751G.00/2–154: Telegram
The Ambassador at Saigon (Heath) to the Department of State
[Received 10:45 a.m.]
1363. Repeated information Paris 417, HICOG Berlin 2. Berlin for MacArthur. ReDeptel 1351 January 29.1 Terms of purported Communist armistice offer for Indochina are preposterously unacceptable. They would mean turning over to Communists almost all of Laos, a country which Viet Minh have been able to invade briefly on occasion but in which they have been unable to establish themselves with any permanency except in few regions of mountainous North Laos. They would mean turning over capital city of Hue, which for some six years has been in Vietnamese hands, turning over Hanoi and mineral, industrial and food resources and 7,000,000 inhabitants of Tonkin Delta, in which Viet Minh have been able to continue infiltration but which they have been unable to capture after seven years of war. They would bring Communists up to Mekong ready for subversive efforts in Thailand. With the millions of Tonkin Delta dwellers whom they could [Page 1010] force into their armies or service they would mean the speedy loss of rest of Vietnam, Cambodia, and eventually all of Southeast Asia. Sixteenth is not a parallel that is a defendable military frontier.
Department is aware of course that it is utterly impossible to draw an armistice line in this war which either in guerrilla or in large scale form reaches every major portion of Vietnam.
- Telegram 1351 to Saigon (also sent to Paris, New Delhi, and Berlin), Jan. 29, indicated that according to an intelligence source, the Soviet Union had ordered its Ambassador in France to test the French reaction to a possible settlement in Indochina based on the following provisions: there would be a provisional armistice line drawn at the 16th parallel under the supervision of Indian troops; the French would evacuate Hanoi and the Tonkin Delta; the Viet Minh would cease all activities in the Saigon region and in Cambodia; finally, a political conference would be held in New Delhi within 3 months to settle all remaining difficulties. (751G.00/1–2954)↩