396.1 GE/4–1054: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Embassy in France1
3593. Following is text Secretary’s statement April 10:2
“I have just been talking with President Eisenhower about the quick trip to Europe which I am making. I am getting off tonight for London and for Paris, and I expect to be back by the end of the week. I am going, in order to consult with the British and French governments about some of the very real problems that are involved in creating the obviously desirable united front to resist communist aggression in Southeast Asia.
“As President Eisenhower said at a recent press conference, the area is very important from the standpoint of its people, its economic resources, and from the standpoint of its strategic position in the world.
“Today, the forces of aggression seem to be concentrating just at one point, at Dien Bien Phu now, where the resistance is extremely gallant against overwhelming odds.
“But actually the danger is not at one point. There is danger to the entire area. It affects the vital interests of many nations in Southeast Asia and in the Western Pacific, including the Philippines, and Australia, and New Zealand, with whom we have mutual security treaties.
“Already the government of Thailand, one of the United Nations members which has sent troops to fight with the United Nations in Korea, told me yesterday that their government was entirely in agreement with our views, and that they would join with us in creating this united front to save Southeast Asia.
“This government believes that if all of the free peoples who are now threatened unite against the threat, then the threat can be ended. The communist bloc with its vast resources can win success by overwhelming one by one little bits of freedom. But it is different if we unite. Our purpose is not to extend the fighting, but to end the fighting. Our purpose is not to prevent a peaceful settlement to the forthcoming Geneva Conference, but to create the unity of free wills needed to assure a peaceful settlement which will in fact preserve the vital interests of us all.
[Page 1303]“Unity of purpose calls for a full understanding. It seemed that this understanding would be promoted if I would personally go to London to talk to the British Government and go to Paris to talk to the French Government so that there could be a more satisfactory exchange of views than is possible by the exchange of cabled messages.
“It was M. Bidault, Mr. Eden and I who at Berlin agreed to have the Geneva Conference to discuss peace in Korea and Indochina. Now the three of us need to join our strength and add to it the strength of others in order to create the conditions needed to assure that that conference will not lead to a loss of freedom in Southeast Asia but will preserve that freedom in peace and justice.
“That is the purpose of my trip. It is, I emphasize, a mission of peace through strength.”3
- Drafted by Jeffrey C. Kitchen, Deputy Director of the Executive Secretariat.↩
- This statement was issued as a White House press release following a brief meeting between Secretary Dulles and President Eisenhower, which, according to the President’s appointment book, occurred at 10 a.m. (Eisenhower Library, Eisenhower records, “Daily Appointments”) No record has been found of their conversation.↩
- In telegram 3836 from Paris, Apr. 12, Ambassador Dillon reported that the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs considered the tone of the Secretary’s statement excellent for use in France. (396.1 GE/4–1254)↩