The Geneva Conference of 1954: A Case of Tacit Deception

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Abstract
This article uses a game-theoretic model of deception to examine a game played at the Geneva Conference of 1954 by the Western Alliance, the Sino-Soviet bloc and the Vietminh. It argues that if this game were played as a game of complete information, the sophisticated outcome would have been a withdrawal of French forces from Vietnam, followed immediately by an election whose probable winner would have been Ho Chi Minh. For the Western Alliance, especially the United States, this outcome was seen as the least-preferred of the three possible outcomes. However, because the Western Alliance was able to make a false announcement of its preferences, it was able tacitly to deceive the Soviets, Chinese, and Vietminh into believing that its misrepresentation was its true preference. Thus, it was able to induce its second-most-preferred alternative, the partition of Vietnam, as the (manipulated) sophisticated outcome of the game.

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