Office of the Historian

751G.00/7–2154: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Embassy in France1

confidential
priority
Washington, July 21, 1954—1:34 p.m.

253. For Ambassador from Secretary. If you think appropriate please orally say to Mendes-France that while many aspects of the Indochina settlement obviously reflect a sense of compulsion rather than of choice, I feel that it is at least a good augury for France that [Page 1496] he has demonstrated a capacity to take decisions and carry them out. You may tell him that I hope he feels that our presence through General Smith at the Geneva Conference was helpful to his cause, and that so far as I am concerned, I greatly value the opportunity we had at Paris for an exchange of views, and believe that exchange will be helpful for the future.2

Dulles
  1. Drafted by the Secretary of State.↩
  2. In telegram 364 from Paris, July 27, Ambassador Dillon replied that he had passed the Secretary’s message to Mendès-France the day before. With respect to the presence of Under Secretary Smith at the Geneva Conference Ambassador Dillon reported that Mendès-France “felt the return of Bedell Smith to Geneva had been an event of the greatest importance and he thought it was probably impossible for us to realize how important Bedell Smith’s presence had been to achieving a successful result at Geneva.” (751G.00/7–2754) For the remainder of Ambassador Dillon’s reply, see volume xiii.↩