751G.5 MSP/9–853
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Director of the Office of Philippine and Southeast Asian Affairs (Bonsal)
Subject:
Participants:
- M. Pierre Pelletier, Second Secretary, French Embassy
- Mr. Philip W. Bonsal, PSA
M. Pelletier came in at his request today. He referred to the French Note of September 1, handed to Ambassador Dillon on September 3rd, regarding Indochina. He asked me whether I could give him any preliminary impressions with regard to this note. In reply, I stated that the note had produced a favorable impression here, that the whole subject was under active study by the Department, Defense and FOA at the highest levels and that I thought this Government’s position regarding the French Note would be defined very shortly. I said that I believed there might be some additional points on which we would wish information or clarification from the French Government. In reply to a question, I told M. Pelletier that I knew it was the Secretary’s desire, as the Under Secretary had indicated to M. Daridan three weeks ago, to get this matter to the National Security Council without delay but that I could not inform him whether this would be possible this week. I endeavored to give M. Pelletier on the whole an optimistic impression while leaving the way open to further requests for information or even for commitments from the French Government.
M. Pelletier referred to a letter which M. Bidault has sent to the Secretary thanking the latter for the references to Indochina and particularly to the possibility of negotiations in his St. Louis speech.3 M. Pelletier said that this reference had been most helpful to the French Government in that French public opinion could now see that the U.S. did not regard the indefinite continuation of the war as the only possible prospect for Indochina. I took occasion to repeat what has so often been said by the Secretary and others to the French, namely that the achievement of a position where any sort of successful negotiation might take place in Indochina depends strictly upon the energetic prosecution of the war and the making of considerable military progress. M. Pelletier expressed agreement with this view but reported that the position which the Secretary had taken in his [Page 762] St. Louis speech would be most helpful in France and would give French public opinion a desirable impression of the breadth and flexibility of U.S. views on this matter.