Office of the Historian

396.1 GE/4–2954: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Department of State

secret
Geneva, April 29, 1954—1 p.m.

Secto 35. Repeated information [London?] 90, Saigon 11. Re Secto 30.1 Bidault also sent his Chef de Cabinet, Falaize, to Cannes to see [Page 609] Bao Dai this morning and has just received telephone message from Falaize along following lines:

Bao Dai agrees that Vietnam will be represented even if Viet Minh also present subject to following “scenario”:

1.
Bidault, Eden and Secretary would write him asking what reply he would make to an invitation which would be extended both to him and to Viet Minh to be represented.
2.
Bao Dai would send a Minister to Geneva instructed to accept.
3.
The invitations would then be sent simultaneously to the two parties.

Falaize stated that he would return to Geneva tonight with additional information he could not telephone. Bidault states Eden is agreeable to writing such letter and Secretary sees no objection.2

Dulles
  1. Dated Apr. 28, p. 608.↩
  2. The letter to Bao Dai was signed by Eden, Bidault, and Dulles on Apr. 29 and delivered to Bao Dai in Cannes the next day. See the memorandum by Achilles, Apr. 30, p. 620.↩