The Failure of Peace?
Indochina between the Two Geneva Accords
(1954-1963)
International Workshop
Université du Québec à Montréal
6-7 October 2006
Montréal, Canada
Conference organized by Christopher Goscha
Description
Between 1950 and 1991, Indochina was one of the hottest spots in the international system. In 1950, the French colonial war against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam became an integral part of the Cold War, when the Chinese began aiding the Vietnamese in their bid to take all of Indochina from the French and the Americans stepped up their assistance to the French to head off the communists in Southeast Asia. In 1954, with Stalin dead and the shooting stopped in Korea, an accord was reached at Geneva that confirmed the withdrawal of the French; set out a plan for resolving peacefully the form of the Nation-states that would replace colonial Indochina; and held out hope that confrontation over this part of the world would fade away.
It did not. The battle over Indochina would continue at the local, regional, and international levels, so much so that a Second Geneva Conference had to be opened in 1961-62 to head off a major crisis in Laos – and beyond. What happened between these two accords and their immediate aftermath? What were the roles of local actors in melting down the peace of 1954? What were the regional and international contexts and the links among them? Just how effective was the Second Geneva Conference of 1961-62, one which has received surprisingly little scholarly attention, in resolving the causes of conflict? To what extent was it a failure or a success in the following years, and was the outcome inevitable? This workshop seeks to address these questions and others by examining the crisis that emerged over Indochina between the two conferences of 1954 and 1962. The time and place under study here provide us with a unique case study to consider how the different levels of the international system intersected in complex and interconnected ways.
Opening (8h30-9h30)
Welcome: Christopher Goscha
Keynote address: François Joyaux (Professeur des Universités, Paris)
Friday 6 October 2006
Panel 1
(9h30-11h00) The Indochina Level: Contesting Sovereignties, Borders and Interpretations (1954-62)
Chair: Peter Lepreucht (UQAM\IEIM)
The DRV between the Two Geneva Conferences: Sovereignty and Civil War (Pierre Asselin, Chaminade University of Honolulu)
Undoing the Limited Partnership: The Neutralization of Laos and the Origins of the Crisis of 1963 in South Vietnam (Ed Miller, Dartmouth College)
Sihanouk and Cambodia: Between Vietnam and Thailand, Left and Right, and the two Genevas (Ben Kiernan, Yale University)
Coffee Break (11h00-11h15)
Panel 2
(11h15-12h45) The Asian Context of the Indochinese Crisis (1954-62)
Chair: Lorenz Luthi (McGill University)
The Revolutionary Laos of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam: The Making of the “Pathet Lao Solution” (1954-1957) (Christopher Goscha, UQAM)
China and the Lao Crisis of 1961-1962 (Qiang Zhai, Auburn University Montgomery)
Thailand and the Laos Crisis (1960-1962) (Sutayut Osornprasop (Cambridge University)
Lunch (12h45-14h45)
Panel 3
(14h45-16h45) The International Context of the Indochinese Crisis (1954-62)
Chair: James Hershberg (GWU)
Gaining Time but Losing Ground: The Unravelling of the Dulles Vision for Vietnam, 1954-1962 (Ronald Pruessen, University of Toronto)
Change and Continuity (1954-1963): French policy towards Indochina (Pierre Journoud, Université de Paris 1)
France, SEATO and the Defence of Indochina after the First Geneva Accords (Pierre Grosser, SciencesPo, Paris)
SEATO, Britain and the Laos Crisis, 1961-62: a prelude to withdrawal from South East Asia? (Matthew Jones, University of Nottingham)
Coffee Break (16h45-17h00)
Panel 4
(17h00-18h30) Sitting Down at the Table: The Second Geneva Conference in a Shifting International System (1961-63)
Chair: Jacques Lévesque (UQAM)
Diplomatic Connections between Europe and Indochina, 1954-1964 (Laurent Césari, Université d’Artois)
Kennedy, Forrestal, and the Dilemma of Laos in the War for Vietnam (Andrew Preston, Cambridge University)
Rethinking the Laotian Connection in DRV Foreign Policy: The Second Geneva Conference and the Question of “Neutralizing” Vietnam (Nguyen Tung, Institute of International Relations, Hanoi)
Dinner (20h00)
Friday 7 October 2006
Panel 5
(9h00-11h15) The Battle for the Hearts and Minds: Commissions, Perceptions, and Intelligence (1954-62)
Chair: Andrew Barros (UQAM)
Poland and the Second Geneva Conference (Margaret Gnoinska, George Washington University)
An Excess of Exuberance: The CIA in Laos and the Failure of Geneva (John Prados, National Security Archives, Washington, D.C.)
In the Line of Fire: The Uninterrupted Revolution in the Highlands of Indochina (1954-1963) (Vatthana Pholsena, CNRS, France)
In Search of the Origins of the “Third Forces” (Claire Tran Thi Lien, Université de Paris VII)
Ideology and Realism: Kennedy and the Many Faces of Communism (Karine Laplante, UQAM)
Concluding Address (11h15-12h00)
Nayan Chanda (Yale Center for the Study of Globalization)
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