Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, East Asia and the Pacific, Volume XII, Part 1

Conference files, lot 60 D 627, CF 348

The French Embassy to the Department of State¹

secret

[Washington,] August 23, 1954.

Aide-Mémoire

A. The French Government, preoccupied since before the Geneva Conference with assuring an effective guarantee to the agreements arrived at in that meeting, is especially interested in the conclusion of a security pact for Southeast Asia. Her own preoccupation joins with the general interest particularly as Indochina is the region where this security is most especially threatened.

B. The participation in the proposed pact by the Associated States themselves presents, during the period of the armistice and particularly when the troops transfers provided for by the Geneva accords must be carried out during approximately 300 days more, obvious military and political inconveniences. Participation is, after all, not necessary if the stipulations of the pact are such that they apply to the situation resulting from the aforementioned agreements.

C. It being a question of a pact in which four of the five so-called Colombo powers have refused to participate, the fifth limiting itself to sending an observer to Manila, the French Government sees the greatest interest in avoiding to the extent possible the inclusion in this pact of dispositions which emphasize the apparent distinction between the Asiatic powers which agree to enter the pact and those which refuse. The stabilizing and non-aggressive character of the intentions of the participants in the pact must thus be clearly expressed, the concern with economic aspects of the problem clearly evoked and the doors left well open for future accessions.

Taking into account the preceding indications, it would appear desirable to the French Government as concerns the draft pact given last August 6 to the French Embassy by the Department of State:

1. To develop the second paragraph of the preamble. The competent French services are presently studying a formula setting forth that the stability of a region depends upon the stability of the states which compose it, the equilibrium of these states supposing democratic liberties, juridical and judiciary guarantees, as well as economic and social bases which would be sound, all supposing conditions of peace.

2. To eliminate the last phrase of Article 2. This is a duplication of the first paragraph of Article 4 and enters into details which for reasons indicated below do not appear desirable.

3. To develop Article 3 in a manner which would provide equilibrium with Article 4 and reduce the military character of the whole.

4. As concerns Article 4,

(a) To define the zone of application of the agreement. It is important to be more precise concerning the situation of the Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian territories; this is why it would be appropriate to introduce in some part of the draft a reference to the Geneva agreements. It would suffice that the signatories acknowledge the accords as certain of the signatories have already done.

(b) To bring out more clearly the distinction between aggression and menace, the first bringing on “action”, the second only a “consultation.” Perhaps this would be the place to define a frontier around the zone itself, aggression against the territory of a marginal state constituting a menace and thus furnishing a matter for consultation.

(c) To eliminate the precise wording and characterizing menaces other than military (Article 4, paragraph 2). This clause foreseeing an intervention in case of subversion of an established state risks very extensive involvement and is of a nature that would definitely compromise the chance of seeing other Asiatic states join in the proposed organization.

5. To examine carefully the proposal included in Article 5 of the formation of a council. If it is normal to foresee the governments concerting together on every subject evoked in the text of the accord, it is doubtful that a council would be useful—under the state of unpreciseness as to the practical import of this text—to give to these consultations an institutional character similar to the UN or ANZUS. It would suffice, it appears, to create a permanent secretariat of which the staff agency of Singapore provided with a political section would furnish a nucleus. Furthermore if the creation of a permanent organ of the pact is the object of a separate article, its competence must normally extend to all of the provisions of the pact, above all Article 3. If it is desired to restrict this competence to military questions, it would be better to add a paragraph to Article 4.

6. To study the possibility, concerning accessions to the pact, of two procedures, either that the member states invite a third state, or that the third state takes the initiative to propose its candidature. Under both cases, the decision concerning admission could be taken unanimously.

1. Handed by Ambassador Henri Bonnet to Merchant on Aug. 23. This text is an informal translation included in the Conference series as SEAP D–2/7. It is attached to a covering note by Trulock dated Aug. 25, not printed.