143. Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to President Johnson1
SUBJECT
- Your meeting with Couve de Murville at 11:30 this morning
- 1.
- Obviously the dominant topic is Southeast Asia and especially South Vietnam. Couve takes the immediate military disturbance calmly, although he obviously feels that it reinforces his own conviction that there is not, and cannot be, any workable government in a situation of “American occupation.” He professes to think there is a possibility of such a government after a political settlement and an American withdrawal, but he produces no evidence whatever to support the notion that such a government would be anything but Communist.
- 2.
- Couve told me that he thought we had decided on “escalation” and that he was very fearful of the results. This is what he has told others and I think it is what he honestly believes. I pointed out that no one had more experience of negotiation and of the settlement of political differences than you, and that our current lack of interest in negotiation should not be construed as willful insistence upon a violent solution. Couve readily admitted—and indeed volunteered—the opinion that you are a very prudent man and that you have made no mistakes since November 1963—“a remarkable achievement.”
- 3.
- I pointed out to Couve that just a year ago today he had suggested to Bohlen in a private talk that we might have to take further military action before we would be in a position to negotiate. He did not deny that he had said this (the cable is at Tab A).2 He simply said that he thought it was now too late for such measures. In his own view the dangers of action beyond the 17th Parallel outweighed any possible return, and he thought we would do better to limit our attention to the South. I told him that you more than any other man in the government were insistent upon a maximum effort in the South, but that we also had to take account of the very heavy role and responsibility of Hanoi and of the problem of morale which is created when there is increasing violence against our people and the Vietnamese, and no visible response.
All this was standard back and forth. I then tried to make a more important and less obvious point—without much success. I told him that we did not think it was helpful for the French to make public calls for a conference. He said that this was no more than a restatement of their own [Page 331] well-known position. I said that any restatement was a political act, especially at a moment of tension. I told him that I thought the French might have to choose between having a real private diplomatic role in these matters and taking the posture of public disapproval of what an ally was doing. I did not see how they could do both. Couve said that France aspired to no private role and that we could not object if the French stated their honest opinion. This was the only sign of heat which he displayed in the whole meeting.
My conclusion is that Couve honestly does not think we can avoid defeat in South Vietnam. This is of course a comforting conclusion for a Frenchman for obvious reasons. He is not troubled by the shifting of the power balance in Southeast Asia because France has no ambitions there, and he is a Frenchmen through and through. He does think there is real danger in any “escalation”, and since this danger might affect Europe and France, his worry is not pretense. He will be reassured by anything you choose to tell him about your own care and watchfulness. I think you will also see the value of the argument that anything we do now will be designed to be essentially continuous with our policy of insistent support for action in the South and very careful and moderate and measured naval action, air patrol, and so on in other areas.