Foreign Relations of the United States, 1949, The Far East and Australasia, Volume VII, Part 1
851G.01/6–649
The Acting Secretary of State to the Embassy in France
No. 289
Sir: There is transmitted herewith a memorandum setting forth the Department’s views on the agreement signed on March 8 by the President [Page 39] of France and the former Emperor of Annam defining the future status of the State of Vietnam. You are requested to present this memorandum to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the French Government.
It is suggested that the Embassy’s note transmitting the memorandum be composed along the following lines:
“The Embassy of the United States of America presents its compliments to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and, on instruction from its government, has the honor to transmit herewith certain comments of the Department of State on the agreement concluded on March 8, 1949, between the President of the French Republic and the former Emperor of Annam, which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was kind enough to make available to the Government of the United States.”
As an alternative, the presentation of the note by Mr. Charles E. Bohlen1 may appear preferable. The problems dealt with in the memorandum were discussed in a conversation with the Secretary of State shortly before his departure from Washington at which Mr. Bohlen was present.2
Very truly yours,
Director for Far Eastern Affairs
Memorandum by the Department of State to the French Foreign Office
The Government of the United States is most appreciative of the action of the French Government in making available to it the text of the agreement concluded on March 8 between the President of France and the former Emperor of Annam defining the future status of the State of Vietnam. The agreement has been studied with the greatest interest by the Department of State.
As the French Government is aware, the United States Government has followed with some concern the course of events in French Indochina since the end of the war in the Pacific. This concern, it is needless to say, has been prompted by a realization that the forces which have contributed predominantly to the character of the Vietnamese nationalist movement are manifestations of the same forces which have worked profound changes in southern Asia generally and that the outcome of these forces can be of considerable consequence for the world in general.
When at the end of the war it became evident that in most of the dependent countries of southern Asia the indigenous peoples were [Page 40] determined to control their own destinies in the future, the United States Government ventured to hope that the western nations would appreciate the strength of this resolution and willingly grant the essential demands of the nationalist movements. It was believed that in so doing, the metropolitan powers would be yielding what in any case they could expect to hold only by military force at great cost. In such event it seemed probable that the costs to the Metropolitan Government would be unrecoverable and the value of the colony and its possible contribution to world stability would be reduced by the ensuant hostilities. On the other hand it was believed that by promptly offering the necessary political concessions to the nationalist demands the metropolitan power would be adopting the course most likely to result in a continued close and mutually fruitful relationship with the former colony, in the preservation of patterns of trade and economy long intermeshed, and in a readiness on the part of the colonial people to welcome the continued technical and administrative assistance of the metropolitan power. It appeared that only on such a basis would there be any real hope that the Western powers could retain their legitimate interests in the countries so closely associated with them over such long periods, and that among the new nations of southern Asia conditions of political stability and of freedom of political and economic development could be achieved enabling them to realize their potentialities and make their full contribution to the world.
Conversely, it seemed that an intention on the part of the metropolitan power to retain an authority which the dependent people was determined to exercise itself could result only in turning the nationalist movement into destructive channels. In these circumstances it could be expected that widespread hostilities would result and that the consequent destruction of the facilities of production in the dependent area would cause economic setbacks seriously injurious to both peoples. Furthermore, it could be anticipated that the nationalist forces would turn increasingly to an uncompromising leadership which would react against cooperation with the West and against those free institutions which European civilization has evolved through long experience in self-government.
Events in southern Asia in the past four years have caused no revision of these views; and it is in the light of this estimate that the United States Government has examined the agreement of March 8 and offers its views.
Because of its conviction that concessions by France to the Nationalist movement commensurate with the strength of that movement can alone provide the basis for a resolution of the Indochinese situation and the creation of a stable, representative Vietnamese Government, the United States Government welcomes the step taken [Page 41] by the President of France in arriving at an agreement with ex-Emperor Bao Dai whereby the territorial unity of Vietnam, comprising Tonkin, Annam, and Cochinchina, may be realized and the Vietnamese State enjoy far-reaching powers of internal autonomy. It may be stated at once that in the opinion of the United States Government the Vietnamese people would be guilty of a mistake disastrous to their future should they reject this solution and give their support not to the Vietnamese Government formed under the March 8 agreement but to the so-called Democratic Republic of Vietnam. For those in command of this Republic are men trained in the methods and doctrine of international communism, and regardless of their present espousal of the nationalist cause, it cannot be ignored that they have never disavowed their Kremlin connections or repudiated the techniques and objectives of communism, which are the cause of so much suffering in the world today. It must be assumed, therefore, that should their government succeed in its aims with the support or through the acquiescence of the Vietnamese people, the pattern of a foreign totalitarianism will be clamped upon Vietnam under which all liberties, national and personal, will be lost. Such an outcome would not only be fatal to the welfare and hopes of the Vietnamese but would be most detrimental to the interests of all free peoples, particularly those of southern Asia who stand in most immediate danger of further Communist aggression.
However, the United States Government does not feel confident that the Vietnamese people in general will see the choice confronting them in these terms, especially in view of the isolating factors in their situation during most of the past decade. The Vietnamese nationalists who for the most part have been supporting the so-called Democratic Republic of Vietnam as the one agency which appeared to promise independence may not, it is feared, find the provisions of the March 8 agreement entirely appealing. In this connection, it should be pointed out that the United States Government is considering only this agreement since it is not familiar with the contents of any associated documents which may bear upon the matter and does not know whether the March 8 agreement is intended to define the status of Vietnam permanently or to provide a basis for the further early evolution of the Vietnamese State.
The United States Government is inclined to believe that one of the strongest motivating forces behind nationalist movements among dependent peoples is resentment of the imputation of inferiority implicit in a subordinate status. When a people has fought for the goal of independence with such tenacity as that displayed by the Vietnamese resistance forces, it appears unlikely that it will be content with a position of anything less than equality with other peoples. It is feared that the [Page 42] concessions granted by the French Government may be obscured in the eyes of the Vietnamese by those terms of the agreement which are incompatible with Vietnamese national pride.
Should such feelings determine the reaction of the majority of Vietnamese to a Government formed under the March 8 agreement, then it must be supposed that the Communist-dominated “Democratic Republic of Vietnam” will continue to receive the support of these Vietnamese. Certainly as long as the Vietnamese are persuaded that the two-and-a-half-year-old war with France must be prosecuted to a conclusion if the goals for which they have fought are to be won, they will continue to regard the dominant Communist element of the Viet-minh League in the light of its effective leadership of the nationalist movement and not of its inevitable intention to subvert the nationalist cause in the end to the requirements of international Communism, with which they have had little acquaintance as yet.
The United States Government would be lacking in frankness if it did not state that in its considered estimation the paramount question in Indochina now is whether the country is to be saved from Communist control. Under the circumstances, all other issues must be regarded as irrelevant. Much time has already been lost. The years since the end of the Pacific War have seen the Communist threat to Indochina intensified rather than otherwise. The southward progress of Chinese Communist armies toward the northern frontier of Indochina introduces a new element that transforms an already serious situation into an emergency.
As it has made clear in the past, the United States Government is of the opinion that it must prove difficult to save this situation and to preserve Indochina from a foreign tyranny unless the French Government offers the Vietnamese the attainment of those nationalist goals which they would continue to fight for rather than forego and unless the Vietnamese can be convinced that they can, in fact, fully realize their patriotic aims through cooperation with the Government envisaged in the March 8 agreement. In its view, developments have reduced the choice in Indochina to simple alternatives: will Vietnam achieve independence through an agreement with France and with the assistance of France and maintain this independence fortified by collaboration with France, or will it achieve independence from France while at the same time falling victim to Communist totalitarianism?
The United States Government believes that the Vietnamese will willingly accept a partnership with France only if the equality of Vietnam is recognized and if, as a prior condition to the determination of the character of this relationship, the sovereignty of Vietnam is acknowledged. Observation of developments in southern Asia since the end of the war would seem to leave little doubt that a Union between [Page 43] France and Vietnam would be far more likely of attainment and would prove more fruitful and enduring if attained were the Union conceived not as an instrument for the control of one member by the other but as an agency of cooperation in fields of common interest, diplomatic, military, economic, and cultural, voluntarily espoused on both sides.
An approach to the future on these lines would appear to offer the greatest hope that French influence in Indochina may be preserved, which must be regarded as unquestionably to the best interests of the Indochinese, and that military and naval bases in Vietnam may be retained by France and French economic rights be assured. By adopting this course the metropolitan country would appear to have little to lose and much to gain. Moreover, from a strictly practical point of view, the United States Government has been impressed by the difficulties likely to arise if in transferring autonomous powers to the government of a dependent territory the metropolitan power seeks, as a condition to such transfer, to subdivide sovereignty in the area by retaining certain transcendant rights to itself. For in this case the question of the precise division of authority is prone to present itself in connection with every field of government as the process of transfer is planned. In consequence, the prestige and good will which should accrue to the metropolitan power from its acceptance of a new order is likely to be dissipated in an atmosphere of discord and mistrust, as suspicion grows among the nationalists that the metropolitan power is in fact seeking to perpetuate its existing controls. In consequence the process of giving definition to the new order and establishing it in practice may be indefinitely protracted, with results which may defeat the enterprise.
A dispassionate appraisal leads the United States Government to believe, in short, that the preservation of Indochina’s integrity depends, in the first place, upon the willingness of the metropolitan country to give assurances that Vietnam is to exercise control of its destinies; that its participation in the French Union will be upon terms freely accepted by representatives enjoying the confidence of the Vietnamese people when these shall have been assembled; that the powers of administration exercised by France in Vietnam will be transferred to the Vietnamese as soon as conditions permit the institution and functioning of the new regime; and that the deployment of French forces in Vietnam outside their bases is to be accounted for in terms of the defense of Vietnam against the protagonists of a supranational totalitarianism who would surrender Vietnam to alien controls.
In the second place, much would appear to depend upon the readiness of the heads of the Vietnamese Government formed under the [Page 44] March 8 agreement to invite the participation in this Government of bonafide and truly nationalist leaders of Vietnam, including those who have heretofore supported the “Democratic Republic of Vietnam”, to the end that this Government may provide dynamic leadership and obtain the confidence of the nationalist elements comprising the major part of the resistance forces.
Such an approach to the problem would best appear to lay the basis for the clear separation of nationalists from Communist elements in Vietnam; for those who persisted in resisting a Vietnamese Government through which all nationalist aims could be realized in favor of continued adherence to the “Democratic Republic of Vietnam” would in effect be acknowledging that their goals were not nationalist but Communist. The achievement of this distinction would appear to be the sine qua non of a solution of the Indochina problem.
Having demonstrated its capacity to rally the nationalist majority of Vietnamese to its support, the Government formed under the March 8 agreement would—it would seem to the United States Government have grounds for appealing for the support of all free nations. The United States Government would hope that this appeal would be generally heeded, especially by the other Governments of southern Asia which, themselves having every reason to regard the further extension of Communist controls in the region with alarm, could fill a vitally important role by clarifying for the Vietnamese people the issues confronting them on the basis of their own experience and undoubted fidelity to the cause of self-determination by the Asian peoples.
The United States Government is, however, convinced that if the requisite concessions by the French Government to the nationalist demands are not forthcoming, the task of the Government envisaged in the March 8 agreement must prove most difficult of accomplishment and the countries adjacent to Indochina will most likely be confronted by the prospect of the appearance of sizable Communist-controlled forces on their frontiers.
It goes without saying that the earnest hope of the United States Government is that the Government formed under the March 8 agreement will succeed in its crucial task. At the same time it would appear axiomatic that insofar as the probabilities of its success are related to the extent of international support it obtains, the decision of a third party in respect of the feasibility of its extending support or assistance must be governed by the extent to which the French Government has itself provided that Government with the political advantages upon which its appeal to the Vietnamese must be based. Clearly the success of this Government must rest in the first instance upon those means of accomplishing its purpose which only the French Government can provide.
[Page 45]In taking advantage of the relations of cordiality and mutual understanding it enjoys with the French Government by offering this frank appraisal, the United States Government has been prompted only by the thought that it should not leave the direction of its thinking a matter of doubt and that an exchange of views might be advantageous considering all that is involved in the outcome of the situation in Indochina.