Behind the scenes, the U.S. and French governments continued to discuss the terms of a possible U.S. military intervention in Indochina. [5]:563-6 On May 29, the United States and the Frenchman had agreed that Eisenhower would seek congressional approval for military intervention in Indochina if the conference did not appear to be an acceptable peace agreement. [5]:568-9 However, after discussions with the Australian and New Zealand governments in which it turned out that neither would support us military intervention, reports of a decline in morale from the French Union forces and the resistance of Army Chief of Staff Matthew Ridgway began to turn away from the intervention and continue to oppose a negotiated solution. [5]:569-73 From early to mid-June, the United States began to consider the possibility that instead of supporting the French in Indochina, it might be better for the French to leave the new Indochinese states and for the United States to support the new Indochinese states. This would remove the stain of French colonialism. Unable to support the proposed partition or intervention, the United States decided in mid-June to withdraw from greater participation in the conference. [5]:574-5 There were also divisions and disagreements in the communist bloc. China and the Soviet Union, for their own strategic reasons, refused to support the Viet Minh`s claim to rule all of Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh`s chief negotiator, Pham Van Dong, has chosen not to ally too closely with Moscow or Beijing, preferring that North Vietnam consider its own destiny in hand. Since the Eisenhower administration wanted to distance itself from any compromise with Communist forces, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles told U.S. diplomats to watch the Geneva negotiations instead of participating directly.
At the end of the conference, the United States simply established the existence of the agreements and promised not to disrupt them by force. Although conservatives in the United States were quick to condemn the agreements to reward communist aggression, Eisenhower and Dulles argued that the agreements offered the United States the opportunity to build an anti-communist and capitalist stronghold in Southeast Asia freed from the stain of French colonialism. U.S. officials at the time implicitly rejected the agreements` intention that partition should be temporary before July 16, 1955, when South Vietnamese President Ngo Dình Diem canceled the 1956 election with a U.S. vote. “The fact that the end envisaged in the 1954 agreements (peace) proved elusive was not due to the means by which peace was to be achieved. The fatal flaw was that the agreements were not confirmed or approved by all parties to the conflict. .