From 20 to 26 March 1954, Ely visited Washington D.C. for previously scheduled high-level talks that coincided with the increasingly dire straits for the French forces in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu.

[3]: 118  In the course of Ely's visit, discussions regarding potential direct US air support for the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu took place and these became known as Operation Vulture.

[3]: 119 On 4 April Ely cabled Gen. Jean Étienne Valluy, head of the French military mission in Washington, to communicate to Admiral Radford the French government's request that the United States execute the air strike that Admiral Arthur W. Radford and Ely had discussed to relieve Viet Minh pressure on Dien Bien Phu.

[3]: 161 On 13 December Ely and US Ambassador J. Lawton Collins reached an "understanding on development and training of autonomous Viet-Nam forces."

[3]: 187 In a meeting in Paris on 18 December 1954 with Prime Minister Mendès-France and Anthony Eden, the British foreign secretary, Ely expressed his views of South Vietnamese premier Ngo Dinh Diem as an "extremely pig-headed man who became more so under pressure" and that he and Collins "were now virtually convinced that it was hopeless to expect anything of Diem.

[4] Ely was reappointed as Chief of Staff in June 1958 after Charles de Gaulle assumed power and established the Fifth Republic.