751G.00/2–2354: Telegram
The Ambassador at Saigon (Heath) to the Department of State
1508. Repeated information Manila 138. Manila for Stassen. Governor Stassen’s fine account of his conversations with Pleven and others (Embtel 1506, February 21 [22]) is essentially complete but Department may be interested in the following expansion of certain points which final paragraph Governor’s message suggested I might make.
- 1.
Regarding talk with Pleven, latter said that argument that Navarre will gain victory next year would not be effective with opposition because there have been too many promises of victory over past eight years. I thereupon asked him whether he thought that Navarre would be unable in year or 15 months from now to realize his plan of inflicting essential military defeat on Viet Minh armies. Pleven replied that he would not disagree with that possibility.
[Page 1068]Pleven said the main argument of the opposition seeking termination of hostilities here would be the example of the Korean armistice. He said he was not criticizing our action in concluding an armistice in Korea where an entirely different situation and considerations prevailed, but the opposition’s main argument would be “if the Americans can effect an armistice in Korea why can’t we in Indochina?”
Another effective argument of the opposition would be found in the anticipated early conclusion of Franco-Vietnamese negotiations in Paris which would result in Vietnam gaining entire independence. The opposition would say France had protected the Associated States till now, but France had done its duty; now that the states are independent they should look after themselves.
The most effective trump the government could use in defending its policy of unabated military effort in Indochina would be for the Vietnamese officially and publicly to ask France to continue to protect them against the Viet Minh aggression. It would be hard for the opposition to reject a really clear national appeal from Vietnam for French military protection.
- 2.
- Our conversation with Bao Dai was very disappointing. Bao Dai, who in recent conversations with me had expressed hope that the “Navarre plan” and schedule would succeed, surprisingly stated that he had come to the conclusion that victory over the Viet Minh in the delta could not be obtained in less than three years and then only if the Vietnamese national army were expanded not by the “mere” 100,000 contemplated for the calendar year of 1954, but by some 300,000 men. In this situation he had been casting about for some means of shortening the war. The trouble was that while the Franco-Vietnamese forces might occupy roads and strategic locations in the Tonkin delta, the majority of the delta continued to furnish indispensable rice, recruits and replacements for the Viet Minh forces. The Viet Minh could not be driven militarily from the delta without massive bombardments which would be certain to destroy hordes of innocent peasants without assurance that the Viet Minh combatants would suffer particularly. A village under Viet Minh control could be completely destroyed by a bombardment and the inhabitants as well, but there was no certainty that Viet Minh soldiers or agents would even be there when the bombardment started. The Viet Minh strategy was to avoid larger-scale combats which they would lose because of superior French firepower. The only way to force them to battle would be to evacuate even up to as many as four million of the inhabitants of the Tonkin delta who, he insisted, would be glad to be evacuated if they knew they would be settled on land elsewhere. He argued that the three provinces taken in the “Atlante” operation of central Annam could receive up to three million refugees. (After this conversation [Page 1069] Nguyen De gave memorandum to Governor Stassen pointing out [garble] others high plateau region could accommodate three or four million Vietnamese farmers.)
Once this massive evacuation was effected in the Tonkin delta, Bao Dai argued, the Viet Minh would either have to fight or starve. China could not feed their forces and furthermore it is his opinion that they had to pay China for most of the help so far received.
We did not in the limits of a brief interview attempt to argue or expostulate in detail with Bao Dai about the manifest human, material, logistic and, I might add, moral unsoundness of such a massive evacuation. We made clear, however, that we were unreceptive. Puzzling over what induced Bao Dai to propose this manifestly unsound idea we both speculated that he fears the French will conclude an armistice with the Viet Minh on some parallel giving the latter the Tonkin delta, in which case Bao Dai would like to get the majority of the delta dwellers away from their control.