396.1 GE/4–2054
Memorandum of Conversation, by Elizabeth Brown of the Office of United Nations Political and Security Affairs
Subject:
- Special Briefing Meeting, April 20, 1954
[Here follow the list of participants, Secretary Dulles’ opening remarks, and that portion of the briefing concerned with the Korean phase of the Geneva Conference; for text, see page 119.]
Turning to Indochina, the Secretary said no decision had as yet been reached as to who would be invited to the Indochina phase of the conference. Five states were indicated by name in the Berlin communiqué, together with “other interested states”. Who those other interested states were had not yet been determined and no invitations sent. He expected that the four sponsoring powers would hold early conversations in this regard. He had already had an informal exchange of views with M. Bidault; the matter had not arisen in his discussions with Mr. Eden. He assumed, however, that the Associated States would be invited if they wished to attend, and he recalled that they had been present at the Japanese Peace Conference and had signed the resulting treaty. He would think they were equally concerned in this case. It was easy to think of other states who might also be regarded as “interested”.
Noting the language in the Berlin communiqué on this point, Mr. Dulles recalled that there had been some controversy at Berlin as to whether other interested “states” should be invited or other representatives of the region. As he recalled, the USSR had originally proposed “representatives”, but the Western powers had insisted upon “states” on the ground that it would be more difficult to bring in Ho Chi Minh on this basis. He repeated that there was no agreement among the three Western powers, much less with the USSR, as to the composition of this phase of the conference.
Referring again to the connection which the Berlin communiqué made between a Korean settlement and peace in Asia, the Secretary said that there was also a strong inference that what happened on the Korean phase would have a bearing on what happened in Indochina. Nobody desired to give priority to Korea over Indochina from the standpoint of importance and urgency, but it was generally recognized that peaceful intentions on the part of the Communists would probably be developed positively or negatively with respect to Korea, before they could be developed on Indochina. He also thought that the [Page 536] conference would probably discuss Korea first since the composition of the Indochinese phase of the conference was still undecided.
Mr. Dulles said he assumed that those present who were particularly concerned with Indochina and Southeast Asia would be interested if he also reported briefly on the talks he had just concluded regarding the creation of a defense coalition to protect Southeast Asia from possible conquest by international Communist forces.1 The origin of our thinking on this proposal derived from the feeling that if we entered the Geneva Conference, and more particularly its Indochina phase, without greater cohesion and strength, the Communists could legitimately entertain the hope and expectation of being able to take over Southeast Asia piece by piece. If they thought they could do so, there was no reason why they would not proceed on that basis.
Without cohesion for defense it had seemed likely to the United States, Mr. Dulles said, that the Geneva Conference would encourage rather than discourage Communist ambitions which presumably embraced the entire area. The best hope for peaceful solution seemed to lie in creating such conditions that the Communists would realize their ambitions would encouter an obstacle so formidable as to oblige them to write off the area. He recalled that this was what happened in Greece when the Communists finally realized they could not succeed there. We knew from the Greek experience that the Communists were without scruples when it came to writing off an adventure that was not paying off.
Therefore, Mr. Dulles believed that the first thing necessary for a possible peaceful solution was to take whatever steps were necessary to make it perfectly apparent that the Communists would not be able to succeed in their presumed grandiose plans in Southeast Asia. For this reason it seemed wise to make some preliminary arrangements to this end before the conference began; otherwise what we did would not have the same impact upon the Geneva Conference.
Observing that he had had discussions along these lines with a number of those present, the Secretary said that it had seemed useful to supplement those conversations with personal discussions with Messrs. Eden and Bidault in order to ensure mutual understanding. For that purpose he had gone to London and Paris last week.2 Noting the two communiqués from London and Paris covering these discussions, the Secretary stated that the essence of both was the recognition that the Communist threat in Southeast Asia constituted a danger to the vital interests of many countries in the area, and that this situation [Page 537] made it desirable to explore the possibilities of united defense measures to create a collective defense arrangement within the framework of Article 51 of the UN Charter.
The Secretary went on to say that in the Paris conversations considerable emphasis was placed upon the desirability of the independence of the Associated States, as forecast in the July 3 statement by the French Government.3 All, including France, recognized that collective defense in the area would have to be defense of genuine freedom and independence and not the defense of colonialism which the French had taken the initiative in beginning to end in the area.
Mr. Dulles informed the group that no final conclusion regarding the ultimate composition of the defense system had been reached. There were certain countries so closely in the path of the present Communist threat that they obviously would be necessary and proper parties to a defense arrangement; other countries in the general neighborhood might also be useful parties. He thought, and he believed Mr. Eden shared this view, that the question of composition could not be settled hurriedly.
In this connection, Mr. Dulles recalled that the original concept of collective defense in Europe was a grouping of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and the Western continental powers. The question of adding the Scandinavian states then arose, later Portugal and Italy, and still later Greece and Turkey were added, although both of them were far away from the North Atlantic area.
This experience, Mr. Dulles indicated, showed that the problem of composition had to be solved in an evolutionary process, taking account of varying needs and the measures that states were willing to take to meet the Communist threat. The important thing was that this concept had been launched and had found a good reception among countries in the immediate area. In the Secretary’s judgment, the idea had already taken hold sufficiently to make clear to the Communists before the Geneva Conference that Southeast Asia was not going to be a push-over that they could take bit by bit. They now knew that if they persisted in their present tactics they would meet united opposition.
The Secretary said that, in discussing this situation in Augusta yesterday with the President,4 he had recalled the fact that past aggressive [Page 538] Communist moves had brought reaction from the free world. NATO, for example, was due perhaps more than anything else to the takeover of Czechoslovakia which brought new fears into Europe. The original concept of NATO had not, he thought, included its implementation by supplementary defense arrangements. He recalled that when it was discussed in the Senate, both he and Senator Vandenberg had thought the pledges in the treaty were sufficient.
However, after the conquest of China and the Communist aggression in Korea, the fears of the free world led to its increased strength. The US, the Secretary observed, began to create a system of collective security in the Far East through mutual security treaties with Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines and Japan.5 If instead of collapsing in fear we were spurred to more vigorous measures of collective self-defense, Mr. Dulles considered that there was a fair chance that the ambitions entertained by the Communists would be written off, and there might be an opportunity to enlarge the area of peace in the world and to bring an end to the fighting in Indochina where so far the forces of the French Union had made a valiant contribution.
The Secretary repeated that the problem was to achieve a peace that would be secured not by surrender or retreat, but by a demonstration that peace for free men meant strength, unity, cohesion and the pooling of our strength to protect the freedom of each of us. He believed that if it became clear that the nature of the threat in Indochina would arouse such a united response, in that fact lay the best hope for all of us, not only those interested in the area, but for all free countries because otherwise the threat of aggression would become so menacing that it might plunge us into general war.
The Secretary suggested that the group should agree upon the text of a statement for the press. In his view it was of the utmost importance that there should be no discussion of any questions of strategy or tactics because this would defeat our own purposes at the conference. This group must be able to discuss such matters frankly and confidentially knowing that there would be no leaks, for if there were, it would not be possible to have such discussions in the future. Mr. Dulles suggested that the press should be told simply that there had been an exchange of views preliminary to the Geneva Conference and that he had reported to the group for information purposes on the discussions which he had carried on last week in London and Paris. He added that he would indicate that there had been present at the meeting representatives of the sixteen states participating in the Korean phase of the Conference, together with representatives of the three Associated States.
- For documentation on the establishment of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), see volume xii.↩
- See the extract of telegram 4523 from London, Apr. 13, and editorial note, pp. 514 and 517, respectively.↩
- Declaration made on July 3, 1953 by the French Government concerning the relationship between France and the Associated States. France felt the time had come to perfect the independence and sovereignty of the Associated States and invited each of the three governments to come to an agreement with France on the settlement of various questions. For the text of the declaration transmitted from Paris to the Department in telegram 52, July 3, 1953, see volume xiii. (751G.00/7–353)↩
- Apr. 19. For a memorandum by the Secretary of State concerning his meeting with the President, see p. 532.↩
- For documentation on these defense pacts, see volume xii.↩