Office of the Historian

751G.00/3–3054

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Counselor (MacArthur)

secret
[Washington,] March 30, 1954.

Subject:

  • Secretary’s Address of March 29, 1954, on Far East Problems.

Participants:

  • Mr. Jean Daridan, Chargé d’Affaires, French Embassy.
  • Mr. MacArthur.
  • Mr. Galloway.

Mr. Daridan called on me this morning at his request to discuss “informally and off-the-record” several points.

He said he wondered if there were any clarification I could give him with respect to the Secretary’s address of last night on Indochina regarding the position that the communization of Southeast Asia “should be met by united action”. He had contemplated asking to see the Secretary, as he knew Paris would be much interested in the Secretary’s statement, but since Ambassador Bonnet would be returning to Washington Friday1 from Paris and would ask to see the Secretary following his return Friday, Daridan thought it was preferable for him not to seek an audience with the Secretary.

I replied to Mr. Daridan that I was not in a position to amplify the Secretary’s remarks of last evening other than to say that the Secretary’s speech made quite clear that the U.S. was not disposed to accept the loss of Southeast Asia to the Communists with resignation and fortitude. There were various possibilities of things which might be done, but I did not think it would be useful for me to engage with him in speculation on what particular courses of action the U.S. might follow.

Mr. Daridan then said that speaking on a purely personal and off-the-record basis, there was great fatigue in France over the Indochina war. People were tired of it, and there were pressures in the French Parliament and French Government to end it. Despite these pressures, he felt the French would think very carefully before they abandoned it to the Communists. He mentioned the advantage to the French [Page 1190] economy of the dollars which we were pouring into France to support the Indochina war and the fact also that France’s position of leadership in the world would be greatly impaired if the area were abandoned. However, the pressures for some kind of negotiation were very great, and he did not exclude in his own mind the possibility that at some juncture the French might come to us and say that they would be willing to continue the struggle in Indochina but only on the basis that we join with them actively in the war there.

  1. Apr. 2.↩