The Viet Nam Constitution of 1956

When the forces of the French Union and those of the Viet Minh accepted a cease-fire at Geneva in July, 1954, the 17th Parallel was visioned only as a temporary military demarcation line. Nation-wide elections were to be held within two years to settle the political future of the country; and it was generally taken for granted that the entire area, from the Gate of Nam-Quan on the China border to the Point of Ca-Mau at the tip of the Indo-China peninsula, an area roughly equivalent in size to that of the States of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and West Virginia combined, with a population approximating 23 millions, would fall to Ho Chi Minh and his Communists. The device of a delayed election was accepted merely as a face-saving measure to enable the French to withdraw gracefully from the scene by handing over control of the South—and hence responsibility for its future—to a native government.That the 17th Parallel has become, instead, a political boundary separating the Republic of Viet Nam, embracing roughly the southern 40 per cent of the area and nearly half of the population, from the Communist “Democratic Republic of Viet Nam,†has been largely the work of a single man, Ngo Dinh Diem, and his closely knit group of assistants.