State–JCS meetings, lot 61 D 417
Substance of Discussions of State–Joint Chiefs of Staff Meeting at the Pentagon Building, August 20, 1954, 11:30 a.m.1
[Here follow a list of those present (24) and discussion of subjects other than Indochina.]
[Page 1963]3. Proposed Message from President Eisenhower to the Prime Minister of Vietnam2
Mr. Bowie called on Ambassador McClintock to discuss this item.
The Ambassador referred briefly to the stated JCS reservations on aid to Vietnam: that a condition to the granting of military aid to Vietnam should be (1) a stable government and (2) an effective Vietnamese armed force. Mr. McClintock pointed out that the question of whether or not Vietnam has a stable government will depend a good deal on an available effective Vietnamese armed force, and to be effective the armed forces of Vietnam must depend heavily on the U.S. for assistance.
Admiral Radford agreed with Mr. McClintock on this point. He also said we would have to do something and do it quickly. This should not be an insuperable problem, he said, since we have a mission and equipment there. He emphasized particularly that we must deal directly with the Vietnamese Government with no control by the French military authority.
In reviewing a copy of the draft letter from the President to the Vietnamese Prime Minister, Admiral Duncan referred to the paragraph reading as follows:
“Thirdly, we have informed the government of France that stocks of US-supplied arms and matériel now in Viet-Nam should insofar as practical be redistributed to the National Armies of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam and that French Union forces departing from Viet-Nam will leave behind, for the use of the three National Armies, such arms and equipment supplied by the United States as we may judge to be necessary to maintain those armies for the effective defense of their territories.”
Admiral Duncan questioned the advisability of including this paragraph. He did not know of any form of information which we had given to France that U.S. matériel now in Vietnam should be redistributed to the National Armies of the Associated States, or that French Union forces leaving Vietnam were to “leave behind” certain arms and equipment supplied by the U.S. He questioned the advisability on the one hand of urging the French to do everything possible to return this matériel to us while at the same time letting it be known we were going to redistribute it to the local governments. The French might just walk away and leave the matériel where it was.
Admiral Radford took the position that in this letter to the Prime Minister we should limit ourselves to generalities and should state simply that we will undertake to supply the Vietnamese direct. There is no need, he stated, to inform them of the source of these supplies.
[Page 1964]Admiral Duncan remarked that in drafting this letter to the Prime Minister it was necessary to keep in mind that you can’t just rule France off the course, and that she still has important forces there.
It was agreed that Ambassador McClintock would redraft the letter in the light of this discussion, and would subsequently communicate with appropriate officials in Defense on the subject.