I became chief of the division of Southeast Asian Affairs in the State Department on July 1, 1944, during the war. There were no activities at the moment that we as a department had to do, but, we were concerned to find that- I was concerned to learn that the President had already decided that Indochina should be under, on international trusteeship after the war.

He apparently had told a great many people this, that he did not want the French to go back, that they'd been there over a hundred years, and the people of Indochina were worse off with them, now than they were then. And I remember, one of the memo that had gone to him had a little, on the corner, “FIC,” that's French Indochina, “on international trusteeship, FDR,” that was, that was the full instructions that we had. Period. Stop for the moment.

Ready? Indochina, and even the other countries of Southeast Asia were really relatively small potatoes in world affairs, and particularly in connection with the war. The main thing for us was Japan, and at first as you know, this area had been all under ah, MacArthur in his, in his theater, and of course, Mr. Roosevelt's fiat ah, would carry a great deal of weight there. Later, ehh, it was turned over to the British while we concentrated on the Japanese, and, uh, uh, it, ehh, came under the Southeast Asia command.

But when the French asked to join, ah, send a commission- a mission there to serve with ah, the British command, that was vetoed by Mr. Roosevelt. And he also, uh, gave instructions that no aid of any sort should go – American aid, or aid in American bottoms – should go to ah, Indochina to help the French.

And we had very little to do in the Division, except keep track of some of these things, and if we found, a ah, shipment was going we'd send a little notice on to the White House, endorsed by everybody – it was a factual statement – and ah, about every third notice would come back "This must stop!" Period, that was the way, that was really, about all our activity at that stage, until the war really came to an end. Want me to stop at this moment?

Usually, if there was to be an international conference, ah, we would all prepare briefing papers for the President. These had to be initialed, of course, by everybody, who had concern with an area, and that meant that, ah, the European office as well as the Far Eastern office would have to concur in these papers. We had submitted one or two papers which by unanimous view ah, earlier, but ah the conditions had changed apparently and when I tried to prepare a paper for Yalta base, eh, almost identical with the ones that had been approved in the past, uh, I couldn't get it initialed in the department – the European division wouldn't go along.

So, we assumed that Yalt—eh, that Indochina would be mentioned at Yalta, even though it was not a very important issue, compared to others in the world, but eh, we didn't hear anything about it. So, a f—I met a friend of the President's who was going to have breakfast with him the next day, and he said, "Well I'll find out for you, what ah, what what happened." And at lunch he said, "I had br—b—breakfast with the President, and ah, I asked him.

And he said, 'Well, I agreed that we'd be eh, eh, we’d we’d we’d we'd have have international trusteeship with the French, as trustee.'" Which of course meant that in essence he had given up on his proposal to take it from the French, which is what he'd wanted to do. But of course, he was getting old, he was very ill, and I think he just realized he couldn't do everything that he would like to do. And he'd given up on that one under the pressure from the other countries who did not want to take it away from the French; they didn't want anything taken of their own away, they were perfectly willing to put enemy territories under international trusteeship but not their own.

Stop please... let's do that one once again.

Naturally, I was curious to know what happened at Yalta, because we had no word in the Department. And I ran into a friend of the President's whom I knew, uh, and talked to him about this, he said, well, he was going to have breakfast the next day with the President and he'd ask him. And at lunchtime that next day ah, he said, yes, he'd had breakfast with the President, he'd asked him, and the President had said that he was going to- he had agreed to French trusteeship of Indochina.

It's still international, but it's going to be French trusteeship. Well, of course, that. really meant that he'd abandoned his position, ah, but, I think a great deal of that was because of, ah one, the pressure of the other countries who did not want to have trusteeship for their own territories, they were willing to have trusteeship for any territories of the enemy, but not their own, and the- now I've lost m'self... Sorry. I’m lost there.

It’s all right. I think we can stop right there.

There was quite a division in the State Department over eh, Indochina. Both the Far Eastern office and the European office were in complete agreement, that we wanted a strong France, recovered in Europe the, from the trauma of eh eh, Vichy and the defeat in the war, and the, but the European division felt the, to help get the French back on their feet we should go along with practically anything that the French wanted.

We in Southeast Asia division and the and the Far Eastern office, on the other hand were very conscious of the tremendous surge of nationalism that had taken, was taking place, had already started before the war, and now had been thrust forward at accelerated speed during the war. That was disregarded by the ah, European division, I think, or they discounted it. I remember once senior official saying to me one day, "Why are you fussing with Indonesia? That's nothing but a Dutch colony," and another one was talking about this nationalist movement and he said, "Oh, well that's just the result of Japanese propaganda."

But it wasn't. It was so obviously a deep seated movement that was going to result - when you included India and Burma - in one quarter of the world's population changing from some form of colonial status to some form of self government and self rule. We wanted France and the West to retain influence in Southeast Asia, and we wanted a stable Southeast Asia.

We felt it couldn't be accomplished, and that France would be weak, unless they could somehow grant self government to their peoples in that area. So that we wanted to put pressure on the French, when it became necessary – when it when it was desirable – to ah, work out a settlement with the nationalist movements and... Now I’m lost at that point.

It’s all right. It’s all right. You got up to the point that I, I... go ahead and stop please.

There was a curious situation in the department at that time, which has been corrected since. But the Far Eastern office and the European office, and then the respective country desks within those offices had concurrent jurisdiction which meant that that both divisions had to agree on a policy before any action could be taken. That in turn meant one division could veto any affirmative action by the other. The result was that whichever division didn't want to take any action always won, and somebody- when a division wanted to do something and the other didn’t like it, nothing happened.

We had a curious instance of that, (cough) a very important instance of that, finally, or let me put it this way, came to a head in ah, shortly after the death of Mr. Roosevelt. The European division sent over (clears throat) a memorandum addressed to President Truman for our concurrence, which merely said "the department thinks it's time to ah, change our policy and begin furnishing military aid to the French.

We wrote a contrary memorandum on that one, feeling one, that that was inadequate in explaining to President Truman what Mr. Roosevelt's policy had been and why, why his policies had, what his priorities had been. So we wrote a contrary ah, policy paper in what, expressing what we thought should be done. That included such things as putting pressure on the French to explain to them that we wanted – thought they must come to some sort of self governing, self governing ah, community there. Must work that out on a, on a fair basis.

Not complete sovereignty or anything like that, not necessarily full independence but there must be a peace worked out through... I'll come back to that later if you want. Sorry, I'm going off. Ah, our papers were then sent to the policy committee, or went up rather to the acting Secretary of State who was Joe Grew. You remember, he'd been ambassador in Japan.

Stop. Too much detail there.

If you would just start with telling us that the European desk had produced this paper... right after the death of Mr. Roosevelt.

Right after the death of Mr. Roosevelt, the European division prepared a memorandum tp P—to President Truman recommending that we ah, give, send French, we give military equipment and aid to the French in Indochina, which is a complete reversal of Mr. Roosevelt's policy. We did not agree with – and without any explanation. We did not agree ah, with the, with the, with the European ah paper, so we wrote our own paper with a background explanation, for the President and then of course the two of us had to get together and reach an agreement if anything was to happen.

So we did. We actually worked out a compromise paper because both sides felt that we had to have a pa—policy paper in the department, you couldn't have two policies in the department. We did work one out which must have been a good policy because everybody in the European division disapproved of it as having made too many concessions from their viewpoint, and my staff was practically ready to lynch me that I'd given too many concessions to the other side. Anyway, the paper was worked out, we agreed to it, and then it was sent on to Mr. Dunn in San Francisco for his final approval, and he absolutely rejected it, and no paper was adopted.

What was Mr. Dunn's...

What?

What was Mr. Dunn's title at that point? He was...

I think he was the, I think he was head of the European division, at that, he was the head of the European Division at that time, he was advisor to...

If you would just say that it was sent on to, it was sent on up the ladder, or up...

Well, it was, it was sent out by Billy Phillips actua—well, no, it was telegraphed out to Mr. Dunn, the head of the European office, who was with Mr. Stettinius in San Francisco and he totally rejected the compromise. Is that all right? Would that be... what you’d want?

Stop please.

It is what I want, except that- stop please.

Wait, how do you start me in on this...

So we had finally an agreed paper, we thought. But, unfortunately, it was rejected by the director of the European office, and the result was ah, we had no policy officially adopted for the department. I should have said totally.

All right, let's do it one more, exactly, I'm sorry, there's a great big horn noise out there...

It's exactly the right ending for the story. Like the punch line...

So we had an agreed, eh, acceptable policy, that was acceptable to both the Far East and the European offices. But, unfortunately, the director of the office totally rejected it, out of hand, he said that was no go. And the result was the Department had no official policy towards Indochina. (Noise.) (Laugh) I don't think that's quite the way you wanted it...

No, no no...

Ho Chi Minh was a name that we ran into occasionally. As one of the nationalist leaders among the Vietnamese, uh, leader of a Communist group, but a, we had no idea whether he carried any weight, or, or anything about him. Until, our O.S.S. was actively in the field, and when ah, Ho Chi Minh began his very helpful operation of rescuing downed fliers who had come in, a, fallen in the jungle. And our people got to know Ho Chi Minh very well at that time and were full of admiration for him – as a man, as a patriot, as a great person.

And all the reports were very, very favorable. We knew he was a Communist, but we also felt, as they did, and the way anybody who has known, ever met Ho Chi Minh, who I've ever talked with had the same feeling- he was first a nationalist and second, a Communist. That is, he was interested in getting the independence of his people and then he felt probably the best thing for them was the Communist type of government. But he was a Nationalist first and foremost.

That's perfect. I love it, I mean you really shaped that into...

In September, 1945, after the surrender of Japan, the British were to take the Japanese surrender in the Southern half of Indochina, the Chinese had the north, they a, they went in, but almost at once they began to put the French back into power, and to disarm, they even used the Japanese to disarm the ah, Vietnamese, and it was an obvious move that they were going to restore the French to power in Indochina.

I think our European division probably silently applauded, we silently gnashed our teeth, and abut there was nothing that we could do about it. This was a theatre which we really only had nominal participation in, and so we just had to watch and sit by until such time as the French finally began to negotiate with the Vietnamese, when I think we were able to begin to help try to bring about a more ra—we tried to bring about a good settlement. (Noise) That's not quite what you wanted...

Well, actually, it is, if you would just stop after saying...

In September, 1945, came the Japanese surrender and the British were sent in to accept the Japanese surrender in the Southern half of ah, of Indochina. The, ah, they went in, but they immediately began a, to ah, put the French back into power, to disarm the Vietnamese, and a, chang—changing the whole picture by putting by putting the French back into power in Indochina.

There was- the European division probably silently applauded, and we silently gnashed our teeth, but ah, there was nothing that we could do at that time – we didn't, we were not an American theatre, we had only nominal participation in Southeast Asia command. Not quite what you wanted.

That's fine, that's just fine...

At that time in September, we had a few O.S.S. officers a in South Indochina, as we had some in Northern Indochina, who were there to help a in connection with ah, any prisoners of war, any Americans who might be involved, and to observe what was going on. And, Peter Dewey was a colonel who ah, who was there and he was killed in an ambush.

Ah, we learned this when it came through by cable. Everybody was shocked, because he was not a fighting or anything like that and a we were trying we tried our best to find out what happened, but there was no, there was no, there was nothing we could do ah, and the question was what to whether there was anything we should try to do! Because, I say, it was, that was a case of really of just of a murder, rather than a military action.

Stop please. Yes! Did we have anything else that...

I'm not sure...

Frankly, I never could understand how Mr. Roosevelt expected to bring about his international trusteeship. As far as I know, he took no steps beyond telling the State Department that's what he wanted and in the face of obvious British opposition to such a proposal, and Dutch, it seemed to me that it was a theory, but with no possibility of fruition.

[inaudible] quiet scene of presence...

[inaudible] ten episode to the presence...