Editorial Note
At 8:20 p.m., April 4, 1954, President Eisenhower held an off-the-record meeting on Indochina at the White House. According to the log of the President’s daily appointments, the following officials were present: John Foster Dulles, the Secretary of State; Walter Bedell Smith, the Under Secretary of State; Douglas MacArthur II, the Counselor of the Department of State; Admiral Arthur W. Radford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Roger M. Kyes, Deputy Secretary of Defense. (Eisenhower Library, Eisenhower records, “Daily Appointments”)
In his memoirs, Sherman Adams, Assistant to the President, described the meeting as follows: “at a Sunday night meeting in the upstairs study at the White House Eisenhower had agreed with Dulles and Radford on a plan to send American forces to Indo-China under certain strict conditions. It was to be, first and most important, a joint action with the British, including Australian and New Zealand troops, and, if possible, participating units from such Far Eastern countries as the Philippines and Thailand so that the forces would have Asiatic representation. Secondly, the French would have to continue to fight in Indo-China and bear a full share of responsibility until the war was over. Eisenhower was also concerned that American intervention in Indo-China might be interpreted as protection of French colonialism. He added a condition that would guarantee future independence to the Indo-Chinese states of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.” (Sherman Adams, Firsthand Report: The Story of the Eisenhower Administration (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1961), page 122)
No other record of the session has been found.