National Affairs: Important but Not Essential

The signs of exhaustion were plain on John Foster Dulles' face as he stood before 150 reporters and photographers in the State Department's sleek auditorium. As he answered questions that ranged all over his mountain of problems, his left eye twitched rapidly and the corners of his mouth sagged. The questions that were to cause him the most trouble in a troublous week came almost casually.

Q. Do you think, Mr. Secretary, that the Southeast Asia area can be held without Indo-China?

A. I do.

Q. Are Laos and Cambodia essential to the successful defense of Southeast Asia?

A. No. They are important, but by no means essential.

The words were hardly out of his mouth, when the French reporters scurried out and began filing urgent cables to their papers. The essence of what they said: the U.S. is writing off Indo-China. Flashing around the world, the news bulletins struck French officials with the weight of verbal atomic bombs. The French government asked the U.S. a plain and troublesome question: Just what will the U.S. do about the war in Indo-China if no agreement is reached at the Geneva Conference?

Dulles could point out that at his press conference he had gone on to explain that he was neither resigned to the fall of Indo-China nor ready to give up its defense, but was merely pointing out that its loss would not make the Asian situation "hopeless." By the time these qualifications were uttered, however, some reporters already were running for the telephones. Later statements by Dulles, and even by President Eisenhower (see below), could not repair all the damage.