The Berlin Conference of 1954 was a meeting of the "Big Four" foreign ministers of the United States (John Foster Dulles), Britain (Anthony Eden), France (Georges Bidault), and the Soviet Union (Vyacheslav Molotov), on January 25-February 18, 1954.
The ministers agreed to call a wider international conference to discuss a settlement to the recent Korean War and the ongoing Indochina War between France and the Viet Minh, but failed to reach agreement on issues of European security and the international status of Germany and Austria, then under four-power occupation following World War II.
The Berlin meeting was an early fruit of the first period of U.S.-Soviet détente or "thaw" following the first Cold War. The subsequent Geneva Conference was to produce a temporary peace in Indochina and France's withdrawal from Vietnam, though formal peace in Korea remained elusive.
