892.014/9–2746
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Chief of the Division of Southeast Asian Affairs (Moffat)
M. Winckler called to leave the attached Aide-Mémoire.85 In the course of conversation I remarked that we had not decided whether [Page 1078] in our role of good offices we should make an official démarche of some sort, but we were frankly disturbed at the reported concentration of French troops along the Indochina–Siam border and the repeated statements from high French officials in Indochina that if the dispute were not settled promptly the French troops would march in and take back their territories. I stated my belief that this would not happen because the French Government obviously would forbid it, but nevertheless with the preoccupation of the local officials with their immediate problems it was always possible that a situation could develop which would almost force the Paris Government to back up action by the local officials. M. Winckler confirmed the French concentrations and expressed disapproval of the war of nerves which the French officials in Indochina were, he considered, waging; that he was sure M. Bidault would not approve and hoped that Georges-Picot had discussed this in Paris. He made the significant remark that d’Argenlieu was pressing hard for promptest settlement in one form or another on the ground that the Cambodians and Laos were watching the French administration and if the French did not very shortly recover the territories he feared the new French arrangements with the Cambodians and Laos would be disrupted and the Cambodians and Laos [would] foment trouble, if not indeed revolt, against the French.
- Dated September 24, 1946, not printed; it gave the details of further incursions from Siam into Laos and Cambodia by Japanese, Laotians, Annamites, and Siamese dating from August 13 and denied a report that a French naval unit had violated Siamese territorial waters (892.014/9–2746).↩