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Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3 NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011 TOP SECRET – Sensitive JCS paper, agreed that the U.S. could not back the French proposal with its call for a supervised cease-fire that the communists would never respect. Eisenhower further concurred with the Chiefs' insistence on priority to a political settlement, with the stipulation that French forces continue fighting while negotiations were in progress. He added that the U.S. would continue aiding the French during that period and would, in addition, work toward a united action coalition "for the purpose of preventing further expansion of communist power in Southeast Asia."


 * d.

These statements of position paved the way for a National Security Council meeting May 8 which set forth the guidelines of U.S. policy on negotiations for the delegation at Geneva. The decision taken at the meeting simply underscored what the President and the Chiefs had already stated:


 * "The United States will not associate itself with any proposal from any source directed toward a ceasefire in advance of an acceptable armistice agreement, including international controls. The United States could concur in the initiation of negotiations for such an armistice agreement. During the course of such negotiations, the French and the Associated States should continue to oppose the forces of the Viet Minh with all the means at their disposal. In the meantime, as a means of strengthening the hands of the French and the Associated States during the course of such negotiations, the United States will continue its program of aid and its efforts to organize and promptly activate a Southeast Asian regional grouping for the purpose of preventing further expansion of Communist power in Southeast Asia."


 * e.

Before receiving detailed instructions from Dulles, Smith spoke twice at the first round of plenary sessions, once on May 10 (the second plenary) and again on May 12 (at the third). At these sessions, Smith brought home two major points of U.S. policy: first, he declined to commit the U.S. in advance to a guarantee of the settlement, despite Bidault's call for all the participants to make such a guarantee; second, he proposed that national elections in Vietnam be supervised by an international commission "under United Nations auspices." Smith stressed that the UN should have two separate functions — overseeing not only the cease-fire but the elections as well. Both these points in Smith's speech were to remain cardinal elements of U.S. policy throughout the negotiations. On 12 May Smith received instructions clearly designed to make the U.S. an influential, but unentangled and Rh