Office of the Historian

751G.5822/11–2353

Memorandum by the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (Bonbright)

confidential
[Washington,] November 23, 1953.

Admiral Radford telephoned this afternoon concerning the French request for 25 additional C–47’s for Indo-China. He said that General Valluy1 had been pursuing this matter and had just left his office. The Admiral had given him no definite word since he heard that the State Department had requested we hold up on informing the French.

I informed the Admiral that this arose from a suggestion that it might be useful for the President to be able to inform the French when he meets with them in Bermuda but that it had not been our thought that the delivery of the planes be held up for this purpose if they would be ready ahead of time. The Admiral stated that he now had word from the Air Force that the planes would be ready and were expected to depart not later than December 12. The Air Force appatently [Page 883] still feels that the French have not got proper facilities for handling these additional planes but the Admiral felt that we should go ahead anyway. I asked him to take no action with General Valluy until I had checked further.

Subsequently, Mr. MacArthur and I spoke to the Secretary who telephoned Admiral Radford and told him that he wanted to get off a personal message to Bidault, from the President and himself, in order to obtain a little political credit with the French prior to Bermuda. He therefore suggested that this message go out this afternoon and that Admiral Radford inform General Valluy tomorrow. Admiral Radford agreed to this procedure.2

  1. Gen. Jean E. Valluy, Chief of the French Military Mission in Washington and French Member of the NATO Standing Group.↩

  2. Telegram 1930 to Paris, Nov. 23, repeated for information to Saigon as telegram 920, read as follows: “Please convey following personal message to Bidault ‘I wanted you and Prime Minister Laniel to know that following your urgent request for early delivery of 25 additional C–47 aircraft for Indochina the President and I have looked into this matter carefully. It gives us great pleasure to tell you that we are now able to give you an affirmative answer to this request the importance of which we fully realize.’

    “FYI. Admiral Radford will inform General Valluy of this decision tomorrow. Planes expected to be ready to depart not later than December 12.” (751G.5 MSP/11–2353)

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