751G.00/3–1054: Telegram
The Chargé at Saigon (McClintock) to the Department of State
1638. Repeated information Paris 506. Former Prime Minister Tran Van Huu last night expressed grave apprehension over outcome [Page 1101] of Geneva conference. He said, “If they agree on an armistice and a plebiscite, we are lost to the Communists”. Only solution Huu could see was somehow to strengthen national Vietnamese leadership and to continue military struggle until more solid basis for negotiation could be found. This would require, he thought, at least 18 months. He felt Laniel’s proposals (cf. Paris telegram 3240 repeated Saigon 362)1 were to some extent impractical, as for example suggestion that Viet-Minh in south Vietnam be disarmed or evacuated, on ground that it was impossible to distinguish between a daytime Vietnamese and a nighttime Viet-Minh. Only sound basis for cease-fire would be agreement to seal Sino-Indochinese frontier.
Huu said that recent demands on Bao Dai for national elections should be taken seriously despite mollifying communiqué to contrary such as that issued by Vietnamese Commissariat General in Paris (Paris telegram 3259 repeated Saigon 365).2 He said there was genuine upsurge of popular feeling in favor of elections and ultimately national assembly. Bao Dai, by opposing this demand, despite his consistent promises ever since 1949, was steadily losing strength and prestige. In fact, in Huu’s estimate, Bao Dai is now so weak that even recourse outlined Embtel 1630 repeated Paris 504, March 93 would be “too late”. Huu’s remedy, tinged most certainly by personal ambition and by rancor at his dismissal from Premiership two years ago, was government by group of strong men, either with or without aegis of Bao Dai.
- See footnotes 2 and 3, pp. 1097 and 1098.↩
- Telegram 3259 from Paris, Mar. 8, not printed, contained the translation of a communiqué issued by the Vietnamese High Commissariat on Mar. 5 regarding demands made to Bao Dai by the “National Union Movement for Peace” looking toward the creation of a national assembly prior to the Geneva Conference. (751G.00/3–854)↩
- See footnote 1, supra.↩