396.1 GE/4–3054
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Special Adviser to the United States Delegation (Merchant)
Participants:
- Mr. Pearson, Secretary of External Affairs of Canada
- Mr. Livingston T. Merchant, US Delegation
Time: 1 p.m., April 30, 1954
Place: Hotel de la Paix, Geneva
I called Mr. Pearson this morning and asked if I could see him for a few minutes. He invited me to luncheon, which I accepted, at his hotel. We talked for about one hour and a half.
I opened by saying that I came to him not under instructions or in fact officially, but for the primary purpose of seeking his views on several subjects which were increasingly troubling to us. I said that I had not seen since the war our alliances so weakened, or the Russians so close to their objective of totally isolating the US from its allies. For example, I said it was to me incredible but nevertheless true that on the fifth day of the Geneva Conference during the entire course of which the US (and only inferentially the UN) had been the object of vicious attack by the Russians, Chinese, and the North Koreans, there had not been raised in the conference hall the voice of a single one of our European allies. I said no American would think of asking to be defended by his friends, but that I would have thought someone would have come to the defense of the UN and that some effort would [Page 627] have been attempted to correct the perversions of history put out by the Communists. There was not, I said, in my judgment, a single American newspaperman or columnist worth his salt who would not recognize that his Sunday headline story would be built on the simple fact that every European ally had sat by silently during this past week.
Mr. Pearson expressed what I honestly believe was genuine amazement. He said the thought I had expressed as to how American press and public would react to sequence of speakers this week had never occurred to him. He said that he had intended to speak next week when he felt it would be more effective in restricted session but that in the light of the appearances which I described to him, he most decidedly would want to speak as soon as possible in plenary session. I said I had not come to ask him to speak, but to seek his advice. He insisted that he wanted to speak and would do so, although he stated that he could not address his remarks in favor of our initial proposal on Korean elections. He said however there was a good deal he could usefully say, and he said further that he thought it was important that as many as possible on our side speak in plenary session in the next few days, if only for five or ten minutes. Webb, he said, he knew would speak and he would discuss this with him. He also said that he wanted to talk to Mr. Spaak and impress on him the importance of the Europeans speaking up. I quickly interjected that Doug MacArthur and I had been talking over the situation and that when I decided to speak to him, Mr. MacArthur had decided that similarly he would speak to Mr. Spaak, and that I believed he was doing so at approximately the same time. Accordingly, I said I felt Mr. Spaak would have this general thought in mind.
I then went on to what I said I thought was a related matter but more serious; that this was the division on Far Eastern problems which the Russians were apparently succeeding so well in exploiting. I went over the history of the Secretary’s effort to create a stronger and united position for Geneva by initiating plans for an ad hoc coalition for collective defense in Southeast Asia. I described how he felt this would create an asset at least to offset the intensified military action of the Vietminh. I said that after the Secretary’s quick trip to London and Paris two weeks ago,1 we had all felt that we had secured the agreement of the British and the French Governments to this proposal, but that within five days the British had walked out on it, and within two weeks the French had in fact abandoned it due to the crisis of Dien Bien Phu and the dissolution of any effective government in Paris.
[Page 628]Mr. Pearson interjected that he thought Mr. Eden had been disturbed by our rushing the pace on the eve of Geneva by calling together the consultative group in Washington. He said that he felt Mr. Eden would not insist on waiting until Geneva was over to move ahead on this front but thought that if things went no better at the conference in the first few days of next week, the British would be willing to start moving ahead on the coalition idea. I said that I thought the Secretary’s original purpose had been stultified, but that we should move ahead as rapidly as possible.
Mr. Pearson said that he had had several long talks with Mr. Eden and that we must realize that he is preoccupied with the Asian angle of the Commonwealth. Also, he said he would tell me in all frankness that the presentation made by Admiral Radford last Saturday in Paris to Mr. Eden2 had “almost frightened him to death”. He said it can be accepted that Foreign Offices are easily frightened, but that Mr. Eden had told him that Admiral Radford at his dinner Monday night with the Prime Minister3 had also frightened the old gentleman who, Mr. Pearson said, is normally a man of action and not easily frightened. Mr. Pearson said the British also had gained the impression that not only were we trying to pull them into military action on a crash basis, but that we are also trying to pull the French along with us. He intimated that he felt we had prompted or encouraged the series of unrelated emergency requests for intervention made to us by the French.
We discussed the problem of Indochina inconclusively but at some length. Mr. Pearson said that coalition was obviously surrender on a time basis only, that a cease–fire without safeguards made no sense and risked slaughter, and that partition meant giving up great assets in loyal people and resources in the north and retaining behind one’s lines large areas strongly held by the enemy. He asked if we had given any thought to withdrawal to the Delta areas and then building up the native forces for ultimate extension of the area of control by the local authorities. I said we had given thought to this and were continuing to do so as one possibility which would preserve the area from total surrender, but that I did not know whether or not it was still militarily feasible. I then said I had gained the impression that the British were inclined to favor partition as the least undesirable solution for a settlement. Mr. Pearson said that he didn’t think so, and that Mr. Eden had expressed great doubts as to the wisdom and feasibility [Page 629] of partition. I then said that I was uncertain when Mr. Eden had told us earlier that if partition was the result of Geneva, the British would be prepared to militarily guarantee the new frontier, whether or not he was thinking in terms of a guarantee by a coalition or participation by the UK in a joint guarantee which would include the Soviets, China, and possibly the US. Mr. Pearson was emphatic that it was the former that Mr. Eden had in mind.
Mr. Pearson then said that he wondered whether in extremis it might be useful to get other Asians involved in the problem. He said he thought possibly there might be something in Nehru’s proposals as modified by the Colombo Conference. He suggested that if we could get a Pakistani here at Geneva to speak for the five Colombo countries, we might be able to work something out. I questioned him as to what he had in mind and it was clear that he had not carried the idea further in his thinking.
We broke up at 2:30 with Mr. Pearson saying that as a result of my talk he was going to see Mr. Eden before the plenary session started. He also reiterated that he was going to speak to Prime Minister Webb.