180. Memorandum on the Substance of Discussion at a Department of State–Joint Chiefs of Staff Meeting, Washington, January 14, 1955, 11:30 a.m.1
[Here follows discussion of items 1–4.]
5. Cambodia
Referring to his stop in Cambodia,2 Admiral Radford brought up the subject of our military training mission there and the phasing out of the French training mission. He wanted to know what obstacle now stood in the way.
Mr. Robertson said that he realized that Defense wanted us to phase the French out and to establish exclusive training arrangements with the Cambodians, but he emphasized that we must proceed carefully. Cambodia, he said, was not an isolated problem, but was related to others, importantly to the role of France in our over-all coalition strategy. Mr. Robertson said that one source of the confusing situation was the fact that the Cambodians talked to us with one voice, and to the French with another.
Admiral Radford agreed and said that Cambodian officials in Paris referred casually to the arrangements made between the French and the Cambodians for a French military mission of some 550 officers and men, while on the other hand, when the Admiral was in Phnom Penh, the Defense Minister evinced puzzlement at the Admiral’s query concerning the agreement between the French and the Cambodians on the status of the French military mission. The Defense Minister had said that it was an open question, that Cambodia reserved the right to be free to call in the French, but that the status of the French mission had never been finalized. The Cambodian budget, the Admiral remarked, did not include funds for the mission. All the Cambodians did was to provide the French military mission with lodging and transportation; other expenses were taken care of by the French. It was on an entirely informal basis.
Admiral Radford said that according to information which he received from Mr. Hensel’s office, the State Department was not willing to agree to the specific provision for French withdrawal in a bilateral agreement, but that we were willing to make this arrangement [Page 414] in a separate agreement with the Cambodians. He said he didn’t much care how we got rid of them, as long as the French were removed and noted that Ambassador McClintock seemed to agree with this thesis.
Mr. Robertson said that Ambassador McClintock only had to worry about the Cambodian “tree”, whereas we had other trouble some “trees” in our forest, including the problem of the French in Europe. However much of an anchor around our necks the French might be in Cambodia, Mr. Robertson said, we needed them in Europe.
Mr. Murphy told Admiral Radford that the vote on ratification of the Paris Accords3 was due to take place in the French Council of the Republic some time during the latter part of February, and that naturally we did not wish to upset the applecart before ratification had a chance to go through.
Mr. Murphy asked the Admiral if he had an opportunity to talk to Premier Penh Nouth. The Admiral said that he had not had the opportunity.
Mr. Young then elaborated on the manner on which we intended to provide military training to the Cambodians. Mr. Hensel interjected that like Admiral Radford, he did not care how it was done; we had no quarrel with the technique. Mr. Robertson said that nevertheless, overlooking the question of how the problem was to be solved did not help to solve it. Our general position, he said, is that if we have control of training under our bilateral agreement with the Cambodians, the phasing out of the French will naturally fall into line, since they have no formal agreement with the Cambodians to that effect.
Mr. Sullivan stressed that Ambassador McClintock believed that now is the time to negotiate.
Mr. Young said that our projected written agreement would place the responsibility of phasing out the French upon the Cambodians, thus avoiding the difficulties which would naturally ensue if the responsibility were placed upon the U.S.
Mr. Robertson said, in summing up, that we would like to get the cooperation of the Defense Department so that the desired result of establishing a U.S. training mission in Cambodia can be gained without disturbing our position vis-à-vis France. As usual, the situation was not black and white.
Reverting to the question of ratification, Mr. Murphy said that all indications were that ratification would go through, probably in 5 [Page 415] or 6 weeks, and that it might be worthwhile to avoid roiling the waters at least until then.
[Here follows discussion of the remaining items.]
- Source: Department of State, State–JCS Meetings: Lot 61 D 417. Top Secret. A note on the title page reads: “State Draft. Not cleared with any of the participants.” Present for the Joint Chiefs were Admirals Radford and Duncan and Generals Ridgway, Twining, and Pate. Hensel, Sullivan, and Admiral Davis attended for the Department of Defense, while Murphy and Robertson headed the Department of State contingent. General Cabell and Amory represented the CIA and Gleason the NSC. In all, 26 persons attended.↩
- Part of Radford’s extensive trip to the Near and Far East, December 22, 1954–January 5, 1955.↩
- Reference is to French ratification of the agreements on Germany signed at the NAC Ministerial meetings at Paris, October 20–23, 1954. For documentation, see Foreign Relations, 1952–1954, vol. V, Part 2, pp. 1404 ff.↩