69. Memorandum From the Secretary of State to the President1
SUGGESTED ITEMS FOR EVENING READING
1. French Policy in Viet-Nam—Chip Bohlen met today with Couve in Paris and was told that France has had no military or operational policy in Viet-Nam for the past 9 years and, therefore, is not working against U.S. interests.2 Couve made a personal suggestion, that a “political objective”, such as ultimate mutual withdrawal of U.S. and Viet Cong forces, would promote our military aims.3 He was not suggesting a conference, although admitting that we might have to deal with the Chinese Communists. Couve did not respond to Bohlen’s mention of a French statement on Viet-Nam but agreed that French official silence would be desirable.
[Here follow items 2–7 which were unrelated to Vietnam.]
- Source: Department of State, President’s Reading File: Lot 74 D 164. Secret; No Distribution.↩
- As reported in telegrams 4165 and 4173 from Paris, both March 4. (Ibid., Central Files, POL 27 VIET S)↩
- When the Embassy in Saigon learned of this suggestion by Couve de Murville, it cabled the Department of State that such a proposal revealed a “very fundamental French misunderstanding of the true nature of the Viet Cong.” In telegram 1713, March 9, the Embassy explained that the Viet Cong were “indigenous communists” many of whom derived from the Viet Minh cadres who remained in the south after 1954. They had to be eliminated or won over; they could not be induced to withdraw in 1964 any more effectively than they had been in 1954. The Embassy asked that this fact be stressed to the French Government and added that, should South Vietnam learn that the United States was “toying with such an idea,” the effect in Vietnam would be “unfortunate.” (Ibid.) The White House copy is published in Declassified Documents, 1976, 211E.↩
- Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩