GENEVA ACCORDS

collection of documents relating to Indochina and issuing from the Geneva Conference of April 26July 21, 1954, attended by representatives of Cambodia, the People's Republic of China, France, Laos, the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, the Viet Minh (i.e., the North Vietnamese), and the State of Vietnam (i.e., the South Vietnamese). The 10 documentsnone of which were treaties binding the participantsconsisted of 3 military agreements, 6 unilateral declarations, and a Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference (July 21, 1954). Following intensive negotiations, beginning on May 8, 1954, the day after the fall of the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu, agreements were finally signed on July 21 between the French and Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian representatives. The principal provisions were for a cease-fire line along the 17th parallel (effectively dividing Vietnam in two); 300 days for each side to withdraw its troops to its side of the line; and communist troops and guerrillas to evacuate Laos and Cambodia, where free elections would be held in 1955 and where French troops could be stationed if the Laotian or Cambodian governments should so request. It was stipulated explicitly that the partition line should not in any way be interpreted as constituting a political or territorial boundary. Execution of the agreements was to be supervised by a commission of representatives from India, Poland, and Canada. A provision that was known as the Final Declaration stipulated that all-Vietnamese elections were to be held under the supervision of the committee before July 1956 to reunify the country. This was a matter of great importance in inducing the Viet Minh to accept the temporary regrouping of its forces in the northern half of the country, because on the eve of the conference it controlled three-quarters of Vietnam. Most of the nine participating countries pledged themselves to guarantee the agreements, but the United States made it clear that it was not bound by them. The South Vietnamese also withheld approval, and the Final Declaration was left unsigned by all parties. The U.S. government undertook to build a separate anticommunist state in South Vietnam and in 1956 supported South Vietnam's refusal to hold nationwide elections in consultation with North Vietnam. Additional reading Good introductions to Geneva are provided by the collective volume, Benjamin Laederer (ed.), Geneva: Crossroad of the Nations (1964; originally published in French, 1963); and Paul Guichonnet, Histoire de Genve (1974). Urban evolution is the subject of Louis Blondel, Le Dveloppement urbain de Genve travers les sicles (1946); and Andr Corboz, Invention de Carouge, 17721792 (1968). The historical literature is rich, although little is available in English translation. Paul-F. Geisendorf, Bibliographie raisonne de l'histoire de Genve des origines 1798 (1966), is a well-researched bibliography. See also Louis Binz, Genve et les Suisses: du Moyen Age la Restauration (1964), a detailed survey, and Brve histoire de Genve (1981); Ren Guerdan, Histoire de Genve (1981), especially useful for the modern period; Paul-E. Martin (ed.), Histoire de Genve, 2 vol. (195156); and Franois Ruchon, Histoire politique de la Rpublique de Genve . . . , 2 vol. (1953). For economic history, see Antony Babel, Histoire conomique de Genve, des origines au dbut du XVIe sicle, 2 vol. (1963); Jean-Franois Bergier, Genve et l'conomie europenne de la Renaissance (1963); and Anne Marie Piuz, Affaires et politique: recherches sur le commerce de Genve au XVIIe sicle (1964). See also Waldemar Deonna, Les Arts Genve des origines la fin du XVIIIe sicle (1942); and Alfred Berchtold, La Suisse romande au cap du XXe sicle: portrait littraire et moral (1963). Paul Guichonnet Maurice Cranston