Editorial Note
On November 18, 1952, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the President-elect, conferred with President Truman and members of his Cabinet at the White House. During the meeting, Secretary of State Acheson briefed the President-elect on the world situation. In his memoirs, President Truman reports that Acheson stated the following in regard to Indochina:
“We had been concerned for a long time about the course of action in Indo-China. There was a strong body of opinion in France which regarded this as a lost cause that was bleeding France both financially and by undermining the possibility of French-German equality in European defense.
“There had been a noticeable lack of French aggressive attitude from a military point of view in. Indo-China. The central problem in Indo-China was the fence-sitting by the Population. They would never come down on one side or another until they had a reasonable assurance of who would be the victor and that their interests would be served by the victor.
“We are helping France to the extent of carrying between one-third and one-half of the financial burden of the Indo-Chinese war. We [Page 299] have had military discussions between the five powers—the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Australia and New Zealand—which had not been effective in devising agreed military solutions against the contingency of overt Chinese intervention in Indo-China. The French now sought political discussions to carry the matter forward.
“This is an urgent matter upon which the new administration must be prepared to act.” (Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, volume II, Years of Trial and Hope, 1946–1952 (Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday and Company, 1956), page 519.)
For documentation on the transition between the Truman and Eisenhower administrations in regard to matters of foreign affairs, see volume I.