751G.5/3–2153: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Dillon)1 to the Department of State
priority
5179. Repeated information Saigon 204. For Secretary from Dillon. I saw Bidault this afternoon and passed on to him thoughts in Deptel 4907.2 He listened with interest and then asked me to tell you that he was glad the United States recognized the importance of the war in Indochina to the whole free world. He further said that he was in general agreement with the second, third and fourth considerations as outlined in reference telegram, with one exception. This was inclusion of French businessmen among those residents of Indochina who were not contributing enough to the war effort. He admitted that there was considerable war profiteering going on locally in Indochina, but said that the French residents had only a small hand in this compared to local Chinese residents and Vietnamese, including Vietnamese officials. Despite his statement of general agreement with third consideration your message, I personally do not feel he paid much attention to the suggested possibility of a change in the rate of exchange. I consider his general agreement to mean only that he recognizes that it is now an appropriate time for a re-examination of the whole situation with no commitment as to the French position during such a re-examination.
Regarding your fifth consideration, he had no particular pertinent thoughts. He talked at length about the great difficulty in dealing with the Associated States because their competent leaders were very few in number and had had to be created by the French. The development [Page 419] of local leaders was a slow process and, meanwhile, there would be difficulties similar to those encountered in dealing with the Arab States. He also quoted Juin as saying that it was harder to train Vietnamese as soldiers than it was to train South Koreans as the Japanese had given a military tradition to Korea while there never had been such a tradition in Indochina. Nevertheless, he said Juin felt that the training was progressing satisfactorily.
[Here follows discussion of the proposed European Defense Community.]