Secretary of State John Foster Dulles Makes a Speech on United Action

March 29, 1954

Portrait of John Foster Dulles, 52nd Secretary of State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower

Overview

Secretary of State John Foster Dulles delivers an address to the Overseas Press Club of America in New York on “The Threat of Red Asia.” The secretary stresses the importance of Indochina to the United States, reaffirming U.S. support for the French Union forces in the region. In an outline for U.S. action in Indochina, Dulles argues that the United States must form a coalition of nations, including parts of the British Commonwealth, to meet the threat of Communist aggression.1

¹Fredrik Logevall, Embers of War: The Fall of An Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam (New York: Random House, 2012), 461; Neil H. Petersen, ed., Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Volume XIII, Part 1, Indochina (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1982), Document 656; Richard M. Leighton, Strategy, Money, and the New Look, 1953–1956, History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Volume III (Washington, D.C.: Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2001), 536–537.