Page:Pentagon-Papers-Part IV. A. 5.djvu/208

Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3 NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011  Manpower for such an establishment was available, although in poor crop years, diversion was necessary. But equipment was in short supply, and extensive training was in order. Most military equipment and supplies had to be imported) as DRV industry was incapable of more than small scale production of rudimentary small arms, small arms ammunition, and simple impedimenta, such as uniforms. 76/ Accordingly, virtually from the moment of its independence, the DRV sought and obtained military materiel from abroad) risking being caught at contravention of Article 17 of the Geneva Agreement to build a large, modernized land army of 10-14 divisions. 77/

b. Solidarity with the USSR and CPR

But military assistance and economic aid were conditioned on the quid pro quo of DRV identification with and support for the "Communist Bloc.~The price of Bloc support had been high; it included sacrificing French cooperation after Geneva. 78/ In subordinating its interests to those of the USSR and CPR at Geneva) the DRV impaired its own negotiating strength. Thereafter) similar subordination obstructed its attempts to achieve reunification. It was with France that the DRV had contracted to hold elections on reunification) and it tried after 1954 to pursue a policy calculated to encourage France's honoring its Geneva commitments. Moreover, the DRV, short of human and material capital, wished to maintain access to French economic resources. Pham Van Dong assured the French in January, 1955, that the DRV: "" .... sincerely desires ·to establish economic relations with France for reasons which are both political and economic .... That does not prevent us from establishing relations with friendly countries like China, but we are used to working with the French and can continue to do so on a basis of equality and reciprocity. II 79/"

But Paris was faced, as Pham put it, with a choice between Washington and Hanoi, though he assured the French that "the unity of Viet Nam will be achieved in any case) with France or against France." The French opted for withdrawal in 1956: the price of protract ed intimacy with a solidly Bloc nation proved too high for France, both in its internal politics and in the Western alliance. 80/

For the DRV, solidarity with the Bloc entailed costs beyond French cooperation) for by the test of deeds, neither the Soviets nor the Chinese firmly supported its quest for reunification. It was the DRV's fate that the historically invincible monolith with which it cast its fortunes in 1950, was, by 1957, definitely disintegrating. Soviet policy vis-a-vis Vietnam had a1vays been subordinated to its European interests. This was evident as early as 1945, when the success of Ho and the ICP were accorded less importance than success of the Rh