The Geneva Conference of 1954 was a diplomatic conference in which representatives of the United States, France, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China, the Associated States of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, North Korea, and South Korea met in Geneva, Switzerland, to deal with two complicated international issues: the Indochina War in South East Asia and the unification of South Korea and North Korea after the war. The part of the conference on the Korean question ended without a solution and no declarations or proposals were made. On the French Indochina War issue, the Geneva Conference produced a set of documents known as the Geneva Accords.
Geneva Accords
The Geneva Accords of 1954 arranged a settlement which brought about an end to the French Indochina war. This agreement was reached at the end of the Geneva Conference. A ceasefire was signed and France agreed to withdraw its troops from the region. French Indochina was split into three countries: Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam.
The Geneva Accords divided Vietnam in half at the 17th parallel, with Ho Chi Minh’s Communists in the North, and the Emperor Bao Dai’s was granted the South. The accords also provided for national elections to be held in all of Vietnam within two years to reunify the country. Nevertheless, these elections were never held due to repeated refusals to hold free nationwide elections by both Ho Chi Minh and Bao Dai’s regimes. Thus, the Viet Minh, under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh, established a communist state in North Vietnam.
The United States gave Ngo Dinh Diem, who was the president of South Vietnam after the fall of Emperor Bao Dai, considerable support in the form of financial aid. However, due to the corruption evident in his regime, and the question of the depth of support for him in Vietnam, there was a certain amount of reluctance in doing so.
[...] "regroupees," southern Viet Minh guerrillas who had resettled in the North after the Geneva Accord (1954). Hanoi gave the regroupees military training and sent them back to the South along the Ho Chi Minh [...]