<p>One of the potential targets was the Viet positions around Dien Bien Phu. Brigadier General Joseph D. Caldara, then commanding FEAF Bomber Command, had flown a reconnaissance mission over the battlefield in April and had concluded that a B-29 strike was feasible and could be effective.
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<p>General Matthew B. Ridgeway, Army Chief of Staff and former ground commander in Korea, believed that only troops would make a significant difference for the French position. He warned that if US ground forces were sent in, the price paid would be higher than the Allied losses in the Korean conflict.
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<p>Eisenhower, typically, compromised. He agreed to call for an air strike, if the United States could get support from some of its allies. None stepped forward. Then a debate followed in Congress, with one of the more demagogic statements coming from Senator Lyndon B. Johnson. He came out firmly " ... against sending American Gls into the mud and muck of Indochina on a blood-letting spree to perpetuate colonialism and white man's exploitation in Asia." (Nine years later, as President, he was to sound very different on the same subject.)
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<p>In the end, there was no support either at home or abroad for the planned air strike, and it was cancelled, along with any other planned form of tangible assistance to the French. The air attack was codenamed Operation Vulture, and the name must have been chosen by someone with a fine sense of black humor. The vulture, you know, watches and waits until a predator has killed and eaten, then flies down to gorge himself on the remnants of the kill, at no risk to himself and with very little effort expended.
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<p>Dien Bien Phu ended in a last desperate and glorious attack reminiscent of an earlier day. On the evening of 7 May 1954, with their ammunition exhausted and their ranks decimated, the 3rd Battalion of the 13th Foreign Legion Half-Brigade fixed bayonets. Then, at the bugle call, they charged out of their positions, 600 soldiers against 40,000, going to their certain deaths.
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<p>That battle ended the effective French military adventure in Indochina. There were later engagements, but Dien Bien Phu was the last straw for the government and the people of France. Popular opinion was demanding a withdrawal.
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<p>Indochina was lost, and the prophets of doom in the United States had heard their worst dreams echoed by Eisenhower. The loss of Indochina, he said on 7 April, will cause all of Southeast Asia to fall like a row of dominoes.
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<p>The war ended formally in truce talks in Geneva. Switzerland, that began on 21 July 1954. The United States neither participated nor signed the agreement, although a delegation was at hand and did make statements from time to time. Indochina was divided at the 17th parallel. North of that line was the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, under Ho Chi Minh and the Communists; south of it was the Republic of Vietnam, under Ngo Dinh Diem.
