Foreign Relations of the United States, 1946, The Far East, Volume VIII

892.014/8–2846

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Chief of the Division of Southeast Asian Affairs (Moffat)

[Washington,] August 28, 1946.

Participants:	M. Jean-Claude Winckler, Second Secretary, French Embassy
	Mr. W. S. B. Lacy, SEA;
	Mr. Abbot Low Moffat, SEA.

Mr. Winckler handed me a memorandum⁷⁶ giving the details as to recent border incidents communicated yesterday by M. Lacoste.⁷⁷ In the course of conversation I took occasion to express my personal regret that the French had withdrawn their Court proposals because of the domestic situation confronting the Siamese delegation who, rightly or wrongly, felt they had to have an order by an international body to return the territories. Winckler personally concurred and said the Ambassador had been very strongly for the proposal but had finally been categorically over-ruled by Paris.

I then expressed personally the view that should direct negotiations fail I thought the French position that they would attempt to block a hearing of the Siamese dispute a very serious mistake both from the international point of view and also from the French position; that if they should succeed in blocking the hearing of the dispute no UN recommendation would be possible, the Siamese might consider themselves under no obligation to return the territories and open warfare might develop; that while French prestige in Indochina might temporarily gain by such a show of force I felt in the long run the French position in the Far East would severely suffer from such policy. I expressed personally the thought that should direct negotiations fail it would be better for the French, which possibly reserving publicly their position as to hearing a so-called enemy state, to waive their objections to such hearing particularly if they were quite certain that the other powers were in agreement that with regard to the territories the Security Council should recommend their immediate restoration to Indochina and that after such restoration the French and Siamese should attempt to negotiate any border adjustments or differences which they had. I inquired whether he knew what view the Chinese or the Russians had on the situation. He thought his Government did not know and was worried about the possible attitude of either country. I suggested that it might be worth trying to find out at least the Chinese views on the disputed territories problem in case the matter should come before the Security Council.

A[bbot] L[ow] M[offat]

76. Aide-Mémoire of August 28, not printed; it gave information of almost daily raids on Laotian and Cambodian territories by rebel bands, which had taken refuge in Siam, and by Siamese gendarmes (892.014/8–2846).
77. Memorandum of August 27 by Mr. Moffat not printed; it cited Mr. Lacoste’s allegations that the Siamese Chief of Police at Battambang had been giving military and political training to disaffected Cambodians and that Siamese police in plainclothes and Siamese soldiers and officers in uniform had participated in certain raids. It also stated that “the deterioration of conditions in the Cambodian area had become so great and the incidents were on such a large and well-organized scale that the French Government wished to inform us that they would have to retaliate and their troops enter Siamese-held territory in connection with any further border incidents”. (892.014/8–2746)