US Marine Corporal Julius Pelham searches for enemy weapons in a flooded bomb crater near Da Nang, Vietnam, 1969. Photo courtesy the US Marine Corps Archives.

The following is a digitized version of an article from Canadian Dimension’s print archive, which is available through the University of Manitoba Digital Collections. It was first published in the January-February 1966 edition of CD (Volume 3, Number 2). To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, we do not alter, edit, or update them.

How Canada got involved in Viet Nam is in itself an interesting commentary on our role in international relations. Historically Canada has had no special interests in Southeast Asia outside the rather loose and nebulous organization of the Commonwealth. For this reason the St. Laurent government decided not to join in the NATO-type collective self-defense organization proposed for the area by Winston Churchill in early 1953. Thus there was no reason to ask Canada to participate in the Geneva Conference. But then on July 21, 1954, the Canadian government received a message from the co-chairmen of the Geneva Conference stating that the Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities had been signed, and it brazenly stated that “an International Commission shall be set up … composed of Canada, India and Poland.” Canada had not been advised of the general discussion or the concept of the international commissions, and did not even have copies of the agreements spelling out their future responsibilities. Under the circumstances, Canada was hardly in a position to refuse, regardless of what the government might have thought of the responsibilities and difficulties involved. However, before accepting Canada first consulted and received the support and encouragement of the Government of the United States.

What obligations did Canada assume by participation in the Viet Nam Commission? The Commission was to have no enforcement powers but was to operate in the areas of supervision, adjudication and mediation. The Department of External Affairs announced that the three countries “will be responsible for supervision and the proper execution of the provisions of the agreements by the parties directly concerned; will assist these parties with the interpretation of those provisions; will be available to settle disputes; and in cases where disputes cannot be settled, will report the matter to the members of the Geneva Conference.”

The Final Declaration stated that elections should be held no later than July 1956 to determine whether or not the Vietnamese people wanted to be reunited, and it was assumed by everyone that they would so vote. The Department of External Affairs press release of July 27, 1954, recognized that “India, Poland and Canada are also expected to assume responsibility at a later stage for supervising elections…” In their separate statement of July 21, 1954, the US government pledged that “in the case of nations now divided against their will, we shall continue to seek to achieve unity through free elections supervised by the United Nations to insure that they are conducted fairly” and that it “will refrain from the threat or the use of force to disturb” the Geneva Agreements.

Finally, there was the question of the general political position of Canada on the Commission. The Geneva Agreements were a major test of the new Soviet policy of peaceful coexistence, and the troika principles had been introduced into the Commission. From the beginning the United States has felt that there is no contradiction between Canada’s role as a defender of the West and her position on the Viet Nam Commission. It was correctly assumed by Canada that Poland would consistently represent the Communist position. Was Canada to play a parallel role for the West? The St. Laurent Government and the Foreign Minister, Lester Pearson, felt that there was at least dual loyalty if not a primary loyalty to the principles of the Geneva Agreements. This view was expressed by Mr. Sherwood Lett, the first Canadian Representative on the Viet Nam Commission:

I trust—and I am sure the Canadian Government hopes—that the Commission will not become a new cockpit for the struggle between East and West. The Commission has been set up to do a specific job, and it is the view of the Canadian Government that everything possible should be done to ensure that the Commission sticks to this job, and does not become involved in side issues.

Unfortunately it wasn’t long before Canada resolved to play a rather passive role in Viet Nam. By 1957 Canadian policy was described in these terms:

In particular, the Canadian position has been that the Viet Nam Commission has not within its present terms of reference any responsibilities in connection........

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