751G.00/3–1654: Telegram
The Consul at Hanoi (Sturm) to the Department of State
493. Sent Saigon 388, repeated information Department 493. This is joint Consulate–STEM Hanoi message.
As result Viet Minh attacks in recent weeks on three North Vietnam air fields, General Navarre has ordered evacuation of villages in immediate vicinity of airports of Bauhmai, Gialam, Catbi, and Voson. Governor Tri has resisted this move on grounds that Viet Minh commando teams which have carried out raids were not based in or aided by villages in question, and that such wholesale evacuation will provide Viet Minh with ready-made and damaging propaganda material. However, Governor has been obliged to yield to military decision, and finds himself faced with crushing burden of relocating and providing some means of livelihood for upward of 50,000 new and unanticipated refugees.
French Army will pay indemnity of only 400 to 600 piastres per household, and that only after long delay following approval in Paris. Tri believes any approximately satisfactory solution to problem will involve expenditure of 1,000 piastres per capita, or total of 50 million piastres. Plans have not yet been worked out to effect resettlement and will probably involve different types of solutions for different villages: That is, possible new refugee villages in certain cases, and cash payment in others in order permit refugees find homes in already existing villages. USOM representative North Vietnam is being kept abreast of plans as they develop.
Governor Tri plans present this problem to National Aid Committee at its meeting of March 22. We urge that country team Saigon explore all possible means of lending effective support to this emergency request.1
- In telegram 1689 to Saigon, Mar. 17 (sent to Hanoi as telegram 530), the Department of State indicated that the situation appeared to offer the opportunity for U.S. aid to make a timely and effective contribution. (751G.00/3–1654) In telegram 1756 from Saigon, Mar. 21, the Embassy reported that the country team had decided that FOA should provide aid, but that the United States should avoid identification with the relocation program. (751G.00/3–2154)↩