The organization consisted of delegations of diplomats and military personnel from: Canada, Poland, and India, representing respectively the non-communist, communist, and non-aligned blocs.

The International Control Commission was created to apply the Geneva Accords, a treaty signed as part of the removal of Vietnam from the French Empire.

Instead, it was simply given power to conduct studies and write reports on what was happening on the ground in Vietnam and return the information to the Joint Council which would make policy decisions.

Tensions between the North and the South were running high, and while neither group were very big fans of the International Control Commission, both preferred talking to it than to their counterparts.

The election to unify Vietnam was to be held two years after the separation attempt to reach a longer peace and to prevent a permanent split between the two sides.

[citation needed] However, the International Control Commission was able to hold the two sides in check for years in a shaky peace that otherwise would have likely descended into conflict almost immediately.

The states that sat on the commission were secondary powers, at best, never large enough to have a major impact on world affairs during the Cold War, in comparison to the two superpowers.

That relationship to the larger powers allowed the developing states to take bigger risks and care less and less about the condemnation of the International Control Commission.

Without any actual power or backing of the global superpowers, there was little for the International Control Commission to do to enforce their views except complaining to what was quickly becoming an empty room.

In the South, the struggle was with the indifference and reluctance of the authorities and the persistent effort of the Americans to press the terms of the Agreement farther than they could properly be stretched.

The Southerners and Americans inevitably complained and increasingly insisted that the known if not proved disregard of the arms control provisions by the Communists not only justified by made essential their doing likewise.

"[8]That difficulty further reduced the impact of the International Control Commission, preventing it from performing its duties, and putting into question its existence.

That it could not reach the North was a problem since it was it sworn duty to maintain "democratic liberties" and put a stop to any kind of growing threats to violence.

The inability to patrol regularly allowed the North to build whatever it wanted, as there was no threat of the international community stopping it because the ICC has no actual way of enforcing order.

For the International Control Commission to function properly as a check on the two Vietnams, it would have to travel throughout the region with impunity to look for signs of growing tension or violations of "democratic liberties" but would have to be able to catch the states unaware.

By far the biggest blow to the International Control Commission is the growing military presence of the United States during the 1960s that would ultimately escalate into the Vietnam War.

The troops and military supplies brought in were in clear defiance of the Geneva Agreements, but the lack of power invested in the International Control Commission meant that it was completely unable to prevent even that.

That lack of effect was to be endemic of the International Control Commission during the conflict, as it was unable to negotiate peace as the tensions grew into full-blown war and its role became more and more vestigial in the face of regional politics.

Their fall came from an unlikely source, with India, one of the key member states of the International Control Commission normalizing relations with North but not South Vietnam.

India, as lead-nation, was determined to ensure adequate security measures and from its own very recent history had bitter experience of how fraught the task of Partition and population transfer could be.

In addition, the Indian Army's Corps of Signals established and manned the communications network between the field teams and the headquarters, and linked the capitals, of the three, or rather the four, countries.

As part of its agreement to pay for its disengagement from Empire in the Far East, France agreed to provide and fund the air-transport for the ICC.

The aircraft were all of the same type, for ease of maintenance & spares: the prewar-vintage Boeing 307 Stratoliner, the first pressurized airliner to enter service.

[82] The fleet was based in Vientiane and the crews were mostly French, though the former operator remained responsible for the maintenance and some of the former US pilots were apparently also contracted: Attempts to maintain neutrality in Laos were unsuccessful and with the escalation of war-fighting throughout the 1960s, the remaining helicopters were sold back to the former operator, with most being passed on to the Royal Lao Air Force.

The thirteen people comprised the diplomats or military personnel from all three delegations, plus the French crew of the civil aircraft that was on contract to the ICC.

As with other international peacekeeping and monitoring missions, such as the UN, the ICC/ICSC issued a medal to recognise the service of its members in what was becoming an increasingly active war-zone.

India had gained its own independence less than a decade before the formation of the ICC and was the lead-nation of the project, by command and by numbers, and was proud to commemorate its active leadership in of the developing Non-Aligned Movement.

When the idea was presented to its colleagues, the reaction was less than ecstatic: Canada was thinking of issuing its own national peacekeeping or general service medal and was therefore hesitant, and Poland was equally non-committal.

On the reverse is a map of Indochina, with Vietnam shown as a single entity; its name is inscribed in Latin script, but without the Vietnamese diacritics.

One source states that the total number of ICC/ICSC medals issued was '1,550', but this must be a statement taken out of context: as the Indian strength for the first year alone was over one thousand, and troops usually did a tour of about a year, this figure should have been exceeded by eligible Indian soldiers alone before the end of 1956; numbers soon dropped significantly, but still the organisation did remain for almost two decades.