Pham Van Dong Pushed for 13th Parallel Against French 18th

By Vera Kessler · August 13, 2026

Top-secret communications to Mao Zedong show how Soviet officials felt Pham Van Dong had "no mature ideas" for pushing French forces back to the 13th parallel in 1954.

At 5:30 on the afternoon of June 26, 1954, a meeting took place between Soviet, Vietnamese, and Chinese delegations. They were there to study a plan for the division and adjustment of zones in Vietnam and Laos. The resulting report, a top-secret telegram from Li Kenong to Mao Zedong—translated into English by the Cold War International History Project—records a moment of high-stakes cartography, where the future of Indochina was being sketched in parallels and provisional lines.

Tuy Hoa and the 15th Parallel

The Vietnamese side, led by Pham Van Dong, presented a tiered strategy for the withdrawal of French forces. According to the public record, Pham Van Dong served as the Prime Minister of North Vietnam from 1955 to 1976 and was one of Ho Chi Minh's closest lieutenants. In this June 1954 meeting, Pham proposed a "maximum" goal for the division of Vietnam: a line running from Tuy Hoa and [JiaoYao]—a location for which the Chinese name remains unknown to the editors—and Pleiku, extending along Route 19 to the border of Cambodia between the 13th and 14th parallels.

Below this maximum ambition, Pham outlined a "medium goal" at the 15th parallel and a "minimum" at the 16th. These aspirations stood in sharp contrast to the principles already introduced by the French military negotiator, [Henry] Deltiel. The French position was more restrictive: a complete withdrawal from the north, a dividing line along the 18th parallel, and the use of Haiphong solely for the purpose of withdrawal.

Li Kenong's advice to Mao was pragmatic. He argued that the Vietnamese side "should not delay putting forward the maximum plan," but suggested that doing so would be "more advantageous" if combined with a simultaneous presentation of the political, military, and economic situation across the three Indochinese countries.

Upper Laos

The negotiations extended beyond Vietnam into the complexities of Laos. Pham Van Dong's plan for the division of zones in Laos focused on the preservation and expansion of "liberation zones." Specifically, the Vietnamese sought to pursue Sam Neua and Phong Sali, alongside new zones such as [MengKe] and [MengWei] in upper Laos. The goal was to expand the [NanHuHe] area toward Muong Souei in the west and Nam Bac in the south.

There was a clear hierarchy of territorial value in the Vietnamese strategy. Pham was prepared to make concessions in lower Laos and, if necessary at the last stage, in central Laos, provided the integrity of the liberation zone in upper Laos remained intact. He contended that the division of zones should be solved in connection with political questions; if a coalition government could be established, the need for adjustment or withdrawal from these zones might disappear entirely.

A Lack of Mature Ideas

Despite the detailed mapping of parallels and routes, the document records a friction between the allies. Comrade [K.V.] Novikov of the Soviet Union's Foreign Ministry Southeast Asian Department expressed skepticism regarding Pham Van Dong's clarity. Novikov pointed out that Pham "has no mature ideas" and "no clear ideas on the plan for division of zones.

Novikov observed that while Pham seemed to agree with Premier Zhou Enlai's bottom line—maintaining a part of upper Laos neighboring Vietnam and China, specifically Sam Neua, Phong Sali, and a small part of Luang Prabang—he simultaneously wanted to expand the upper liberation zone in exchange for withdrawing from the middle. This contradiction made it "difficult to discuss to make decisions."

As a result, the three delegations agreed to meet again the following Monday at 11:00 am, after Pham had conducted "further studies" to produce more concrete ideas. Li Kenong noted that before the military conference could move forward on the zone division in Laos, the parties first needed to "examine and correct the maps reflecting the current status."

This archival snapshot captures a precise moment of instability. While this telegram details the internal friction between the Soviet, Chinese, and Vietnamese interests, other records of the period remain in various archives, though their specific contents are not part of this file. The UK National Archives holds correspondence between Pham Van Dong and Christian Pineau, as well as Pham's statements on establishing contacts with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) and China. The U.S. State Department's FRUS records contain embassy telegrams from 1964 and memorandums regarding the later Kissinger-Le Duc Tho negotiations.

Li Kenong concluded his report to Mao by noting that the delay caused by the map corrections would buy the delegation time to wait for decisions coming out of meetings in Nanning. The telegram was dispatched on June 27, 1954, leaving the question of the 18th parallel—and the viability of Pham's "maximum plan"—to be settled in the coming days.