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 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