The Geneva Agreements

35.5.3: The Geneva Agreements

The 1954 Geneva Conference produced an agreement between the French and Viet Minh military commands (but not the pro-Western State of Vietnam) that divided Vietnam along the 17th Parallel, escalating tensions between the North and the South and leading to the Second Indochina War (Vietnam War).

Learning Objective

List the key points of the Geneva Agreements

Key Points

  • The Geneva Conference took place between April 26 and July 20, 1954. Its goal was to settle outstanding issues resulting from the Korean War and discuss the possibility of restoring peace in Indochina following the First Indochina War. The part of the conference on the Korean question ended without any declarations or proposals. On Indochina, the conference produced a set of documents known as the Geneva Accords.
  • The Western allies did not have a unified position on what the Conference should achieve in relation to Indochina. Two Vietnamese delegations, one from the communist North and one from the pro-Western South, were also divided on the question of the future of Vietnam. Lengthy negotiations revolved around the questions of the division vs. unification of Vietnam, the spheres of influence in the region, and the status of Laos and Cambodia.
  • On July 20, the remaining outstanding issues were resolved as the parties agreed that the partition line should be at the 17th parallel and that the elections for reunification should be in July 1956, two years after the ceasefire. The Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities in Vietnam was signed only by French and Viet Minh military commands, completely bypassing the State of Vietnam.
  • The Geneva Accords, issued on July 21, 1954, set out a “provisional military demarcation line” running approximately along the 17th Parallel. A 3-mile (4.8 km) wide demilitarized zone was expected on each side of the demarcation line, and French Union forces were to regroup to the south of the line while Viet Minh to the north. Free movement of the population between the zone would be open for 300 days and neither zone was to join any military alliance or seek military reinforcement. The International Control Commission, comprising Canada, Poland, and India as chair, was established to monitor the ceasefire.
  • Many communist sympathizers viewed South Vietnam as a French colonial and later American puppet regime. Simultaneously, many viewed North Vietnam as a communist puppet state. After the cessation of hostilities, a large migration took place. North Vietnamese, especially Catholics, intellectuals, business people, land owners, anti-communist democrats, and members of the middle-class, moved south of the Accords-mandated ceasefire line.
  • The United States replaced the French as a political backup for Ngo Dinh Diem, then Prime Minister of the State of Vietnam, and he asserted his power in the South. Diem refused to hold the national elections, citing that the South did not sign and thus was not bound to the Geneva Accords. North Vietnam violated the Geneva Accords by failing to fully withdraw Viet Minh troops from South Vietnam, stifling the movement of North Vietnamese refugees, and conducting a massive military build-up. The tensions led to the Second Indochinese War, more commonly known as the Vietnam War or American War in Vietnam.

Key Terms

Viet Cong
A political organization and army, known also as the National Liberation Front, that operated in South Vietnam and Cambodia during the Vietnam War. It was allied with North Vietnam and fought against the armies of South Vietnam and the United States. It had both guerrilla and regular army units, as well as a network of cadres who organized peasants in the territory it controlled.
Operation Passage to Freedom
A term used by the United States Navy to describe its assistance in transporting in 1954–55 310,000 Vietnamese civilians, soldiers, and non-Vietnamese members of the French Army from communist North Vietnam (the Democratic Republic of Vietnam) to South Vietnam (the State of Vietnam, later to become the Republic of Vietnam). The French and other countries may have transported a further 500,000.
First Indochina War
The military conflict that began in French Indochina in December 1946 and lasted until August 1954, although fighting between French forces and their Viet Minh opponents in the South dated from September 1945. The conflict pitted a range of forces, including the French Union’s French Far East Expeditionary Corps, led by France and supported by the Vietnamese National Army, against the Viet Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh and its People’s Army of Vietnam led by Vo Nguyen Giap. Most of the fighting took place in Tonkin in Northern Vietnam, although the conflict engulfed the entire country and also extended into the neighboring French Indochina protectorates of Laos and Cambodia.
Geneva Conference
A 1954 conference among several nations that took place in Geneva, Switzerland, to settle outstanding issues resulting from the Korean War and discuss the possibility of restoring peace in Indochina. The Soviet Union, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and the People’s Republic of China were participants throughout the conference, while other countries concerned were represented during the discussion of questions of interest to them. These included the countries that contributed troops to the United Nations forces in the Korean War and countries that participated in the resolution of the First Indochina War between France and the Viet Minh.
Geneva Accords
The 1954 settlement that ended the First Indochina War, reached at the end of the Geneva Conference. A ceasefire was signed and France agreed to withdraw its troops from the region. French Indochina was split into three countries: Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Vietnam was to be temporarily divided along the 17th Parallel until elections could be held to unite the country.
Viet Minh
A national independence coalition formed in 1941 with the initial goal to seek independence for Vietnam from the French Empire. After World War II, the organization opposed the reoccupation of Vietnam by France and later opposed South Vietnam and the United States in the Vietnam War.

 

The Geneva Conference took place between April 26 and July 20, 1954 in Geneva, Switzerland. Its goal was to settle outstanding issues resulting from the Korean War and discuss the possibility of restoring peace in Indochina as the First Indochina War fighting was still going on when the Conference first gathered. The Soviet Union, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and the People’s Republic of China were present throughout the conference, while other countries concerned were represented during the discussion of questions of interest to them. These included the countries that contributed troops to the United Nations forces in the Korean War and countries that participated in the resolution of the First Indochina War between France and the Viet Minh. The part of the conference on the Korean question ended without any declarations or proposals. On Indochina, the conference produced a set of documents known as the Geneva Accords or Geneva Agreements.

The Geneva Conference, July 21, 1954.

The Geneva Conference, July 21, 1954. The last plenary session on Indochina in the Palais des Nations. Second left Vyacheslav Molotov, 2 unidentified Russians, Anthony Eden, Sir Harold Caccie, and W.D. Allen. In the foreground North Vietnamese delegation.Although the eventual Geneva Accords were presented as a consensus view, the settlement was not accepted by the delegates of either the State of Vietnam or the United States.

The Question of Indochina

While the delegates began to assemble in Geneva in late April, the discussions on Indochina did not begin until May 8. The Viet Minh had achieved their decisive victory over the French Union forces at Dien Bien Phu the previous day. The Western allies did not have a unified position on what the Conference should achieve in relation to Indochina. The British delegation favored a negotiated settlement to the conflict. The French delegation was keen to preserve something of France’s position in the region. The Unites States had been supporting the French in Indochina for many years and the Republican Eisenhower administration wanted to ensure that it could not be accused of having lost Indochina to the communists. Its leaders had previously accused the Truman administration of having lost China when the communists successfully dominated the country.

On May 10, Pham Van Dong, leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV; North) delegation set out their position, proposing a ceasefire, separation of the opposing forces, a ban on the introduction of new forces into Indochina, exchange of prisoners, independence and sovereignty for Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, elections for unified governments in each country, withdrawal of all foreign forces, and the inclusion of representatives of the independence movements from Laos and Cambodia, Pathet Lao, and Khmer Issarak in the Conference. On May 12, the State of Vietnam (South) rejected any partition of the country and the United States expressed a similar position the next day. The French sought to implement a physical separation of the opposing forces into enclaves throughout the country, known as the “leopard-skin” approach, which divided the state’s territories between the DRV/Viet Minh and the French Union.

Although behind the scenes the U.S. and French governments continued to discuss the terms for possible U.S. military intervention in Indochina, by mid-June it was clear such intervention would not receive much support among allies and the United States began to consider the possibility that, rather than supporting the French in Indochina, it might be preferable for the French to leave and for the United States to support the new Indochinese states. Unwilling to support the proposed partition or intervention, by mid-June the United States decided to withdraw from major participation in the Conference.

The Soviet and Chinese representatives also argued that the situations in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos were not the same and should be treated separately. Consequently, Pham Van Dong agreed the Viet Minh would be prepared to withdraw their forces from Laos and Cambodia provided no foreign bases were established in Indochina. This represented a major blow to the DRV, as they had tried to ensure that the Pathet Lao and Khmer Issarak would join the governments in Laos and Cambodia, respectively, under the leadership of the DRV. The Chinese likely sought to ensure that Laos and Cambodia were not under Vietnam’s influence in the future, but under China’s.

Geneva Accords

After lengthy negotiations, on July 20 the remaining issues were resolved as the parties agreed that the partition line should be at the 17th parallel and that the elections for reunification should be in July 1956, two years after the ceasefire. The Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities in Vietnam was signed only by French and Viet Minh military commands, completely bypassing the State of Vietnam.

The Geneva Accords, issued on July 21, 1954, set out a “provisional military demarcation line” running approximately along the 17th Parallel “on either side of which the forces of the two parties shall be regrouped after their withdrawal.” A 3-mles (4.8 km) wide demilitarized zone was expected on each side of the demarcation line and French Union forces were to regroup to the south of the line while Viet Minh to the north. Free movement of the population between the zone would be open for 300 days and neither zone was to join any military alliance or seek military reinforcement. The International Control Commission (ICC), comprising Canada, Poland (at the time under the communist rule), and India as chair, was established to monitor the ceasefire. Because the Commission was to decide on issues unanimously, Poland’s presence in the ICC provided the communists with effective veto power over supervision of the treaty. The unsigned Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference called for reunification elections, which the majority of delegates expected to be supervised by the ICC. The Viet Minh never accepted ICC authority over such elections.

The agreement was signed by the communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam, France, the People’s Republic of China, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom. The State of Vietnam under emperor Bao Dai rejected the agreement, while the United States stated that it “took note” of the ceasefire agreements and declared that it would “refrain from the threat or use of force to disturb them.” Separate accords were signed by the signatories with the Kingdom of Cambodia and the Kingdom of Laos in relation to Cambodia and Laos respectively.

Outcomes

In October 1954, the last French Union forces left Hanoi. In May 1955, French Union forces withdrew from Saigon to a coastal bases and in April 1956, the last French forces left Vietnam.

Many communist sympathizers viewed South Vietnam as a French colonial and later American puppet regime. Simultaneously, many viewed North Vietnam as a communist puppet state. After the cessation of hostilities, a large migration took place. North Vietnamese, especially Catholics, intellectuals, business people, land owners, anti-communist democrats, and members of the middle-class, moved south of the Accords-mandated ceasefire line during Operation Passage to Freedom. The ICC reported that at least 892,876 North Vietnamese were processed through official refugee stations, while journalists estimated that as many as 2 million more might have fled. Around 52,000 people from the South went North, mostly Viet Minh members and their families.

Anticommunist Vietnamese refugees moving from a French LSM landing ship to the USS Montague during Operation Passage to Freedom in August 1954, photo by H.S. Hemphill.

Anticommunist Vietnamese refugees moving from a French LSM landing ship to the USS Montague during Operation Passage to Freedom in August 1954, photo by H.S. Hemphill. The mass emigration of northerners was facilitated primarily by the French Air Force and Navy. American naval vessels supplemented the French in evacuating northerners to Saigon, the southern capital. The operation was accompanied by a large humanitarian relief effort, bankrolled in the main by the United States government in an attempt to absorb a large tent city of refugees that had sprung up outside Saigon.

The United States replaced the French as a political backup for Ngo Dinh Diem, then Prime Minister of the State of Vietnam, and he asserted his power in the South. Diem refused to hold the national elections, citing that the South did not sign and thus was not bound to the Geneva Accords and that it was impossible to hold free elections in the communist North. He went on to attempt to crush communist opposition.

North Vietnam violated the Geneva Accords by failing to fully withdraw Viet Minh troops from South Vietnam, stifling the movement of North Vietnamese refugees, and conducting a massive military build-up that more than doubled the number of armed divisions in the North Vietnamese army (while the South Vietnamese army was reduced by 20,000 men). North Vietnam established military operations in the South by providing military supplies and equipment, weaponry, and military personnel and leadership to the Viet Cong (the National Liberation Front created by Ho Chi Minh’s government) in the South. Guerrilla activity in the South escalated, while U.S. military advisers continued to support the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. The tensions led to the Second Indochinese War, more commonly known as the Vietnam War or American War in Vietnam.

Attributions