1957 in the Vietnam War total $207 million dollars of which $187 million would come from the United States. Seventy percent of the U.S. assistance was spent paying the salaries of South Vietnamese armed forces. An author in the prestigious American Journal Foreign Affairs said that "South Vietnam today is a quasi-police state characterized by arbitrary arrests and imprisonments, strict censorship of the press and the absence of an effective political opposition. The International Control Commission, formed to administer the Geneva Accords of 1954, said that neither North or South Vietnam had been in compliance with the agreement. A shot was fired which narrowly missed
1954 Geneva Conference negotiations to that end should resume at an appropriate time. The Belgian and British delegations said that while they were not going to accept "the Soviet and Chinese proposals, that did not mean a rejection of the ideas they contained". In the end, however, the conference participants did not agree on any declaration. While the delegates began to assemble in Geneva from late April, the discussions on Indochina did not begin until May 8, 1954. The Viet Minh had achieved their decisive victory over the French Union forces at Dien Bien Phu the previous day. The Western allies did not