611.51G/8–1354
Memorandum of Conversation, by Robert McClintock
Subject:
- Views of the Chuong Family on Current US-Vietnamese Relations
Participants:
- The Vietnamese Ambassador and Madame Tran Van Chuong
- Mr. Robert McClintock, FE
I lunched alone today with the Ambassador and Madame Tran Van Chuong. As the Ambassador accurately observed, Madame Tran Van Chuong should have been Ambassador rather than he. She is a highly alert, intelligent and aggressive lady who in addition to being a counselor of the French Union is likewise a first cousin of Bao Dai. Her hatred of the French, despite the fact she accepted the title of counselor, is extreme. It was clearly evident that Madame Tran Van Chuong as the sharper member of the team is being sent to Saigon tomorrow to scout the ground, build bridges and return with intelligence for her husband who is on balance the most balanced member of the pair.
Tran Van Chuong and his wife indicated that as original inhabitants of Hanoi his house had been immediately confiscated by the Ho Chi Minh Government in 1945. They had lived for a year in clandestine opposition to the Ho Chi Minh regime. Following the massacre of December 19, 1946, they escaped to the country behind the Vietminh lines but eventually found their way back to Hanoi after it had been recovered by the French. Chuong was Foreign Minister of Bao Dai in 1945 and claims to have authored the note to General De Gaulle demanding complete independence from the French.1
After Bao Dai’s departure in exile the Chuongs claim they were placed under house arrest for two years between 1947 and 1949. They [Page 1942] were first kept in exile at the Hong Gai coal mines but later were allowed to live in house arrest at Dalat. This explains some of the fixed hatred which animates both the Chuongs for the French despite the fact that Madame Chuong has been honored by the French Government and her husband has spent many years in exile in France.
Chuong claims that he was consulted by Bao Dai prior to the formation of the Diem Government. He said that Bao Dai complained that he had no recourse but to follow the French line unless he could be assured of U.S. support. In Chuong’s words he said that he told his Majesty that by following the French line the Vietnamese had already lost half their country and he would rather lose the other half than die of shame by continuing the French connection.
Both the Chuongs were emphatic in their insistence that Bao Dai was the only solution for Viet Nam. They added, however, that Diem must be given a full run for his money and deprecated the French intrigues now going on in Saigon and Paris against Diem. It will be recalled that Diem’s brother, Nhu, is married to the Chuongs’ daughter and that they are very close to Diem.
Since it was apparent that both the Ambassador and his vigorous wife are wholly on the Bao Dai line while at the same time committed to a single policy of extracting the utmost direct aid from the U.S., I thought it useful to intimate that not everyone in this country shared their enthusiasm for Bao Dai. I said that from my own observation it seemed that his Majesty had followed a policy of divide and rule at a time when Viet Nam needed unifying and I likewise noticed the something less than benign influence on his Majesty of Nyugen De, who is the father incidentally of Miss Elizabeth De, First Secretary of the Vietnamese Embassy. Madame Chuong asked on several occasions if I thought Bao Dai should go back to Viet Nam or remain in France. I said that I was not privileged to offer an opinion on this point but I did feel very strongly that Bao Dai’s full powers for Diem should be continued irrespective of where his Majesty took up residence.
- For a translation of the letter of Aug. 18, 1945, from Bao Dai to General De Gaulle, then President of the Provisional French Government, see Cameron, Viet-Nam Crisis, vol. i, pp. 48–49.↩