French-Iberian Affairs Desk Files: Lot 53D246
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Director of the Office of Philippine and Southeast Asian Affairs (Lacy)
Subject: Desirability of French Government Bringing Indochina Situation to the United Nations.
| Participants: | Mr. Pierre Millet—Counselor, French Embassy |
| Mr. Lacy—PSA |
Mr. Millet asked to see me during the afternoon of October 14. During the course of conversation on the military situation in Indochina (see Memorandum of Conversation entitled “Military Situation in Indochina”, October 14)1 Mr. Millet said that his Ambassador had asked him to secure my entirely personal and unofficial views on the attitude of the Department toward the desirability of the French Government bringing the Indochina situation, in some unspecified manner, to the United Nations. He seemed to imply by several elliptical statements that either General Mac Arthur or the Department might consider that the success of the United Nations operation in Korea argued for a reproduction of the same operation in Indochina.
I replied that any views I might express were entirely my own and that, as he knew, this subject could be more profitably discussed with Mr. Hickerson.2 The rest of my remarks were designed to convey to Mr. Millet the idea that: (1) the decision as to whether to take the Indochina situation to the United Nations lay with the French Government and not with the United States. (2) I did not think that the Department had developed, during the last few weeks as Mr. Millet implied, a sentiment in favor of the French submission of the Indochina situation to the United Nations; that so far as I knew the Department continued to adhere to the position in respect of this problem agreed on between the United States, French and British delegations during the course of their discussions preliminary to the Foreign Ministers Conferences in New York.3 (3) United Nations activity in Indochina seemed to me to require either a border observation team or mediation between two parties at interest. I observed I thought that the border team, whose function would presumably be to observe indirect Chinese aggression, would necessarily include Asiatic membership and that as he well knew, the attitude of certain Asian countries toward Chinese Communism and toward Ho Chi Minh differed from the views held by the Western Powers; that I presumed the French Government did not look with favor on the treatment of Ho Chi Minh as a party of interest in any case.
I had the impression from Mr. Millet that in its desperation the French Govenment was for the first time seriously considering United Nations action in Indochina. I did not think it wise therefore, to give Millet even in personal conversation anything that he could describe as a Departmental position beyond that already discussed in the preliminary conversations with the British and French Delegations in September.
Mr. Merchant and Mr. Godley4 were given the sense of the foregoing on October 14.