Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1954-04-05
The Stake in Indo-Chino

There are encouraging signs that the "hu-
man-wave" attacks of the Communist Wet
Mini forces are not going to crack the heroic
defense of Diem Bien Phu. At any rate, de-
spite long days and nights of the f1ercest kind
of sustained assault, that beleaguered fortress
still appears to be firmly in the hands of the
gallant French Union troops, and reports indi-
cate that the enemy-even though he can be
expected to strike again in full fury-has suf-
fered so many casualties that he has reason to
doubt the wisdom of continuing the battle.
Militarily speaking the battle itself does
not involve major strategic prize. Politically
and psychologically, however, it is an event of
great significance. For the Communists have
gone all out in it as prelude to the Geneva
Conference scheduled to begin on April 26.
Their main objective has been to seize Diem
Bien Phu in time to give Peiping and Moscow
an extra-special bargaining point at that con-
ference. BY the same token, they have been
seeking-through this still unsuccessful bid for
prestige" victory-to create enough distress
and depression among the people of France to
force the Laniel government into program of
appeasement abandoning Indo-China.
But the defending forces have held fast in
way that promises not only to deny Diem Bien
Phu to the Communists but also to inspire and
lift up the morale of the French people to such
an extent that there will be no disposition at
Geneva to yield Important ground to the Peip-
ing-Moscow axis. More than that, these splen-
did troops, with their great skill and do-or-die
courage, are demonstrating to the free world
not merely to France and the Associated States
of Laos, Cambodia and Wet Nam-that Indo-
China can be saved from being dragged behind
the Iron Curtain If the will to save it does not
weaken. They have set shining example in
$Ian%r
spine Of anybody inclined to despair of stopping
the Red tide in Southeast Asia.
That tide, of course, may yet overrun Diem
Bien Phu, and 1t is capable of engulf1ng the
whole of Indo-China. But it can be prevented
from doing that It can be stopped. It can be
contained and rolled back. For it is far from
being invincible, and if the free nations most
concerned hold together against it with enough
deciSiveneSS and on time-not on too-little-
too-late baSis-it can be walled off from South
east ASIA Secretary of State Dulles has not
defined the united action" he has advocated to
guard against the danger, but there can be no
doubt, as he has said, that the risks involved in
such action, though they might be serious, "are
far less than those that will face us few years
from now if we dare not be resolute today
The French Union troops at Diem Ben Phu
are displaying the type of resolution that is
needed for the long pull Without such resolu-
tion the free world can hardly hope to save
Indo- China, and if Indo- China falls, then in
due course so will Burma, Thailand and Malaga.
And from there Peiping and Moscow would be
in position to dominate IndoneSia and even
tualy Pakistan and India. What is at stake,
therefore, is one of the greatest of the globes
strategic areas-an area of vital Importance
nilitarily, politically and economically. To let
the Communists win it would be to let them
win one of the most portentous victories in
history.