The United States, the 1954 Geneva conference on Indochina, and the failure of military intervention

Abstract

The Geneva Conference of 1954 was supposed to reach a diplomatic solution between the states involved in the First Indochina War. However, the United States, because of its foreign policy, was not going to accept a political solution, and therefore favored multilateral military intervention called United Action. But historiography is still grappling with the question of whether the president of the United States Dwight David Eisenhower was considering sending troops, or whether it was only a threat of intervention to improve the negotiating position in Geneva. As the study shows, Eisenhower undoubtedly considered moves toward intervention.