Word: viet
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...treaty would probably be worked out well in advance of the conference. In general, the treaty, as the U.S. would like to have it, would guarantee a united regional defense against further Communist penetration of Southeast Asia. Its guarantees would probably include the protection of Laos, Cambodia and South Viet Nam, although these countries, with their freedom restricted by the Geneva agreement, might not be able to join SEATO. Probable signatories: the U.S., Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, the Philippines, possibly Burma and Ceylon. Likely conference site: Baguio, the Philippines' mountainside summer capital. Probable date of the conference...
Ironically, the closing hours of Geneva had proved that the Communists were in reality desperately anxious for a ceasefire, though they played their hand without revealing the fact. The Communist Viet Minh in Indo-China were tired of living in mountain hideouts. The Red Chinese wanted a period of peace to consolidate their restive home front, and they were deeply apprehensive that the U.S. might intervene. The existence of these fears, even after the U.S. had plainly shown no enthusiasm to get involved in Indo-China, was a sad reminder that the whole of Indo-China might have been saved...
...villa by Lac Leman, three men hunched over a great man of Indo-China late one night last week. One was the Communist Viet Minh's Pham Van Dong; another was France's Premier Pierre Mendès-France; the third was Albert Sarraut, an oldtime French empire builder who had been governor of Indo-China in lordlier days when there were no such irritants as the Viet Minh. Each had a red pencil in his hand. Beneath their hands the map was slashed with red lines, until Viet Nam began to look like a body crisscrossed with...
...conferees were stunned. Viet Nam's Foreign Minister Tran Van Do had announced from time to time that he would never accept partition. But Cambodia had scarcely been heard from. Its delegation had arrived late, made little stir, and had figured little in negotiations, since it had not even been invaded by the Viet Minh as had Laos...
Anticlimax. Exhausted, Mendès went to bed. A few minutes later, at 2:42 a.m., the cease-fire agreements for Laos and Viet Nam were signed by second-tier officials in a small room off the main council chamber in the Palais des Nations. The ceremony, watched only by a handful of photographers and minor officials, took just 7½ minutes. Ten hours later, the gallant Cambodians signed the revised agreement that may some day make the difference between freedom and Communist slavery for them and for Laos...