PPS files, lot 65 D 101, “Indochina”
Memorandum by the Adviser to the United States Delegation (Stelle) to the Special Adviser to the United States Delegation (Bowie)
Subject:
- U.S. Participation in an Unsatisfactory Indochina Settlement
If negotiations on Indochina reach a point where it is clear that the French are willing to enter into arrangements which are going to be unsatisfactory from the U.S. point of view, and if at that time the U.S. concludes that it does not have sufficient leverage to prevent the French from concluding such an agreement, the U.S. will have to decide whether it should at that time disassociate itself from the negotiations or continue to be a party to them. Such a decision would obviously have important U.S. domestic political implications. The following analysis, however, does not deal with domestic U.S. political aspects.
Disadvantages of U.S. Participation
- 1.
- U.S. participation in an unsatisfactory Indochina settlement will be taken as evidence throughout Asia and the rest of the world that the U.S. has in effect backed down in the face of the Communist threat in a critically important area. As a result there will be an unavoidable loss of U.S. prestige.
- 2.
- U.S. acquiescence to and participation in an unsatisfactory settlement will probably have particularly acute effects on U.S. prestige in the remainder of Southeast Asia—notably in Thailand. The Thais may well feel that the U.S. has marched up the hill and back again on the question of Indochina, and be tempted to believe that the U.S. would behave in similar fashion if a showdown came with respect to Thailand. Consequently the value of U.S. promises of protection and assistance may be severely depreciated in Siamese eyes.
- 3.
- U.S. readiness to participate in an unsatisfactory settlement might amount to relinquishment of the last available card that the U.S. has to play against French acceptance of such a settlement—French fear of provoking a profound breach between France and the United States.
Advantages of U.S. Participation
- 1.
- U.S. participation in negotiation of a settlement would keep the U.S. in a better position to play off the Associated States against the French, to stimulate the Communists to overreaching themselves, and in general to attempt to whittle down the degree of unacceptability of an Indochina settlement.
- 2.
- U.S. participation in an Indochina settlement, despite the undoubted loss of prestige involved, would place the U.S. in a better position to insert itself into the protection and shoring up of whatever remained of a Western position in Indochina and Southeast Asia after an unsatisfactory settlement. This would be particularly true in the case of a settlement involving territorial partition.
- 3.
- U.S. participation in an unsatisfactory Indochina settlement would assist in dispelling that fear of U.S. intransigeance and suspicion of U.S. eagerness for drastic action against Communist China which has quite evidently contributed to present U.S. difficulties both with its Allies and with the neutralist countries.
- 4.
- U.S. participation in a settlement would lessen the possibilities of a severe breach between the U.S. on the one hand and the British and the French on the other, and would make more promising the possibilities of united action to counter the damaging effects of the settlement in Southeast Asia, as well as improve prospects for Allied cooperation in Europe.
Conclusion
Unless there are good grounds for estimating that a U.S. threat to withdraw from the negotiations would in fact have the effect of preventing French acceptance of an unsatisfactory settlement, it would seem, on balance, that it would be in the U.S. interest to stay with the negotiations whatever might be the outcome.