Man Alone

All week long, France's allies could only watch Georges Bidault's sufferings. They could not help. His desperate pleas for a battlefield truce to save Dienbienphu's wounded met with bland delay from the Communists. Behind him, France's divided government nagged at him. Burly Marc Jacquet, Minister for the Associated States, sent to Geneva to act as a kind of watchdog for the quick-truce faction, told everybody who would listen: "We must get peace!" For two days Bidault had to mark time while the Assembly debated a vote of confidence. "A Foreign Minister does not negotiate while his policy is being debated behind his back," he snapped to Premier Laniel on the phone.

There was confusion and there was calculated delay. When the Communists finally agreed to a conference including the three Associated States (Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia) provided the Communist Viet Minh were invited, and agreed to discuss a battlefield truce at the conference, Bidault discovered that no representatives of the three Associated States were on hand (he had not bothered to discuss the situation with them seriously before going to Geneva).

As Dienbienphu writhed in its last agony, the Viet Minh representatives arrived in triumph. They were met by China's Chou Enlai, Russia's Gromyko, and North Korea's Nam II, while a French aide frantically telephoned the Quai d'Orsay: "Send me three Vietnamese in a hurry! Otherwise we shall produce my cook--he's a Vietnamese."

Tragic Delay. Until Friday, Bidault clung to the hope of help from his friend John Foster Dulles: perhaps some direct U.S. intervention, perhaps a declaration that the Tonkin delta around Hanoi was vital to the free world and would be defended if necessary by U.S. arms. That afternoon Dienbienphu fell. Overnight, Bidault read Dulles' speech, admitting that "present conditions there do not provide a suitable basis for the U.S. now to participate with its armed forces." It was a tragic day for Georges Bidault. To a sympathetic questioner, he said wearily: "My trumps? When I look at my hand, the highest card seems to be the four of diamonds."

The bitter fact was that Bidault was, and felt, alone. His allies could offer no support. Whatever help they promised, whatever guarantees they offered, would be effective only after Geneva. In negotiating a settlement with its enemies--if there was to be a settlement--France was being left alone.

On Saturday, wearing a black suit and tie of mourning for Dienbienphu's dead, Bidault walked into the Palais des Nations to face his triumphant enemies. He was pale, but he spoke with bitter eloquence. "The decisive assault in a gloriously unequal battle, carried on for 55 days, was launched on the very eve of the date set for this Geneva meeting whose prospect alone should normally have silenced cannon," he said. "We have already known sudden massacres on the morrow of peaceful negotiations, and this is not the first time that actions cruelly give the lie to words. It is not our side that wanted a hardening of the fighting--to the extent of refusing evacuation of wounded while peace was being discussed."

All But the Name. Then Bidault brought forward his peace proposal. He proposed a settlement based on the "zonalization" plan outlined by Premier Laniel two months ago--a plan amounting in all but name to partition, a word the Vietnamese cannot abide. It proposed the immediate disarmament of all guerrilla units, and the liberation of prisoners. In Laos and Cambodia, where "there is no civil war, but an invasion without motive," Bidault demanded total evacuation of Viet Minh troops. For Viet Nam, he proposed a regrouping of all regular army units of both sides into zones. All arrangements would be supervised and controlled by "international bodies," and any violations could be resisted individually or collectively--a clause intended to forestall a Russian veto in case of a later outbreak. At Eden's suggestion the zones were undefined, to allow for bargaining.

In his speech Bidault suggested that the arrangement would be temporary, leading eventually to elections. Privately, he conceded that the divisions would become permanent.

The British lent the plan their support, as did the U.S. with reservations. But the West recognized that the French plan had little chance of acceptance by the high-riding Reds. As envisioned, it would give them no port, no big town, hardly any worthwhile land, and no unified territory.

The Communists made the West wait for their reply. Instead of discussing the proposal, the Viet Minh's Deputy Foreign Minister Pham Van Dong (whose father was secretary to Emperor Duy Tan of Annam) baldly demanded that representatives of the "resistance governments of Khmer [Cambodia] and Pathet-Lao [Laos]" attend the conference. Molotov, though he had to fumble through his papers to find the names of these "governments" and stumbled over their pronunciation, promptly proposed a meeting of the "Big Five," including Red China, to discuss the suggestion.

Bidault was coldly angry: "We are here to discuss peace, not the question of phantoms, but of human beings--human beings who are shedding their blood." Taunted Pham Van Dong: "We used to be called phantoms, too. But it is not a phantom army that is fighting the French."

This week the Communists started with a show of humanity. Pham Van Dong proposed that the field commanders in Indo-China arrange for French planes to pick up the wounded still lying in Dienbienphu's damp underground shelters. Said Bidault wearily: "Better late than never." Then the Viet Minh named its terms. Dong scornfully rejected Bidault's proposal because it "does not take into account the facts, including the military developments in Indo-China." The Communist proposal:

P: An immediate ceasefire, and a ban on any more troops or arms sent into the country, i.e., no French reinforcements, no more U.S. aid. Communist and non-Communist Indo-Chinese would then proceed with a temporary "readjustment" of the territories they occupy--without French participation or international supervision.

P:Withdrawal of all foreign troops. Pending their withdrawal, French troops would be confined to zones "as limited as possible," and not interfere with local administration. Viet Minh armies and guerrillas would stay where they are.

P:"Free" elections, not only in Viet Nam but also in Laos and Cambodia, without outside supervision. The Communists would get half the seats in the electoral bodies, giving them effective control.

P: A promise that after the "elections," all three regimes would "examine the possibility" of association with the French Union, would settle French interests on the basis of "equality and mutual interest," and "collaborators" with the French would not be prosecuted.

The Communists were grabbing for Laos and Cambodia, as well as Viet Nam. But with most Frenchmen ignorant of the pitfalls in such a ceasefire, and impatient for peace, Bidault would find it difficult to reject it out of hand. Commented Bidault: "Very able and very specious. It would mean the complete swallowing of Indo-China by the Viet Minh."

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