Phạm Ngọc Thảo communist fighters from South Vietnam and Cambodia in accordance with the terms of the Geneva Conference. Under these Accords, Vietnam was to be temporarily divided at the 17th parallel pending national elections to reunify the country in 1956, and military personnel were to be evacuated to their respective sides of the border. In the meantime, Hồ Chí Minh's Vietminh controlled the north under the DRV while the south was under the French-sponsored State of Vietnam. However, Thảo remained in the anti-communist south when Vietnam was partitioned and made a show of renouncing communism. He became a schoolteacher and later worked
1954 Geneva Conference the Berlin Conference, participants agreed that "the problem of restoring peace in Indochina will also be discussed at the Conference [on the Korean question] to which representatives of the United States, France, the United Kingdom, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Chinese People's Republic and other interested states will be invited." The conference was held at the Palace of Nations in Geneva, commencing on April 26, 1954. The first agenda item was the Korean question to be followed by Indochina. The armistice signed at end of the Korean War required a political conference within three months—a timeline which