Combined Chiefs of Staff in the context of Harold Redman

The First Indochina War (generally known as the Indochina War in France, and as the Anti-French Resistance War in Vietnam, and alternatively internationally as the French Indochina War) was fought in Indochina between France and the Việt Minh, and their respective allies, from 19 December 1946 until 1 August 1954. The Việt Minh was led by Võ Nguyên Giáp and Hồ Chí Minh. The conflict mainly happened in Vietnam.

At the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, the Allied Combined Chiefs of Staff decided that Indochina south of latitude 16° north was to be included in the Southeast Asia Command under British Admiral Mountbatten. The French return to southern Indochina was also supported by the Allies. On V-J Day, September 2, Hồ Chí Minh proclaimed in Hanoi the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV). Also in September 1945, Chinese forces entered Hanoi, and Japanese forces to the north of that line surrendered to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. At the same time, British forces landed in Saigon, and Japanese forces in the south surrendered to the British. The Chinese acknowledged the DRV and the communist-led Việt Minh, then in power in Hanoi, even though they also supported pro-Chinese nationalist factions. The British refused to do that in Saigon, and deferred to the French. The DRV ruled as the only civil government in all of Vietnam for a period of about 20 days, after the abdication of Emperor Bảo Đại, who had governed Vietnam since 1926.

General Walter Bedell "Beetle" Smith (5 October 1895 – 9 August 1961) was a senior officer of the United States Army who served as General Dwight D. Eisenhower's chief of staff at Allied Forces Headquarters (AFHQ) during the Tunisia Campaign and the Allied invasion of Italy in 1943, during World War II. He was Eisenhower's chief of staff at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) in the campaign in Western Europe from 1944 to 1945.

Smith enlisted as a private in the Indiana Army National Guard in 1911. During World War I, he served with the American Expeditionary Forces and was commissioned to second lieutenant in 1917. He was wounded in the Aisne-Marne Offensive in 1918. After the war, he was a staff officer and instructor at the U.S. Army Infantry School. In 1941, he became secretary of the General Staff, and in 1942 he became the secretary to the Combined Chiefs of Staff. His duties involved taking part in discussions of war plans at the highest level, and Smith often briefed President Franklin D. Roosevelt on strategic matters.

Ernest Joseph King (23 November 1878 – 25 June 1956) was a fleet admiral in the United States Navy who served as Commander in Chief, United States Fleet (COMINCH) and Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) during World War II. Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed King to command global American strategy during World War II and he held supreme naval command in his unprecedented double capacity as COMINCH and CNO. He was the U.S. Navy's second-most senior officer in World War II after Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, who served as Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief. King commanded the United States Navy's operations, planning, and administration and was a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Combined Chiefs of Staff.

King graduated fourth in the United States Naval Academy class of 1901. He received his first command in 1914, of the destroyer USS Terry in the occupation of Veracruz. During World War I, he served on the staff of Vice Admiral Henry T. Mayo, the commander in chief of the Atlantic Fleet. After the war, King was the head of the Naval Postgraduate School and commanded submarine divisions. He directed the salvage of the submarine USS S-51, earning the first of his three Navy Distinguished Service Medals, and later that of the USS S-4. He qualified as a naval aviator in 1927, and was captain of the aircraft carrier USS Lexington. He then served as Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics. Following a period on the Navy's General Board, he became commander in chief of the Atlantic Fleet in February 1941.

The First Washington Conference, also known as the Arcadia Conference (ARCADIA was the code name used for the conference), was held in Washington, D.C., from December 22, 1941, to January 14, 1942. President Roosevelt of the United States and Prime Minister Churchill of the United Kingdom attended the conference. Major decisions included making the defeat of Germany the highest war priority and the establishment of a Combined Chiefs of Staff to coordinate US and British military planning. Representatives of the Allies adopted the Declaration by United Nations, which committed them to make no separate peace with the enemy, and to employ their full resources until victory.