Planned Participation in Europe
With the 1954 cease-fire, pro-French and optimistic General Nguyen Van Hinh stated that as early as 1955 "a Vietnamese division will be sent to France as compensation for sacrifices in Indochina by the latter. This great unit will participate in the defense of Europe as part of the opposition between the western and eastern blocks
However the European Defence Community project was rejected by France and Nguyen Van Hinh's French counter-intelligence SDECE/GCMA-backed planned coup (scheduled for end October 1954) against pro-USA and CIA-backed (Edward Lansdale) Ngo Dinh Diem failed. The Vietnamese general was eventually dismissed, leaving South Vietnam in November 1954, following French general Raoul Salan's departure and return to France in October. The French-American secret war and influence struggle in Vietnam engaging the SDECE against the CIA continued until 1956 when the CEFEO Expeditionary Corps was dissoluted and returned to France.
Read more about this topic: Vietnamese National Army
Famous quotes containing the words planned and/or europe:
“Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.”
—Bible: New Testament, Matthew 1:18,19.
“In times like ours, where the growing complexity of life leaves us barely the time to read the newspapers, where the map of Europe has endured profound rearrangements and is perhaps on the brink of enduring yet others, where so many threatening and new problems appear everywhere, you will admit it may be demanded of a writer that he be more than a fine wit who makes us forget in idle and byzantine discussions on the merits of pure form ...”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)