751G.00/7–1954: Telegram
The Ambassador at Saigon (Heath) to the Department of State
249. Repeated information Paris 94, Geneva 52, Hanoi unnumbered. After talking with Prime Minister Diem today, I saw General Ely. Ely’s principal preoccupation is lest Vietnamese Government permit manifestations against armistice which would endanger public order or take some action or make some declaration which might lessen discipline and obedience of Vietnamese units serving with French Union Forces. He told me that if anything of that sort occurred he would not hesitate to take firm action, even to point of putting Diem under arrest.
Ely asserted that if armistice which he was instructed to sign was in his view a “capitulation” he would refuse to sign it. He would not sign an armistice establishing demarcation line at 16th parallel, but he might possibly agree to 17th parallel. He was not in any case going automatically to sign any armistice which he had no real hand in negotiating. He was particularly worried over what might happen in several days period which would elapse between signing of agreement and actual cease-fire.