i n Yemen (UNYOM) under the command of Major General C a r l Van Horn of Sweden, ar r i v e d i n Yemen. The m i l i t a r y operation included a reconnaissance u n i t and an a i r u n i t , the former composed of 114 o f f i c e r s and men from the Yugoslav contingent i n UNEF, and the l a t t e r of f i f t y o f f i c e r s and men of the RCAF. UNYOM was to check and c e r t i f y the two pa r t i e s observance of the disengagement agreement, inc l u d i n g the - I l l -withdrawal of troops. UNYOM had more r e s t r i c t e d duties than UNTSO, UNMOGIP, UNEF or UNOC. It had no mediation or c o n c i l i a t i o n functions, but was r e s t r i c t e d to observing, c e r t i f y i n g and reporting. General Van Horne resigned two months a f t e r UNYOM began i t s work, p a r t l y i n protest against what he f e l t were inadequate terms of reference. The l i f e of the Observation Mission continued to be extended f o r two to three month periods, although i t s presence was unable to prevent a i d i n men and materials from outside reaching the antagonists. The Secretary General's report of March 3, 1964 stated that arms and ammunition i n appreciable amounts were reaching the r o y a l i s t s , and that UAR forces were active i n ground and a i r operations within Yemen. UNYOM was terminated on September 4, 1964. The Secretary General described the m i l i t a r y p o s i t i o n as "somewhat improved" i n h i s f i n a l report, although a substantial amount of f i g h t i n g was going on against r o y a l i s t strongholds i n North Yemen supported by the UAR a i r f o r c e . The Secretary General f e l t nonetheless that the threat to peace and s e c u r i t y had diminished during the Mission's existence "to a considerable extent because of i t s a c t i v i t i e s . " Just how e f f e c t i v e are peacekeeping a c t i v i t i e s , e i t h e r UN d i r e c t e d or under other auspices? From the examples r e l a t e d above, the r e s u l t s seem to be mixed, and success often seems to be r e l a t e d to factors outside of the c o n t r o l of the supervisory group. In the case of UNSCOB, f o r instance, the growing strength and s t a b i l i t y of the c e n t r a l government i n Greece was the main cause of the decrease i n the number of i n c i d e n t s . In the Middle East, neither UNTSO nor UNEF proved u l t i m a t e l y capable of bringing about a permanent peaceful settlement. UN e f f o r t s to prevent h o s t i l i t i e s were successful f o r a time, but the p a r t i e s were unable to make progress i n s e t t l i n g deep-seated d i f f e r e n c e s , and UNEF was f i n a l l y swept away when the war was renewed. Settlement of issues that disturb - 112 -the peace can only be undertaken by the p a r t i e s to the disagreement, and i f no progress i s made i n that d i r e c t i o n the peacekeeping force w i l l u l t i m a t e l y f a i l . Indeed there i s some question i f the establishment of a peacekeeping mission may not i n f a c t help to prevent the emergence of a more s e t t l e d s i t u a t i o n . "The very act of f r e e z i n g a dispute and of separating the protagonists i s l i k e l y to reduce the pressures on them to come to terms on a viable settlement.""^ I f the f a i l u r e of e f f o r t s to f i n d a peaceful s o l u t i o n to the problems of the Middle East should not be l a i d at the door of the United Nations nor a t t r i b u t e d to short-comings of i t s organs, UNTSO and UNEF, neither should continuing c o n f l i c t i n Vietnam be l a i d at the door of the International Control Commission. When the ultimate r e s p o n s i b i l i t y of the p a r t i e s to f i n d a s o l u t i o n i s granted, there remain c e r t a i n considerations that a f f e c t how h e l p f u l the peace-keeping mission can be i n any given s i t u a t i o n . The d i f f i c u l t i e s that affected the performance of the ICC have u s u a l l y been traced to the ICC's t r o i k a formation. But although the f a c t that the ICC contained within i t s e l f the c o n f l i c t s of the cold war c e r t a i n l y d i d a f f e c t the work of the Commission, many of i t s d i f f i c u l t i e s can be l a i d to circumstances that i t shared with other peacekeeping groups. The f i r s t requirement f o r e f f e c t i v e peacekeeping seems to be that the issues involved must not be those i n which a Great Power believes i t s own v i t a l i n t e r e s t s to be involved. I t i s of course the Great Powers' lack of willingness to submit t h e i r disputes to i n t e r n a t i o n a l a r b i t r a t i o n that has made the peace-keeping functions of the Security Council ( A r t i c l e s 39-50 of the Charter) such a dead l e t t e r . But the e f f e c t of Great Power involvement goes f u r t h e r than that, and where i t occurs i n t e r n a t i o n a l peacekeeping i s as a matter of p r a c t i c e not p o s s i b l e . The Congo, Indonesia, Kashmir, Yemen, Cyprus and the Middle East were only possible areas of e f f e c t i v e UN action because they were not areas where e i t h e r the USA or the Soviet Union were prepared to push t h e i r opposing i n t e r e s t s to a l o g i c a l conclusion. The Middle East must now of course be subtracted from - 113 -those n e u t r a l areas. The increasing Soviet support f o r the Arab powers has now counteracted US support f o r I s r a e l , and since the " s i x day war" there has 3b' been no UN presence on the border between Egypt and I s r a e l , The ICC i n Vietnam has of course attempted to keep the peace i n an area where two Great Powers have conceived t h e i r v i t a l i n t e r e s t s to be concerned. South Vietnam has been supported m i l i t a r i l y and economically by the US and North Vietnam by China and the USSR. I t should not be s u r p r i s i n g that the e f f o r t has been a f a i l u r e . A second requirement f o r e f f e c t i v e action seems to be that the super-v i s o r y group should not remain i n residence f o r too long. The e a r l i e r and eventually i n e f f e c t i v e UN operation i n Palesti n e , UNTSO, has many p a r a l l e l s with the ICC i n Vietnam. Both groups have been charged with the maintenance of an a r t i f i c i a l boundary, when both sides have been d i s s a t i s f i e d with the settlement. Both groups have remained to supervise an armistice that was recognized as a temporary arrangement long past the time when they could continue to do so e f f e c t -i v e l y . The conclusion has been drawn from the Palestine experience that " i f an armistice l a s t s too long without turning i n t o a peace, the prestige of the i n t e r -n a t i o n a l organization conducting the truce supervision erodes. The p a r t i e s show l e s s respect f o r the i n t e r n a t i o n a l authority and d e l i b e r a t e l y f l o u t the armistice. 17 Violence increases and u l t i m a t e l y the armistice breaks down." The observation could be made, word f o r word, about the truce i n Vietnam. In h i s report of September 16, 1948 to the Secretary General, Count Bernadotte observed: "There i s a period during which the p o t e n t i a l f o r con-s t r u c t i v e action, which flows from the f a c t that a truce has been achieved by i n t e r n a t i o n a l intervention, i s at a maximum. I f , however, there appears no prospect of r e l i e v i n g the e x i s t i n g tension by some arrangement which holds concrete promise of peace, the machinery of truce supervision w i l l i n time lose i t s effectiveness and become an object of cynicism. I f t h i s period ... i s not seized, the advantage gained by i n t e r n a t i o n a l intervention may well be l o s t . " - 114 -In Vietnam f i n a l settlement was provided f o r i n the Geneva Agreements; elec t i o n s were to take place i n July, 1956 which were to end the d i v i s i o n of the country. When the e l e c t i o n s did not take place, the ICC was l e f t i n place simply because no one could think of a bett e r arrangement. The prestige that the Com-mission had gained i n i t s u s e f u l a c t i v i t i e s during the f i r s t year or two gradually eroded, and i t was generally disregarded and treated with contempt, not only by the p a r t i e s , but by world opinion i n general. In order to carry out i t s duties e f f e c t i v e l y , a peacekeeping mission needs to be able to move about f r e e l y . A good deal of attention has been paid to the question whether or not a country i s required to receive a UN mission, and i f i t may decide at any time to c a l l f o r the withdrawal of the UN fo r c e . The l e g a l question hinges on how the p a r t i e s are bound by the UN Charter, and the answer seems to be that consent i s not necessary f o r a c t i o n taken by the Security Council, but that f o r operations under the d i r e c t i o n of the General Assembly consent i s 19 required. Where consent i s required i t may l o g i c a l l y be withdrawn at any time, and t h i s seems to be the majority opinion. U Thant defended h i s agreement to withdraw UNEF on the demand of Egypt i n May, 1967 on the grounds that UNEF could 20 remain only by defying the w i l l of i t s host by force or the threat of f o r c e . Canadians have generally been anxious to emphasize the ob l i g a t i o n s of countries accepting peacekeeping fo r c e s . The Canadian Government was very r e l u c -tant to concede i n 1967 that Egypt had the r i g h t to decide which countries would contribute forces to UNEF, and when President Nasser asked UNEF to leave Egypt i n 1967, Paul Martin, the Minist e r at the time, expressed the view that " i n giv i n g i t s consent to the establishment of the force the Egyptian Government accepted a l i m i t a t i o n of i t s sovereignty, and ... i t i s now the prerogative of the UN rather than of the UAR Government to determine when the UN force has com-21 pieted i t s task..." In the case of the ICC, the r i g h t of the Commission to be i n Vietnam - 115 -depended on the r e s t r i c t i o n s on t h e i r sovereignty which the p a r t i e s accepted when they signed the Cease F i r e Agreement. (South Vietnam of course never accepted these r e s t r i c t i o n s ) . S i m i l a r l y the r i g h t of the Commission to move about i n pursuit of i t s duties i n Vietnam rested upon the provisions of the CFA, which the Canadian Government has generally been anxious to i n t e r p r e t as broadly as po s s i b l e , and which the p a r t i e s on the other hand have sought to i n t e r p r e t as r e s t r i c t i v e l y as p o s s i b l e . This difference of opinion i s found to some extent i n a l l peace-keeping operations. For example, General Burns describes the s i t u a t i o n f o r UNEF as follows: "... both sides r e s t r i c t e d the observers' movements from time to time, e s p e c i a l l y when they thought that t h e i r " m i l i t a r y s e c u r i t y " would be prejudiced - that i s , when they had something to hide, e i t h e r offensive preparations or some i n f r a c t i o n of the terms of the GAA, such as having troops or defensive works i n zones where none should have been. In i t s resolutions the Security Council repeatedly requested the p a r t i e s to allow the observers f u l l freedom of movement, but these requests were disregarded when the next c r i t i c a l s i t u a t i o n arose."22 In h i s report of October 9, 1958 to the General Assembly, the Secretary General noted that "In Gaza and elsewhere i n i t s area of operations, UNEF has been able to function without any question a r i s i n g of i t s presence i n f r i n g i n g upon sovereign r i g h t s on the basis that at the i n v i t a t i o n of the Egyptian Government, i n accordance with the dec i s i o n of the General Assembly, the UN a s s i s t s i n maintaining 23 quiet...." The Secretary General warned that "some of the above mentioned c i r -cumstances are of such a nature that i t could not reasonably be expected that they would often be duplicated elsewhere. Nor can i t be assumed that they provide a s u f f i c i e n t basis to warrant indiscriminate p r o j e c t i o n of the UNEF experience....**' In Egypt the UN forces were confined to a r e l a t i v e l y narrow border area, and t h e i r duties were confined to preventing i n f i l t r a t i o n across the border or a renewal of h o s t i l i t i e s . In Vietnam the ICC teams were stationed i n many areas of North and South Vietnam, and t h e i r duties ranged from preventing the importation of war - 116 -material to protecting the "democratic freedoms" of the population. With such wide terms of reference and with such widely scattered bases i t i s no wonder that both North and South Vietnam sought to r e s t r i c t the teams' a c t i v i t i e s as much as possible and often considered those a c t i v i t i e s to be an infringement of t h e i r sovereignty. Even i n Jordan the Secretary General noted that "... the presence of a UN force has been regarded by the government as d i f f i c u l t to reconcile with i t s own exercise of f u l l sovereignty over the people and t e r r i t o r y of the country. " ^ Whatever the l e g a l basis may be f o r the presence and freedom of movement of a peacekeeping force within the host country, i n p r a c t i c a l terms the desire of the host Government cannot s a f e l y be ignored. Neither i n f a c t can the w i l l of those i n c o n t r o l of any one section of the country, even i f that authority i s not the l e g a l l y constituted government of that t e r r i t o r y . When the question of UN troops' r i g h t of entry i n t o Katanga province i n the Congo arose, Hammarskjold maintained both that Katanga had an o b l i g a t i o n to allow UN troops to enter, and that he could not d i r e c t troops to enforce t h e i r r i g h t of entry unless the 26 Security Council decided to do t h i s as an enforcement measure. The d i f f i c u l t i e s that can face a peacekeeping force t r y i n g to assert i t s r i g h t of movement i n a s i t u a t i o n of c i v i l war or disturbance within a country are obvious. During Canada's b r i e f service on the second Vietnam Commission i n 1973 (with Indonesia, Poland and Hungary) Canadians evi d e n t l y decided to assert t h e i r r i g h t of free movement, even when unaccompanied by other team members. The mem-bers of the Canadian p a t r o l were promptly seized and were beaten and i n other ways mistreated by NLF forces i n the area they were attempting to p a t r o l . One cannot help but suspect both that the NLF had immediately understood the s i g n i f i c a n c e of the Canadian move, and that the experiment would have been u n l i k e l y to have been repeated had Canada remained on the Commission. F i n a n c i a l support i s necessary i f a peacekeeping mission i s to do an - 117 -adequate job. Adequate f i n a n c i a l support has always been a problem i n the UN because some powers, notably the USSR and France, have c o n s i s t e n t l y refused to pay f o r operations that were not authorised by the Security Council. The w i l l i n g -ness of the US to make extra contributions and the a b i l i t y of the UN to continue running a d e f i c i t has disguised the problem f o r some time, but re c e n t l y bad debts have been catching up with the UN. The Observation Mission i n Yemen was financed by the p a r t i e s to the dispute who paid the costs of the operation f o r two months at a time. The l i f e of UNYOM a f t e r the end of each two month period was there-fore c o n d i t i o n a l on the p a r t i e s ' willingness to pay. The ICC has also suffered from lack of finances, and the problem has been much more serious. The ICC i s p a r t l y dependent on the f i n a n c i a l contribution of the p a r t i e s , p a r t l y on the contributions of the Geneva Powers. Lack of money f o r transport and equipment has severely l i m i t e d the Commission's e f f e c t i v e n e s s . Peacekeeping missions can work only within the terms of reference pro-vided. In the case of UN peacekeeping missions, the terms of reference are set by the General Assembly or the Security Council; i n the case of the ICC, the terms of reference were the Geneva Agreement of 1954. Where there i s general agreement among the d r a f t e r s of the terms of reference, then the mandate i s a cl e a r one and the task of the peacekeeping mission i s made very much ea s i e r . But there have been s i t u a t i o n s where c o n f l i c t i n g views have made the task of the UN a d i f f i c u l t one. Just how much of a s t r a i n t h i s can place on the organization i s described by a Canadian diplomat who served f o r a period i n the UN S e c r e t a r i a t . Referring to the UN operation i n the Congo, he said "Lacking s o l i d support ... the Secretary General was frequently i n a very d i f f i c u l t p o s i t i o n . The prolonged ordeal drained away the patience and diplomatic s k i l l of Secretariat o f f i c i a l s , the morale and support of member states, and the material resources and p o l i t i c a l 27 c r e d i t of the Organization." Paul Martin, d e l i v e r i n g an address on "Canada's Role i n UN Peacekeeping" at Columbia U n i v e r s i t y i n A p r i l , 1967, pointed to "... - 118 -the r i s k that inadequate terms of reference might do serious harm to the pres-t i g e of the UN and to i t s future e f f e c t i v e n e s s . " He said that "... the Canadian Government w i l l be found to give more searching examination to requests f o r assistance i f i t i s not s a t i s f i e d that the mandate provides s u f f i c i e n t guidance 28 f o r the conduct of the troops on the ground." Mr. Martin was probably thinking as much of the Canadian experience i n the ICC as he was of UN operations i n d e l i v e r i n g h i s warning. The ICC struggled f o r nineteen years under an inadequately drawn document. Inadequate t o begin with, i t r a p i d l y became out of date, because of course i t s provisions were o r i g i n a l l y intended to be applied only f o r two years, u n t i l e l e c t i o n s should re-unite the country. At l e a s t UN peacekeeping operations enjoy the advantage that terms of reference can be changed or redrafted as circumstances change or as the inadequacies of the o r i g i n a l terms became evident. But as John Holmes has remarked, "there i s bound to be improvisation i n c r i s e s . " In these circum-stances, " ... where world order t o t t e r s , b a t t l i n g armies and f l e e i n g refugees are l i g h t i n g flames which could spread anywhere, the important t h i n g i s to stop the f i g h t i n g by g e t t i n g some kind, almost any kind, of agreement. The only kind achievable, u s u a l l y , i s a procedural agreement. The most achievable form of procedural agreement i s to set up a body of any kind to investigate or p a t r o l , 29 even i f i t i s more symbolic than r e a l . " In conditions of c r i s i s , there i s an i n e v i t a b l e tendency " ... to fuzz the terms, even i n the awareness that t h i s w i l l cause trouble l a t e r . The l a t e r trouble, i t i s assumed, can be dealt with i n a 30 period of t r a n q u i l l i t y . " Canadians struggling with the inadequacies of a badly drafted document have seemed at times to believe that c l e a r l y drawn i n s t r u c t i o n s g i v i n g the ICC wide powers to investigate and p a t r o l would guarantee an e f f e c t i v e operation. But no document i s worth the paper i t i s written on i f i t does not r e a l i s t i c a l l y r e f l e c t the s i t u a t i o h that the peacekeeping force w i l l be meeting on the ground. During - 119 -the second conference on Laos at Geneva in 1961-2, a l l three factions of the Laotian Government were adamant in their insistence that investigations could only be undertaken with the consent of the Laotian Government, and the right wing faction under Phoumi was more restrictive i n what i t would permit the Commission to do than were the other two. The principle of Laotian Government sovereignty had to be accepted because there was no alternative, but also because i t was evident that i f the Government had wished to prevent any particular patrol from taking place i t had ample means at i t s disposal for preventing i t besides out-right refusal. Similarly in Vietnam a declaration that roads in the area were impassable, or that the security of the team could not be guaranteed, were quite sufficient to prevent team controls from taking place. It has been a generally accepted principle in peacekeeping operations under the United Nations that the delegations represented must be as nearly neutral as possible. Although the Great Powers were originally represented on peace-keeping bodies, since UNEF i t has been generally accepted that troops w i l l usually not be contributed by the permanent members of the Security Council. (One exception of course i s Cyprus where British troops have formed the largest contin-gent.) The importance of neutrality i f a group i s to be effective was noted by the Secretary General i n his survey study of the experience derived from the establishment and operation of UNEF: "... the force has functioned under a clear cut mandate which has entirely detached i t from involvement in any internal or local problem, and also has enabled i t to maintain i t s neutrality i n relation to international p o l i t i c a l issues. The fact that UNEF was designed to meet the ends of this specific situation largely determined i t s military components, geographical 31 composition, deployment and status, and also i t s effectiveness." UN forces have not however been completely independent of Great Power support. Particularly in UNEF and the Congo American l o g i s t i c support has been necessary. UN operations have taken place i n the face of opposition from the USSR, but i n view of UN depend-ence on American financial support, i t is unlikely that they could take place i f - 120 -they met with the disapproval of the USA. Canadians have tended to stress t h e i r n e u t r a l i t y and the d i s i n t e r e s t e d nature of t h e i r service on peacekeeping bodies, and they have often f e l t acutely uncomfortable at the partisan r o l e they have been forced to assume i n the ICC. But Canadian i m p a r t i a l i t y i s not a q u a l i t y that i s u n i v e r s a l l y taken f o r granted. Canada i s a m i l i t a r y a l l y of the USA, l a r g e l y dependent i n a nuclear world on American pr o t e c t i o n . Canada i s also a member of NATO - i n f a c t Canadians are proud of the f a c t that the idea of NATO was o r i g i n a l l y proposed by Prime Minister St. Laurent. The USSR raised objections when the Secretary General asked Canada to provide s i g n a l s personnel f o r the Congo, pointing out that Canada was a NATO partner of Belgium. Although Mr. Pearson had been perhaps the sing l e most important person i n proposing and organizing UNEF, Egyptian objections kept Canadian i n f a n t r y forces out of UNEF, and only with d i f f i c u l t y were they persuaded to accept a Canadian contribution i n administrative and supporting troops. General Burns has said that " I t appeared that the Egyptian a t t i t u d e towards c o n t r i -butions from the several countries was determined by her general p o l i t i c a l r e l a t i o n s with them and her opinion as to how f a r they supported her p o l i c i e s i n the United Nations."32 «... my impression ... that the r e a l reason Canadians were not desired was the fear that Canadian p o l i c y , while so f a r favourable to Egypt i n the General Assembly, might l a t e r veer to the "Western" i f not the B r i t i s h stand i n regard to the co n t r o l of the Canal."33 A l a s t a i r Taylor has pointed out that "Canada i s a part of the dead-locked forces of the r i v a l blocs, and there i s perhaps an element of wishful think-ing i n seeking to be at once a l o y a l member of the Western a l l i a n c e , and an un-•2 1 attached middle power with considerable freedom of ac t i o n . " I f Canada has not been so ne u t r a l a member of UN peacekeeping missions as she would l i k e to believe, neither has she been as automatic a supporter of the US i n South Vietnam as c r i t i c s of Canadian Government p o l i c y have believed, or as the US would have l i k e d her to be. Canada has always i n s i s t e d that v i o l a t i o n s - 121 -of the Geneva Agreement would not be condoned. This has contrasted with the P o l i s h a t t i t u d e towards v i o l a t i o n s of the Geneva Agreement by the DRVN. P o l i s h p o l i c y has been to support the DRVN i n every way possible and i n a l l circumstances, even when t h i s p o l i c y has l e d to ludicrous extremes. To c i t e one example that I know of, i n a c o n t r o l of Gia Lam a i r p o r t (near Hanoi) i n the spring of l°6l, Fixed Team Hanoi noticed helicopters with Russian markings parked on the landing f i e l d (North Vietnam was not allowed to have hel i c o p t e r s under the terms of the GA, because i t did not possess them before J u l y 21, 1954). When the team returned to base to write i t s report, the Indian chairman referred t o the h e l i c o p t e r s . j "Helicopters, h e l i c o p t e r s ? " s a i d the P o l i s h team member, "I saw no h e l i c o p t e r s . " An i n c r e a s i n g l y furious Indian chairman was unable to move the P o l i s h member from his stand, and the team report when i t went i n contained a Canadian-Indian majority report that h e l i c o p t e r s had been seen at Hanoi a i r p o r t , and a P o l i s h minority report that there were no h e l i c o p t e r s there. Americans, and South Vietnamese, often f e l t that t h i s kind of automatic P o l i s h support f o r North Vietnam, contrasted with Canadian e f f o r t s to be i m p a r t i a l , gave the DRVN an u n f a i r advantage. At the time of the 1962 Laos Conference there were rumours, rumours that were immediately believed i n the Department of External A f f a i r s , that the USA was looking around f o r a more r e l i a b l e a l l y to serve on the re-constituted Laos Commission i n place of the Canadians. When the record of UN peacekeeping a c t i v i t i e s i s read with the record of the ICC i n Vietnam, i t i s evident that peacekeeping as a whole involves enormous e f f o r t and expense i n r e l a t i o n to what can be accomplished. And i n comparing the effectiveness of the two kinds of operations, the ICC does not come o f f as badly as f i r s t impressions might suggest. Where the two sides are able to take advan-tage of the breathing space that i n t e r n a t i o n a l intervention provides i n order to compose differences and come to an understanding, then the peacekeeping mission has been described as a success. Where bitt e r n e s s and fundamental differences - 122 -have prevented a settlement, then the truce imposed by the i n t e r n a t i o n a l presence eventually breaks down and war breaks out again. The l a t t e r s i t u a t i o n has been the case i n Indochina, but i t has equally been the case i n other parts of the world, notably the Middle East, where the United Nations has intervened. - 123 -CHAPTER VII FOOTNOTES. 1. David W. Wainhouse et a l . , International Peace Observation, p. 2 2. i b i d . 3. Alastair Taylor et a l . , Peacekeeping: International Challenge and Canadian Response, p. v i i 4. The examples are drawn from Case Studies, in Wainhouse, op. c i t . 5. ibi d . , p. 225 6. ibi d . , p. 232 7. ibi d . , p. 264 8. S/1376 (p. 257) 9. quoted in ib i d . , p. 279 10. A f u l l account w i l l be found in ELM Burns, Between Arab and Isra e l i , pp. 11. Mona H. Gagnon, "Peace Forces and the Veto: The Relevance of Consent", International Organization. Vol. 21 No. 4, p. 819 12. Wainhouse, op. c i t . , p. 288 13. Burns, op. c i t . , p. 30 14. S/4040, pp. 8, 9 15. Wainhouse, op. c i t . , p. 384 16. Taylor, op. c i t . , p. 36 17. Wainhouse op. c i t . , p. 272 18. A/648, pt. 2. p. 26 19. Gagnon, op. c i t . , pp. 812-36 20. ibi d . , p. 824 21. House of Commons, Debates. May 18, 1967, p. 342 22. op. c i t . , p. 277 23. A/3943, Oct. 9, 1958, para. 150 24. ibi d . , para. 151 25. i b i d . 26. Gagnon, op. c i t . , p. 821 27. G.S. Murray, "U.N. Peacekeeping and Problems of P o l i t i c a l Control", International Journal. Vol. 18. p. 453 28. External Affairs, Vol. 19, June, 1967, p. 240 29. J. Holmes, "Geneva, 1954", International Journal, Vol. 22, p. 458 30. ib i d . , p. 459 31. A/3943, para. 149 32. Burns, op. c i t . , p. 235 33. ib i d . , p. 200 34. Taylor, op. c i t . , p. - 124 -CHAPTER VIII. CONCLUSIONS - THE CANADIAN EXPERIENCE. The message from the co-chairmen i n v i t i n g Canadian p a r t i c i p a t i o n i n the ICC's i n Indochina was received on J u l y 21, 1954. The Canadian re p l y was not sent u n t i l J u l y 27- The Canadian Government announced i t s acceptance of the i n v i t a t i o n "only a f t e r d e t a i l e d study of the Cease F i r e and Armistice Agreements ... and with f u l l knowledge and appreciation of the r e s p o n s i b i l i t i e s and d i f f i c u l t i e s that w i l l go with membership. There are no i l l u s i o n s about the magnitude or complexity of the t a s k . " 1 These were the e a r l y days of Canadian involvement i n peacekeeping opera-t i o n s , and public opinion i n general seemed to welcome the opportunity to p a r t i c i -pate i n any that came along. Newspaper comment was often rather c r i t i c a l of the Government's unenthusiastic response. However, the d i f f i c u l t i e s that the Govern-ment foresaw soon became cl e a r to everyone. Perhaps the most uncomfortable and humiliating aspect of involvement, so f a r as Canadians were concerned, was the extent to which p a r t i c i p a t i o n i n the Com-mission appeared to make Canada a supporter of the United States. S e l f respect has always appeared to Canadians to depend on how independent we could appear to be of U.S. pressures and influences. P a r t i c i p a t i o n i n the ICC threatened our s e l f respect, e s p e c i a l l y as there were many rumours c i r c u l a t i n g from time to time, p a r t i c u l a r l y a f t e r the v a s t l y increased U.S. involvement i n Vietnam i n 1962, that threats and economic pressures were used to coerce decisions i n the Commission that would be favourable to the U.S. I t i s often forgotten that the western i n t e r e s t s i n Vietnam that Canada had presumably undertaken to defend were o r i g i n a l l y French i n t e r e s t s , not American. And the way i n which Canadians were l e d to become p r i m a r i l y the defenders of French - 125 -or South Vietnamese positions i n the Commission has been described by the h i s t o r i a n of the e a r l y months of the Commission as follows : "... proceedings soon took on a pattern that was to become t y p i c a l . The P o l i s h delegate sought to ensure that the committee report included only such material as would r e -f l e c t unfavourably on the South Vietnamese a u t h o r i t i e s and to exclude any references to the p o s s i b i l i t y that these a u t h o r i t i e s might have been j u s t i f i e d i n some of t h e i r a ctions. The Canadian member impressed on h i s colleagues the necessity of considering the arguments of both sides, and, to counter the Poles' t a c t i c s , drew attention to considerations put f o r -ward by the Franco-Vietnamese a u t h o r i t i e s . Inevitably and unfortunately, the Canadian Delegation reported to Ottawa, the member was forced by the t a c t i c s of h i s P o l i s h counter-part to act i n a manner that made him appear to be an "apologist" f o r the French Union side. The Indian member sought to e f f e c t compromises i n an attempt to produce a unanimous report." So f a r as U.S. pressures on Canada are concerned, they appear to be more the product of overheated imaginations than anything e l s e . My own period of con-cern with Commission a f f a i r s ' coincided with the period when there was most l i k e l y to be pressure - during I960 and 1961, when the U.S. was t r y i n g to b u i l d up V i e t -namese a b i l i t y to r e s i s t armed insurgency while s t i l l staying within the l i m i t s defined by the Geneva Agreements. Persuasion there undoubtedly was, and anger and annoyance also on occasion, but never any attempt to use other pressures. After 1962, and p a r t i c u l a r l y a f t e r the June, 1962 Special Report to the co-chair-3 men s t a t i n g that the U.S. buildup was i n v i o l a t i o n of the 1954 Agreement, there was l i t t l e that the Commission could have done i n any case to embarrass the U.S. Nor was there any attempt by the U.S. to persuade Canada to vote against the f i n d -ing of the Commission on t h i s occasion - the U.S. always appeared to understand Canada's p o s i t i o n that c l e a r v i o l a t i o n s of the Agreement must be so declared. As the tempo of the war i n Vietnam mounted, Canada t r i e d to use her s p e c i a l p o s i t i o n on the Commission to encourage conversations between the antag-o n i s t s . Hanoi was probably more i s o l a t e d than any other c a p i t a l , and Canadian access to the Government there was an asset that i t was f e l t should be exploited. "In 1964 and 1965, i n the course of o f f i c i a l v i s i t s to Hanoi, the Canadian Commissioner c a r r i e d to the government there a t o t a l of f i v e messages from the U.S. Government which, at i t s - 126 -request, the Canadian Government had agreed to convey; on three occasions he was also able to bring back North Vietnamese reactions." "The Canadian Government believed that, i n allowing i t s representative to carry these messages and to report reactions, i t would reduce the p o s s i b i l i t y of misunder-standing, and i t regarded t h i s o f f i c e as consistent with i t s r e s p o n s i b i l i t i e s as a member of the International Commission." Canadian public reaction to t h i s well-intentioned e f f o r t , when i t became known, was immediate, angry, and remarkably s i l l y . The charge most commonly heard was that the Canadian Government had "carried U.S. threats to Hanoi." The fact that i t undoubtedly must have c a r r i e d Hanoi's 'threats' back to the U.S. appeared to occur to no-one. When two governments who have been engaged i n b i t t e r warfare begin to t a l k , the conversation i s not usu a l l y noted e i t h e r f o r courtesy or f o r moderation. The important thing i s that they should begin to t a l k to each other. As General Bernard Montgomery rather i n e l e g a n t l y expressed i t , "jaw-jaw i s better than war-war." What appeared to trouble c r i t i c s i n Canada was that the Canadian Govern-ment might be i d e n t i f i e d with U.S. p o l i c i e s i n the minds of the North Vietnamese. That t h i s was not so was demonstrated eloquently enough i n the North Vietnamese reaction to the proposal that Canada should serve on the new ICC's to supervise the Cease F i r e i n 1973- North Vietnam was quite prepared to accept Canada as a member; i t was the South that objected. Government spokesmen f o r the RVN complained that Canada had never been committed to t h e i r cause as the Poles were to the DRVN. Canada's a t t i t u d e to her r e s p o n s i b i l i t i e s on the ICC has been w e l l summed up by one has frequently been concerned i n recommending Canadian p o l i c i e s on the Commissions -"Canada has t r i e d to act i m p a r t i a l l y as a member of the Commissions. I t was always understood that Canada would bring a western outlook to t h e i r discussions, j u s t as India and Poland would bring n e u t r a l i s t and Communist out-looks r e s p e c t i v e l y , but i t was equally expected that, i n judging a p a r t i c u l a r issue, a l l three would do t h e i r best - 127 -to be objective. Canadian delegations attached importance to t h i s both i n p r i n c i p l e and i n p r a c t i c e . " " I t i s important, when forming an opinion about the o b j e c t i v i t y of Canada i n the Commission, to have i n mind the d i s t i n c t i o n , n e c e s s a r i l y c h a r a c t e r i s t i c of the work of a l l three delegations, between t h e i r r o l e as "advocates" and t h e i r r o l e s as "judges". I t was i n the nature of things that Canadians should be a l e r t to the i n t e r e s t s of the non-Communist side and ready to defend those i n t e r e s t s i f neces-sary. This was neither reprehensible nor, i n the long run, unhelpful i f matched by i m p a r t i a l i t y i n reaching conclusions and i n taking necessary actions regardless of which side was i n the dock. In t h i s regard-Canadian delegations were s e l -dom, i f ever, found wanting." Poland's P o l i c y i n the ICC. Perhaps the most remarkable thin g about P o l i s h p o l i c y on the ICC was i t s consistency. We have seen how changes i n the Indian outlook on the world tended to some extent to influence t h e i r decisions i n the Commission. Nothing comparable happened i n the case of Poland, even though at l e a s t as great changes took place within Poland over the l i f e t i m e of the Commission. By the ea r l y 60's Poland was able to exercise much greater independence from d i r e c t i o n from outside than i t had i n 1954. But P o l i s h support f o r the DRVN i n the Commission was as unwavering at the end as i t had been i n the beginning. We can of course only speculate on the reasons f o r t h i s , but i t i s possible that the Sino-Soviet s p l i t i n the Communist bloc may have had some bearing on P o l i s h a t t i t u d e s . The Asian Communist pa r t i e s (even including, s u r p r i s i n g l y , the Australian Communist party) followed the Chinese l i n e . The European partie s supported the Soviet Union. The one country which managed f o r years to keep a foot i n both camps was the DRVN. I t i s at l e a s t a possible explanation that Poland f e l t the de l i c a c y of her p o s i t i o n as a supporter of the USSR and the advocate of the DRVN i n the Commission. I f her commitment to the DRVN's cause had ever seemed to waver i t could have had the e f f e c t of pushing the DRVN cl o s e r to China. That at l e a s t seems the only sensible reason f o r a p o l i c y that was often, to say the l e a s t of i t , counterproductive. Many of the^Polish a c t i v i t i e s on the Commission did l i t t l e to aid the DRVN, while they often earned the active i l l - w i n d and resentment of the - 128 -Indian members of the Commission. P o l i s h intransigence and r e f u s a l to compromise, on several occasions that I know of, pushed the Indians further i n support of the Canadian p o s i t i o n than they had intended to go. Divergence between public opinion and o f f i c i a l p o l i c y i n Canada. Perhaps the unhappiest r e s u l t of Canadian p a r t i c i p a t i o n i n the ICC was the degree to which i t caused a r i f t between o f f i c i a l p o l i c y and public opinion. This has occurred remarkably seldom since Canada began conducting her own foreign p o l i c y ; Suez i s perhaps the only other occasion. But as the Vietnam war became the over-riding issue i n the United States, so i t became a public issue i n Canada. The evident misery of the Vietnamese people, and the growing c e r t a i n t y that the U.S. would eventually lose the war j u s t as -the French had done, made Canadians question any apparent Canadian contribution to the U.S. cause i n Vietnam. Increasingly, Canadian support f o r the South's cause i n the ICC, and therefore of course also f o r the U.S. came under f i r e i n Canada. In 1963 Paul Martin became M i n i s t e r f o r External A f f a i r s . He was on most issues an a c t i v i s t i n i n t e r n a t i o n a l a f f a i r s , and, from a l l reports, he was p a r t i c u l a r l y unhappy at the Commission's record i n making public the South's case against the North on the subversion i s s u e . The Special Report of June, 1962 had promised to examine and report on s p e c i f i c complaints, but the Indian delegation displayed a marked reluctance to begin work on the complaints. The Canadian Gov-ernment's increasing f r u s t r a t i o n over Commission i n a c t i o n on what was regarded as the basic cause f o r the war i n the f i r s t place, ran headlong i n t o public dismay over the e f f e c t that the war was having on the people of Vietnam. Government p o l i c y and public opinion began to t a l k at cross purposes, and the North American tendency to see a l l issues as e i t h e r black or white fur t h e r confused the issue. Those who were against the war f o r humanitarian reasons accepted as dogma the NLF contention that the war was e n t i r e l y a matter of anti-government sentiment i n - 129 -the South, and that "the U.S. had no business being i n Vietnam." The Canadian Government, making such e f f o r t s within the Commission to put the o r i g i n s of the war on the record, found i t s e l f having to r e - i t e r a t e the same p r i n c i p l e s t o disturbed p u b l i c opinion i n Canada. To public opinion i t often seemed that those trusted with the conduct of Canadian foreign p o l i c y were c a l l o u s l y i n d i f f e r e n t to the over-r i d i n g moral issue of the day. Part of the d i f f i c u l t y i n formulating p o l i c y on t h i s issue undoubtedly arose from the f a c t that f o r a l l p r a c t i c a l purposes Canada had no p o l i c y toward Indochina separate from her p o l i c y on the Commission. Anything that occurred i n the area tended t o be considered only i n the l i g h t of the e f f e c t that i t had on the ICC. Canadians could and did have strong and separate views on the course of events i n China, and the U.S. was aware of them. On the conduct of the war i n Vietnam or on U.S. p o l i c y there, there seemed to be l i t t l e attempt to formulate independent views - Canadian attention was r i v e t t e d on events i n the Commission. Great B r i t a i n supported the U.S. aims i n Vietnam, but was often c r i t i c a l of the way those aims were implemented, and i t s views were undoubtedly made known to the U.S. The only i n d i c a t i o n there has been of any s i m i l a r Canadian approach was given by Mr. Pearson i n the course of an interview recorded f o r the t e l e v i s i o n s e r i e s " F i r s t Person Singular". He r e c a l l e d that on h i s v i s i t to the U.S. i n 1965 President Johnson asked "what should we do about Vietnam?" To which Mr. Pearson r e p l i e d "Get out of i t " . The c o n f l i c t between o f f i c i a l p o l i c y and public opinion came to a head over the Special Report to the co-chairmen of 1965.^ In that Report the Indian and P o l i s h majority drew the co-chairmen's attention to U.S. bombing i n North Vietnam, quoting the U.S. communique announcing that m i l i t a r y action had been taken against m i l i t a r y i n s t a l l a t i o n s i n the DRW, and the PAVN's request that the ICC "condemn without delay these v i o l a t i o n s . . . . " The ICC requested the co-chairmen "to con-sider the d e s i r a b i l i t y of i s s u i n g an immediate appeal to a l l concerned with a view - 130 -to reducing tension and preserving peace i n Vietnam and taking whatever measures 7 are necessary i n order to stem the d e t e r i o r a t i n g s i t u a t i o n . " The wording of the majority report seemed innocuous enough, but the Canadian Delegation f e l t unable to sign i t . I t annexed i t s own report claiming that by concentrating on a very l i m i t e d aspect of the s i t u a t i o n i n Vietnam, the majority report runs the serious r i s k of g i v i n g the members of the Geneva Conference a d i s t o r t e d picture of the nature of the problem i n Vietnam and i t s underlying causes." The "continuing i n s t a b i l i t y " i n Vietnam had "as i t s most important cause, the deliberate and per-s i s t e n t pursuit of aggressive but l a r g e l y covert p o l i c i e s by North Vietnam dir e c t e d 9 against South Vietnam." I t went on to quote the Legal Committee's f i n d i n g , quoted i n the Special Report of 1962, supporting t h i s a s s e r t i o n . The Canadian Dele-gation gave i t as i t s "considered view" that "the events which have taken place i n both North and South Vietnam since February 7 are the d i r e c t r e s u l t of the i n t e n s i f i c a t i o n of the aggressive p o l i c y of the Government of North Vietnam." 1^ In t a b l i n g the Report i n the House of Commons on March 8, 1965, Mr. Martin stated that Canada d i d not deny the f a c t s on which the majority report was based, but believed that i t presented an "oversimplified and misleading impression of the root causes of the dangerous i n s t a b i l i t y i n Vietnam." 1 1 "Our independent observer p o s i t i o n i n Vietnam has brought us face to face with an i n s i d i o u s form of aggression, with which the free world has yet to devise adequate means of dealing.... In whatever form aggression manifests i t s e l f , i t must be recog-nized as such and i t must be stopped, not le a s t because we can-not a f f o r d to l e t the p r a c t i t i o n e r s of t h i s technique come to the conclusion that i t pays dividends. This i s surely the basic issue at stake i n Vietnam today, and i t i s of v i t a l i n t e r e s t to a l l members of the International Commission."12 Although the Canadian Delegation may w e l l have been j u s t i f i e d i n repeat-ing the findings of the 1962 Special Report on the root causes of the war i n V i e t -nam, i t i s d i f f i c u l t to see why i t could not at the same time have joined the Indian and P o l i s h Delegations i n r e g r e t t i n g the bombing. Paul B r i d l e has said of Canadian p o l i c y on the Commission that "... at l e a s t from the point of view of - 131 -the other delegations, Canadians sometimes had a tendency to be overly l e g a l i s t i c 13 and to d i s p l a y missionary z e a l i n pursuit of goals." The Canadian Delegation's reaction to the 1965 Special Report seems to support the "other delegations" opinion. Conclusion. I t was recognized r i g h t from the very beginning that the Commission's composition, embodying within i t s e l f the contradictions of the cold war, would make i t s operation d i f f i c u l t . However, as the Departmental Press Release of J u l y 27, 1954, pointed out, "... i n carrying out t h e i r tasks the ICC's should be able to function more e f f e c t i v e l y than the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission i n Korea which because of equal Communist and non-Communist representation, very often had e f f e c t i v e action blocked, and which could report only to the two m i l i t a r y commands."!^ "A study of the information a v a i l a b l e has l e d us to the conclusion that the Commissions have a reasonable chance of operating e f f e c t i v e l y and of making a constructive contribution to the successful implementation of the Cease F i r e Agreement, and hence to peace i n Southeast A s i a . I f our expectations unfortunately prove i l l founded, and the Commissions are f r u s t r a t e d by obstruction, then, of course, no u s e f u l purpose would be served by continuing t h e i r existence." 1-* The experience of the f i r s t two years seemed to bear out the Department's assessment that the Commission had "a reasonable chance of operating e f f e c t i v e l y " . When i t was implementing s p e c i f i c parts of the Agreement f o r which a d e f i n i t e under-standing had been arrived at i n Geneva, i t functioned e f f e c t i v e l y . A l l three delegations u s u a l l y worked together harmoniously, but when they d i d not the Indian Delegation f e l t no hesitancy i n breaking the deadlock to ensure what seemed a reasonable and f a i r s o l u t i o n - as f o r example during the t r a n s f e r of Haiphong. Even i n the e a r l y years, however, the c o n t r o l of new material or m i l i t a r y personnel imported i n the South was u n s a t i s f a c t o r y , and i n the North t h i s part of the Agree-ment was e n t i r e l y a dead l e t t e r . As time went on, and the f i n a l p o l i t i c a l s o l u t i o n retreated i n t o the dim - 132 -and distant future, the i n a b i l i t y of the Commission to contribute e f f e c t i v e l y to the s i t u a t i o n became i n c r e a s i n g l y c l e a r . The DRVN, i n the period between the f a l l of Dien Bien Phu and the signing of the Geneva Agreement i n July, 1954, had increased i t s e f f e c t i v e c o n t r o l over large parts of Vietnam. When i n 1956 i t discovered that i t was to be denied the co n t r o l over a l l of Vietnam that i t f e l t i t had won by force of arms and had been f o r a l l p r a c t i c a l purposes promised i n the Agreement, i t determined to continue the struggle to gain i t s o b j e c t i v e s . [poa-^tzzd ~?LVS fl no\iLt Tefyti tr> Ttii "ien/u r//e?iz<s"D ~z-**>) F i f t e e n ICC teams,^consisting of three to s i x men each, and scattered over North and South Vietnam, were c l e a r l y unequal to the task of preventing t h i s takeover. The Commission could p o s s i b l y have done more e f f e c t i v e work than i t d i d i n i n v e s t i g a t i n g and i n reporting i t s f i n d i n g s , i f the Indian Delegation had not been so exposed i n i t s p o s i t i o n as tie-breaker, and i f Indian p o l i c y had not been so concerned to be seen to be non-aligned. Too often the safest thing to do seemed to be to do nothing. How f a r the Commission could have been e f f e c t i v e i n i n v e s t i g a t i n g where the host Government di d not want an i n v e s t i g a t i o n i s debatable. The Commission was given f a r too much to do over f a r too large an area f o r i t s meagre resources. The job i t was given to do i n t e r f e r e d i n too many ways i n too many separate areas where an independent state must take r e s p o n s i b i l i t y f o r i t s own a c t i v i t i e s . The teams were almost t o t a l l y dependent on t h e i r host governments - f o r supplies, f o r transportation, and f o r t h e i r safety. The co-operation of the Parties to the Agreement was e s s e n t i a l i f the Commission was to f u l f i l i t s duties. In the beginning both sides had something to gain by co-operating with the Commission. But i n the long run, both t r i e d to use the Commission as a sounding board f o r propaganda, while preventing the Com-mission from doing anything that was against t h e i r own i n t e r e s t s . The Canadian Government had warned that " i f our expectations unfortunately prove i l l founded, and the Commissions are f r u s t r a t e d by obstruction, then, of course, no u s e f u l purpose would be served by continuing t h e i r existence."-^ - 133 -The Vietnam Commission was " f r u s t r a t e d by obstruction" f o r almost i t s entire existence. Why did Canada continue to serve? It seems evident that i t i s much easier to get onto a peacekeeping mission than i t i s to get o f f . Various reasons were advanced from time to time f o r staying - that i t was important to keep some evidence of i n t e r n a t i o n a l i n t e r e s t i n the area a l i v e , that the Commission might eventually have a u s e f u l r o l e to perform as mediator i f both sides f i n a l l y were w i l l i n g to come to an agreement, that the presence of the Commission had at l e a s t some r e s t r a i n i n g e f f e c t on the progress of events. These considerations were a l l v a l i d and important. But the main reason f o r staying was probably simply that Canada could not take the r i s k of making the s i t u a t i o n i n Vietnam worse than i t already was. Embarrassment, f r u s t r a t i o n , the consciousness of f u t i l i t y - a l l these have been worth bearing because Canada could not accept the sole respon-s i b i l i t y f o r d i s s o l v i n g the Commission i f i t s disappearance would i n any way worsen a bad s i t u a t i o n or delay i t s f i n a l settlement. In recent years, Canada has shown increasing reluctance to take on peacekeeping r e s p o n s i b i l i t i e s where the chance of e f f e c t i v e action has not been 17 great. As e a r l y as 1967 i n a speech at Columbia U n i v e r s i t y Paul Martin out-l i n e d what he f e l t to be the p r e - r e q u i s i t e s f o r e f f e c t i v e UN action. Among other things, the force's mandate must "provide s u f f i c i e n t guidance f o r the troops on the ground", and the Canadian Government would "give more searching examination to requests f o r assistance i f i t i s not s a t i s f i e d that the mandate provides s u f f i c i e n t guidance ....", although Mr. Martin had e a r l i e r recognized that " i f the s i t u a t i o n involves i n t e r n a l disorder, i t w i l l be very d i f f i c u l t to l a y down a c l e a r cut mandate. There w i l l be other kinds of s i t u a t i o n where the degree of consensus e x i s t i n g i n the Council i s so f r a g i l e that nothing can be agreed on 18 other than a general i n s t r u c t i o n to prevent c o n f l i c t or to supervise a truce." These passages from the same speech show ju s t how d i f f i c u l t i t would be f o r the Canadian Government to l a y down f i r m guidelines f o r occasions when i t - 134 -would or would not agree t o serve as part of a peacekeeping f o r c e . Was Mr. Martin r e a l l y saying that Canada might refuse to serve where " i n t e r n a l disorder" was a f a c t o r , or where "the degree of consensus ... / i s such7 that nothing can be agreed on other than a general i n s t r u c t i o n to prevent c o n f l i c t or to supervise a truce"? One would hope not, because these would seem l i k e l y to be p r e c i s e l y the s i t u a t i o n s most dangerous to world peace where i t would be most important to make some con-t r i b u t i o n , however small, to easing tensions. The 1970 White Paper on Foreign P o l i c y , "A Foreign P o l i c y f o r Canadians", suggested that there would be a change i n d i r e c t i o n , or at l e a s t a s h i f t i n emphasis, i n Canadian foreign p o l i c y . No longer would the major e f f o r t be i n contributing to world peace or i n easing i n t e r n a t i o n a l tensions; the main emphasis now would be i n looking a f t e r Canada's own i n t e r e s t s . To many c r i t i c s , i t seemed that the framers of that new p o l i c y f a i l e d to show that p a r t i c u l a r Canadian i n t e r e s t s had ever been neglected i n the pursuit of world goals. And Canada probably has more to gain than most from the preservation of world peace. We no longer l i v e i n " a f i r e proof house, f a r from the scene of conflagration", i f indeed we ever d i d . I t seems l i k e l y that those responsible f o r Canadian foreign p o l i c y have since found that the d i r e c t i o n of that p o l i c y since the war has a momentum of i t s own, and cannot be changed overnight. I t i s true that Canada did withdraw from the 1973 ICC's f o r Vietnam, but there are several i n d i c a t i o n s that that body was never intended i n any case as more than window dressing behind which the U.S. could withdraw with some measure of d i g n i t y . (The f a c t that the U.S. accepted, apparently without prolonged objection, a Commission composed of two Communist and two non-Communist members, i s one such i n d i c a t i o n . I t w i l l be r e c a l l e d that t h i s was p r e c i s e l y the composition of the old truce supervisory body i n Korea; Communist e f f o r t s to create a body of that kind to supervise the 1954 Vietnam Cease F i r e nearly brought the 1954 Geneva Conference to a h a l t and was only r e -solved i n the f i n a l days.) Moreover a f t e r nearly twenty years i t would have been - 135 -d i f f i c u l t to say that Canada had an o b l i g a t i o n to stay on. Canada has not been involved i n peacekeeping so frequently simply be-cause i t has suited Canadians to be involved. In many cases Canada has been involved simply because she had c a p a b i l i t i e s that no other nation possessed. The f a c t that Canada i s a b i l i n g u a l country, our high state of i n d u s t r i a l development, and the sophisticated equipment of the Canadian armed forces, as w e l l as our long experience i n peacekeeping, w i l l no doubt continue to make us desirable members of peacekeeping bodies. We can expect then that i n dangerous and d i f f i c u l t i n t e r -n a t i o n a l s i t u a t i o n s there w i l l be considerable pressure brought to bear on us to take part i n peacekeeping operations. I t seems l i k e l y that i n the world of the future there w i l l be more dangerous and d i f f i c u l t i n t e r n a t i o n a l s i t u a t i o n s rather than l e s s , more times when s i t u a t i o n s that are not to our l i k i n g occur. In these circumstances what-ever contribution an i n t e r n a t i o n a l peacekeeping body can make may well be worth the e f f o r t , no matter how small that contribution may be. The chances seem good that Canada could f i n d h e r s e l f again a part of a peacekeeping group as d i f f i c u l t and as f r u s t r a t i n g as the International Control Commissions i n Indochina have been. - 136 -CHAPTER VIII FOOTNOTES. 1. Canadian Government Press Release of Jul y 27, 1954. " Quoted i n External A f f a i r s , August, 1954, p. 258 2. Dagg, op. c i t . , p. H/3 3. Cmnd. 1755 4. Paul B r i d l e , op. c i t . , p. 432 5. i b i d . , p. 446 6. Cmnd. 2609 7. i b i d . , p. 5 8. i b i d . , p. 12 9. i b i d . 10. i b i d . , p. 14 11. House of Commons, Debates, March 8, 1965 pp. 12065-7 12. i b i d . , p. 12066 13. op. c i t . , p. 446-7 14. External A f f a i r s , August 1954, p. 258 15. i b i d . , p. 259 16. i b i d . 17. External A f f a i r s . June, 1967, pp. 239-244 18. i b i d . , pp. 240-241 - 137 -BIBLIOGRAPHY. A. Newspapers and P e r i o d i c a l s . The C h r i s t i a n Science Monitor Current History The Economist The New York Times The Times (London) B. A r t i c l e s i n Journals. Chen, K., "North Vietnam i n the Sino Soviet Dispute, 1962-1964", Asian Survey, V o l . 4 (September, 1964). Dulles, John Foster, "A P o l i c y of Boldness", L i f e , May 19, 1952 F a l l , Bernard B., " T r i b u l a t i o n s of a Party Line; The French Commu-n i s t s and Indochina", Foreign A f f a i r s . V o l . 33. ( A p r i l , 1955) Gagnon, Mona H., "Peace Forces and the Veto: The Relevance of Consent", Int e r n a t i o n a l Organization, V ol. 21, No. 4. 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UBC Theses and Dissertations
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UBC Theses and Dissertations
The International Control Commission for Vietnam; the diplomatic and military context Brosnan, Vivienne 1975
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