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Southeast Asia Treaty Organization

September 8, 1954

1954-09-08_SEATO_Conference
1954-09-08_SEATO_Conference
Delegates gather around a table for the founding meeting of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization in 1954. (Corbis)

At the prompting of U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, a coalition of nations forms the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), intended as a military alliance to check Communist expansion. Among its members are France, Great Britain, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Thailand, and Pakistan. Geneva Accords restrictions do not permit South Vietnam, Cambodia, or Laos to participate. But SEATO does include a separate protocol designating the Associated States as areas that must be protected to ensure the “peace and security” of the signatories. This protocol establishes a foundation for future intervention in Indochina.1

1Ronald H. Spector, Advice and Support: The Early Years, 1941–1960, United States Army in Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1985), 228–29, 237; Spencer C. Tucker, ed. The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History, (2nd edition; Santa Barbara, CA: ABC CLIO, 2011), 655; George C. Herring, America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975, (4th edition; New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002), 54–55; 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), 540–542.