PSA files, lot 58 D 207, “Vietnam Correspondence”
Ambassador Donald R. Heath to the Special Adviser to the United States Delegation (Bonsal)
Dear Phil: It was good to hear your voice this morning. I had intended phoning you as soon as I had reached the Embassy, but you beat me to it.
[Page 1281]As I indicated over the phone, I have little or nothing definite to report as a result of my brief Washington consultation. I am nevertheless glad I took the trip.
I was in Washington only a little over forty-eight hours. The first man I saw was of course Henry Day, who was kindness itself, but who is not intimately concerned with the Indo-Chinese situation. The one person in your outfit who is concerned and is very intimately concerned is Paul Sturm, who sees the Secretary and Robertson and his small committee at least once a day. Sturm is tired and about as baffled as everyone else at the Department at this precise juncture. I also saw Charlie Stelle and Ed Gullion. The latter made the statement, and I think it is correct, that all the people below the Secretary and Under Secretary are unanimous that we should intervene or rather make up our mind to intervene now with or without the French. The place and manner of intervention varies. Bob Bowie got off a memorandum to the Secretary on June 25 (written by Stelle)1 in which he remarked that in case of a settlement along the Dong Hoi line that we send in some troops in southern Viet Nam as well as train the Viet Namese Army.
My first talk was with Walter Robertson who expressed his usual sentiments against the British attempts to promote a settlement in Indo-China at any price and referred to Eden‘s influence over B.2 Walter was rather despairing about the possibility of doing anything in the situation. I may say that I urged that you be put in charge of the delegation. The next day Walter had an attack of ulcers and didn’t return to the Department before I left.
I had a long talk with Doug MacArthur but inconclusive. As I recall it, his conclusion was that the administration was going to be blamed for whatever happened there whether we disassociated ourselves or joined in to get the best solution possible.
I also had a long talk with Bob Murphy and urged on him as indeed I did on everybody that we use all the influence and pressure we could on Mendes-France to insist the French bargain for at least a foothold in the Northern delta. Both he and the Secretary doubted that we could do anything to persuade Mendes-France to which my answer was that we could at least try. I also felt that the Communist Chinese wanted a ceasefire as badly as the French and would be disposed to force the Viet Minh to accept at least provisionally the Haiphong enclave. Bob said that the Secretary’s conditional offer of American intervention on the lines of his Los Angeles speech must still remain [Page 1282] open for a time because while the French have no intention of accepting it they would blame us if we withdrew it. When I saw the Secretary, he criticized the British for efforts to conclude peace at any price, referred to his offer of our intervention on terms which he said were thoroughly reasonable, expressed his disbelief that we were being kept really informed of the secret negotiations and expressed doubt that Mendes-France could be persuaded to adopt a strong line. I saw the President who said he had been thinking back whether there was anything that he might have done to have persuaded the French to internationalize the Indo-Chinese War. He said he had been endeavoring to persuade the French to do so since 1950. He wondered if he had talked to more people whether he might not have succeeded. He remarked that Bidault had been the one person who had seen the necessity of such action. Bidault had become converted to this idea at the Bermuda Conference.
I finally had a talk with Radford a short while before leaving Washington. Radford told me that one afternoon last spring the Government was almost decided to intervene with aviation to save Dien Bien Phu. Radford said he was convinced that throwing in our aviation would have saved Dien Bien Phu and our whole position in Southeast Asia would have been much stronger. His idea is that after intervening to save that fortress we could have withdrawn our aviation. He said unfortunately, however, the attitude of Washington toward our intervention was “conventional”.
All in all at least on the high levels the attitude was one of pessimism and not knowing what to do. Much sympathy was expressed to me over my task on my return to Saigon. There was no expression of hope or belief that I might do something. To all and sundry I said we will just do the best we can down there and we hope we could find someone or some group with whom we could build something solid. I insisted to everybody the necessity of keeping a foothold in the North remarking the French would have to keep Haiphong at least for a time in order to evacuate their forces.
Over the phone I indicated to [sic] my last talk with Bao Dai was “unsatisfactory”. That is the understatement of the week. He has no intention of going back there. I am sure that he is not a well man but that is no excuse for his cowardliness at this crucial moment in his country’s history. Nevertheless, I don’t think we should talk about his defection and eventual replacement now. We need to keep up at least a facade of Government until we find someone to take over.
Affectionate best to Margaret and yourself from us both,
- “United States Policy on Indochina,” June 25, printed in volume xiii.↩
- Reference to “B” is presumably to Walter Bedell Smith.↩