751G.11/4–452: Telegram

The Minister at Saigon (Heath) to the Department of State

confidential

1937. Rptd info Paris 660. Acting High Commissioner Gautier confirmed that Bao Dai will make a three or four week visit to France but presumably not until after Letourneau’s arrival later this month. Bao Dai indicated to me one purpose of the trip was for medical treatment and examination. He complains of a recurrent eye infection which impairs his sight for a day or two every ten days, of dysentery and chronic malaria which returns occasionally. There are probably some psychosomatic factors in his complaints.

Bao Dai told Gautier he wld like to be able to go two or three times a year to France if he cld go without publicity. Gautier said he thought the idea was not bad since it wld put Bao Dai in touch with his family and perhaps lead to an improvement in the relations with the Empress which might result in the latter’s return to Vietnam. The Fr and many Vietnamese feel that the presence of the Empress here wld have an excellent political effect, stimulate Bao Dai to more public activity and wld lessen the influence of certain of his entourage who encourage him in his present quasi-seclusion. I share this view. Binh1 new Govt [Gov] of North Vietnam tells me the Empress will return for Bao Dai’s 40th birthday next October but that her stay wld probably not be prolonged. The Empress sister, the Baroness Didelot who has been spending several months here tells me she has been trying to prevail on “her august brother-in-law” to have the Empress and family return.

Heath
  1. Pham Van Binh.