Okay, if you would start for us please with some background, about the deepening Cold War, and how that effected United States' policies in Indochina.

Just after V.J. Day, the United States demobilized almost completely and almost overnight. By the summer of 1946 we did not have a single division in our army, nor a single group in our air force considered ready for combat. Those ships of our navy that remained afloat were being manned by skeleton crews. Our defense budget for three fiscal years '47, '48, '49 came down to just a little over $11 billion, groping for a target of ten billions. So it was during that period that Mr. Joseph Stalin could look out across the West and he saw all the divisions melting away.

We also know that he knew how few atomic bombs we had at that time. You could count them on the fingers of one hand. So he uh tried to keep the Northwest Province of Iran, he demanded the two Eastern provinces of Turkey, supported the guerrillas going after Greece with sanctuaries in places like Albania, ah, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, he ignored the wartime agreements to give the peoples of Eastern Europe some sort of say in their own political future, he worked out the coup d'état in Czechoslovakia, blockaded Berlin, gave the green light to the North Koreans to go after South Korea.

Now, despite all the Revisionist Historians, those were the events that started the Cold War. We were disarmed. It was not until 1950 that we began to build up our own forces in any significant fashion. So, in a sense we'd been picking up the pieces of that disastrous demobilization ever since.

Could you tie that in for us, and would you give me the second focal shot? Could you tie that in for us then, with the United States trying to put pressure on France and yet needing to keep a strong Western Europe in the face of these pressures?

At the end of World War Two the British chiefs of staff and Mr. Churchill were the executive agents for the combined chiefs of staff, and for the U.S. and Amer and British governments. Ah, the United States government at the end of the war became totally preoccupied with arrangements for the surrender of Germany, the occupation of Germany, the surrender of Japan and all those problems. So that under Mr. Churchill's guidance, despite the attitudes of Franklin Roosevelt during the good part of World War Two, the great colonial areas of Asia did not emerge immediately as independent nations.

The British came back to India, Burma, Malaya, the French came back to Indochina, the Dutch came back to Indonesia. So that our relationship to that part of the world consisted mainly in encouraging the move of the British government for independence for India, Burma, Malaya, for working out the very difficult problems between the Dutch and Indonesia, and, uh to some extent, an interest in Indochina. But the French were not really ready to invite us to take much of a part in the Indochina problem.

You see, very shortly we became involved in the construction of the Marshall Plan and of NATO. Western Europe was the great issue before all of us at that time. And, ah, the role of France was critical both in the Marshall Plan and in NATO. So that ah we on the one side wanted to work very closely with France. And we knew that the aid we were giving to France was being used in part to support their position in Indochina.

But at the same time we knew instinctively that their then relationship in Indochina could not last. That it was too late in history for that. So, we tried our best to persuade the French to um come to a political settlement with the three nations of Indochina, comparable to the way the British and the Dutch had handled their relations in their former colonies.

And, but um, we did not press the French unduly, because we wanted to keep close relationships with France for the Marshall Plan and NATO, and we did not want to put such pressure on France as to cause them simply to say "All right, this is your, this is for you, this is in your basket, you take care of it."

Because, we did not want to take responsibility for for that far-off place, under those circumstances. So um, for some years there, we had a rather uneasy relationship with France, helping them on the one side, pressing them to move toward a political settlement with the governments and the peoples of those three Indochinese countries.

Continuing the thought... close shot... Go on... what are the changes that leads to the May 1, 1950 decision by President...

In effect this happens before the Korean War breaks out, so that what are the factors that lead to that first decision to give directly aid to Indochina?

By that time, by May, 1950, the French seemed to be ready to accept some kind of political organism there in Indochina, and we thought that by giving aid directly to those uh associated states, that we thought we could not only do something worthwhile from the point of view of ah, human beings development, that kind of thing, human needs, but also could give a little encouragement to the notion that these states were indeed to become members of the community of nations.

Now at that time there was some skepticism on the part of the French about just how we'd channel such aid and how we, for what purposes it was being given. So it was a continuing part of that uneasy relationship that we had with France uh during the period uh say up to 1950.

What were the differences in the American goals for this aid and the French goals?

You see, France had gone through a deeply traumatic experience in 1940, and any patriotic Frenchman who'd lived through that period must have come out of the war with a deep and passionate feeling about restoring the position and the self-respect and the public morale of France.

Before the war, France'd been an empire, and a these overseas representations of French presence, French power, French influence were I suspect, unusually important to them given the circumstances of their defeat in World War Two. So there were a good many of those sentiments around.

But I think the there were many in France also who could see the handwriting on the wall, they could see what was happening in the rest of Asia, in these great colonial areas. Uhm, and it, they knew that somehow the time to wind up was coming. We tried to get the French to understand that if they were to move boldly and simply to give independence to these three nations, that the French presence would still be the most important external presence in these three countries, as the presence of the Dutch turned out to be in Indonesia, and the presence of the British in India.

Ah, but ah the French were skeptical about that, you see I think there were a good many among the French who somehow had a ah incorrect but rather sneaky idea that somehow the United States was trying to replace them in Indochina. That was the last thing on our minds. We had a basketful, we didn't...need to think about such considerations. So it was it was not easy in the succession of French governments there were relatively weak politically, they were on narrow edges, and uhm, the question was how far a French government could go and remain in power. Uh, given the fragile and turbulent internal political situation in France itself.

It was also ahm— if you could give me the other focal...[inaudible] talk with okay, got that--it was not an entirely popular decision--oh, oh an entirely non-controversial decision in the United States, there were people in the State Department and in Congress who were ah raising questions, could you could you talk to us about that.

Anything ah relating to foreign aid involves a uh major debate in Congress. And uh there're always pressures from different points of view to put conditions on foreign aid to achieve what turn out to be contradictory purposes as far as these groups in the United States are concerned.

There were uhh some who simply wanted to insist that the French connection with Indochina be completely severed, but there were others, perhaps even stronger at that time who felt that France was so important to the reconstruction and the safety of Europe and of the North Atlantic that we should ah simply do whatever France wanted us to do out in that part of the world to follow along wherever France decided to lead. But ahm, Mr. Truman followed the, tried to follow the middle ground and the middle ground is always very uneasy and uncomfortable. Because there will be those who arc unhappy with it for quite opposite points of view.

There was also some fear that the United States was getting itself into a uh progressive slide into more involvement.

I don't have any recollection that there was any serious discussion in government about our becoming more directly involved afte—after all, we had played a major role as the midwife for the birth of Indo—Indonesian independence. We had applauded and cooperated with the new state of India, uh, we uh, it was clear where our sympathies were, and uh this was a part of a long standing American tradition on such matters, after all, we were the first colony to break away from ah Great Britain.

Ah but uh, ahhh, I just don't a believe it's as a matter of fact that, at that time general public opinion was focusing in very much on Indochina. It's far away, we'd had very little interest there, they were very few Americans in Indochina um, and there were so many other things preoccupying us. The news was filled with Europe and Japan and Russia and all the rest of it.

Stop please. How are we doing for footage here?

The onslaught of the North Koreans onto South Korea in 1950 made a major difference to us in our attitude toward events in Asia. When ah the North Koreans first attacked, President Truman, looked at this matter very hard, and he remembered all those incidents which contributed toward World War Two, where collective security failed to prevent obs— present obstacles to aggression. We'd had a special responsibility for South Korea, we'd accepted the Japanese surrender there, we'd helped the Republic of Korea come into being as a nation, and it was not until 1949 that we withdrew our final regimental combat team from Korea.

So that when the North Koreans attacked, um, we had to think very hard about what this might mean. At the moment of the attack, we could not be sure. We did not know whether this meant a general offensive by say China and the Soviet Union, in Asia. And so in in order to circumscribe the problem and try to limit it to the Korean peninsula, President Truman ah intruded the Seventh Fleet between Taiwan and the Mainland, and he immediately stepped up our aid to Indochina. Very, very la—very uh uh generously, in terms of military equipment and economic supplies and the rest of it, because we were trying to send a signal to major Communist capitals that uh they should not expand this Korean matter into other fronts and turn it into a general offensive.

Could we change focal lengths and do that again? You stumbled in the middle there and I'd like to have...

The whole thing?

Perhaps if you just start, I can cut them together if you can just start from the increase in aid when the when the...

(Clears throat) It was decided on the very weekend of the North Korean attack that we would step up our aid very significantly to the French and to Southeast Asia. Because we did not know at that point whether or not the Chinese might attempt to move into that area as a part off a general offensive in Asia. Uhm, so that the combination of the decision to put American forces directly into Korea, put the Seventh Fleet between Taiwan and the Mainland, and to increase aid to Southeast Asia was an attempt to limit the temptation which others might have to open up a general course of aggression in Asia.

That's good. Um. Stop please.

Stay on the tight one moment for this. I'd like to ask you (Break.) Was the United States looking at all to Ho at out of a possible non Stalinist Communist nationalist Communist, a Tito as it were, and if not, were we actually pleased with the French solution, the Bao Dai solution, were we looking for a third solution, for anything, or were we simply not paying attention. (TONE.) And why not?

During World War II when I was in the China-Burma-India theatre, I personally authorized the dropping of arms and American cigarettes to Ho Chi Minh. We were trying to mobilize everyone who would help resist the Japanese. But at the very end of the war, uh, we did not look upon this as our responsibility. Our hands were full in ah with German problems, and Japanese problems, and a lot of other things. Uhm, history might have been quite different had Indochina emerged from the war as an independent nation. Under the leadership indeed of Ho Chi Minh who knows?

But ahh, we were in a sense playing second or third string to the French in that part of the world, particularly in Indochina. We did not want to substitute ourselves for the French, we did not want to assume French responsibilities because ah we were in simply not in position to do much about it; after all, some of us can remember that the British simply signed out of Greece, and said we can't any longer do this, it's up to you Americans to do what has to be done in Greece. Ah, we were disarmed, we did not have the capabilities of undertaking all these new responsibilities.

And I would have to say, that given all the other questions on our agenda at that time, particularly the building of the Marshall Plan and NATO and all sorts of other problems, that ah, events in Indochina were...not in any sense of high priority in our thinking.

Did we uh, even study the question of Ho Chi Minh as a-- nationalist, or any other credible nationalists who could be ahh, take the place of Ho Chi Minh...

Ahhh--

You can stop here. (TONE.)

We were not prepared to ah, work with Ho Chi Minh over against the French at that time. Because to us the French were very important to us, in Europe, in all sorts of other problems, at the United Nations, uh, so that I don't know that we ever at the top of the government anyhow gave any serious thought to the possibilities of an independent or a Titoist type of Ho Chi Minh. Uhm, that would involve a direct engagement with the French and a very, very unpleasant situation, and could jeopardize a lot of our purposes in Europe at that time.

Stop please. Um...

Uhm, let me ask you then about the differences in goals between the French and the Americans at a later period, I'd like to tie it in if you can with the visit of de Lattre de Tassigny. He comes in September of '51. He obviously wants more aid, and yet he does not want to join either the Containment of Communism or, in fact, I believe he doesn't really want to be accountable for how that aid is used. Is that correct? (TONE.) If if we could talk about that split that's going on there. Um. And could we have the watch on.

There was always a uh sharp contrast in the underlying purposes which the French and the Americans had out there in that part of the world during the late '40s and early '50s. I think the French really had in mind that they would restore the position of France in Indochina, in effect restore their colonial empire. To that extent.

Well that was not our attitude at all. We were prepared, as Franklin Roosevelt expressed often during World War Two, to see the great colonial areas of Asia come out of the war as independent nations. And we were in the process of helping that to happen: India, Pakistan, Burma, Malaya, Indonesia.

Uhm, so that um, we felt that if there were independent Indochina, or three independent states of Indochina, who were secure, able to pay attention to the needs of their own people, ready to cooperate as a member of the community of nations, that that would be a situation in the interest of the United States.

Ahm, we never wanted any presence there, um, ourselves. As a matter of fact, during the Truman administration, there were discussions at the staff level about the idea that later came to be the Southeast Asia Treaty. And at that time we turned down these ideas, we thought it would be a mistake for the United States to go into Southeast Asia and make an alliance with certain ones of these countries and not all of them, and have the association of the United States itself become a divisive influence in Southeast Asia generally. That we should wait until the entire region developed its own regional se—security con—consciousness.

Then we could stand in powerful, second line support behind the region as a whole. Later, the situation changed, and during in the '50s, and President Eisenhower and Secretary Dulles um, brought about this Southeast Asia treaty. But we turned down those ideas during the Truman administration.

Ah, change focal length, please. What about the the uh...the...

Cut.

...Communist...

When ah Mao Zedong and his colleagues seized power throughout the mainland of China, that created some very difficult problems for the United States. After a century of warm and friendly relations between the American and the Chinese people in all sorts of ways, many of us felt like rejected lovers. Here, the Chinese people of all people had turned against us. And uh, Ho Chi Minh, uh, picked out the United States as enemy number one. He tried to erase all traces of that century of close relationships between our two peoples and he arrested mmm some of our officials, beat some of them up. So we got off to a very bad start with uh the People's Republic of China.

I'm sorry, you said Ho Chi Minh there. Instead of Mao Zedong.

I'm sorry, did I say Ho Chi Minh.

I'm sorry, if you could do it again.

Yeah.

Just continue.

When uh Mao Zedong seized power in China, he seemed to pick out the United States and the Americans as enemy number one. He went to great lengths to try to erase all traces of that century of close and friendly relationships. He arrested some of our officials in China, beat some of them up, and uh, the United States became his principle target of propaganda. So that was not easy for us. But at the same time, we uhh, were not all that concerned about uh, the potential of China for external aggression. They had a lot of problems to cope with.

Our relationships with uh Japan, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand were uh, much more important to us, indeed, uh, our security treaties were with Japan, Philippines, Australia and New Zealand, were actually aimed as much at the possibility of a future Japanese military restoration than uh, in a sense of China.

It was not until, oh, the Korean War and the entry of the Chinese in large numbers into the Korean War that uh we became increasingly concerned about where China would go. We had in mind nn--Napoleon's remark "Let China sleep, for when she awakes, the world will tremble."

And so uhm, I think it was the um participation by the Chinese in the Korean War that brought to a f--focus these uh issues concerning security. Now, that in that in turn uh, increased our interest in a non-Communist solution in Indochina. And by that time Ho Chi Minh had positioned himself in such a way that it'd be a very unlikely that any American government would support Ho Chi Minh as a potential Titoist. Because he was after all a Communist and close relations between him and Peking or, possibly Moscow um, was not a very inviting prospect.

Um, stop please. I think I have really only two more questions here.

Uh, the first one is, I just take a li-- it's a little bit past where you (BREAK.) ...increments, and whether there was any...

So this is going to be the stages by which we go from this initial grant up to...really supporting 80 percent of the war by ‘54 (TONE.)

Our assistance to Vietnam, or Indochina, went through several phases. We began simply as a close partner of France in the Marshall Plan, NATO, related directly to the European scene. Then uh we began to move toward more direct assistance when we saw some movement in French policy toward some kind of autonomy or independence for the Associated States of Indochina. Then came the Korean War, and the speculation about whether there would be a major communist offensive into Southeast Asia, and that stepped up our aid, eh, very considerably.

Of course, uh, the more Mao Zedong consolidated his power on the mainland and gave expression to his hostility toward the United States, the more we became concerned about what his attitude was going to be toward Indochina, and so we again stepped up our effort there.

When the battle lines were drawn, in uh, Indochina itself, in what turned out to be the conclusive series of engagements there, uhm, ...we uhh, had divided counsels in our own government during the Eisenhower Administration. There were some like, uh, Mr. John Foster Dulles and Admiral Radford who wanted a uh considerable involvement, if necessary, by US forces.

But there were others, primarily President Eisenhower himself, who did not think that we should become involved on the mainland or intrude ourselves militarily into that situation. That compromise was uh reflected in part at the Geneva Conference when we ourselves did not even sign the Geneva Agreements.

When we uh made it known that as far as we were concerned they were not binding upon South Vietnam or upon the United States. Although it was declared that any attempt to interfere with those uh results by military force would be looked upon by us as a threat to the peace. So that uh we uh we began in a small fashion, steadily increased as the stakes grew, and then the critical time came in after the Geneva Conference when uh President Eisenhower and Secretary Dulles concluded the Southeast Asia Treaty. That added an entire new dimension to the problem because under that treaty, the United States committed itself, solemnly, quote: "To take steps to meet the common danger" unquote, if those protected by the treaty were subject to attack.

That was re directly related by us to the entire question of collective security in the postwar period, because we knew that the response of the United States under that kind of treaty had a bearing on the judgment that other capitals would make about how we would act under NATO, or the Rio Pact or other such treaties. But uh, unfortunate— we entered into the Southeast Asia Treaty at a time when there was a lot of talk about, uh, massive retaliation and a "bigger bang for a buck" that kind of thing, and there were those who seemed to think that it—the Southeast Asia Treaty was a cheap treaty, that all we had to do was to s—send some carriers out there and bomb somebody and that it would be all over with. There was not a thoughtful, serious, wide-ranging discussion of the seriousness of entering a mutual security treaty in which we pledged ourselves to take action, because our failure to do so could have uh chain reactions, with regard to other treaties, and deeply undermine the possibilities of collective security in the world.

Okay, uhm.

I'd like to close on this one... shortly, well, before this period though, in 1952, you you left, the government, and you'd gone to the Rockefeller Foundation, um, this is really a can you give us, looking back at that time, what your assessment was then for success in...

in Indochina...

(Clears throat) By the time I had left the government in 1952, it was clear that uh the major fighting in Korea was coming to a stop, ne—negotiations were already underway, those were more protracted then any of us thought when they began, but there were clear indications that the North Koreans and the Chinese and the Russians were prepared to settle that matter on the basis of the status quo ante, to call it off on the basis of the pre-war situation.

Um, now in '52, um, we did not look upon Indochina as a a problem that was engaging the total security situation on a world wide basis. The the constellation of forces, as the Russians sometimes put it. Ahm, it ah seemed clear that the French were moving toward some kind of political settlement, that the Associated States of Indochina would in due course be independent, would take their place as members of the United Nations, and that uh American aid would have to continue for a considerable period of time, although the prospect was that those three countries...

Cut. I'm sorry

We knew that American assistance to Indochina would have to continue for some time to come. Although uh they were potentially eh relatively well off with uh resources and a relatively uh educated people, so that we did not look upon them as being uh a basket case for indefinite major aid uh over the decades ahead. But uhhm, I think we looked forward to a period of some repose out there as we anticipated the end of the Korean fighting and uh, it was not until the battle was actually joined in Indochina itself, between the French and the nationalist and Communist forces that uh, that problem moved front and center, to the front and center of the stage again.

By that you mean at Dien Bien Phu?

Yes.

Could uhm, could you put that in, because that's not going to be clear by the way that that's put. Ah.

It was not until the uh, direct military engagement between the French and other Vietnamese forces on the one side and the so called Nationalists and the Communist forces on the other, uh, move toward that climax that was reached at Dien Bien Phu. Ahm, now, there's a lot of division within the American government as to what our attitude should be at that point, but President Eisenhower's judgment was that we should not intrude militarily and so nothing much happened from that point on until the Geneva Conference of 1954.

So at the time that you left office in '50 (sound) 1952, you were not really anticipating any

uh, defeat of the French, it was not at all clear that the French were going to be thrown out of at that point...

I think—

If you could just make that a sentence for me, okay.

In 1952 it was not at all clear that the French would ah lose that struggle with the uh Ho Chi Minh forces. Indeed, we thought there was a fair chance that the nationalist aspirations of these countries, having been recognized by the French, who had taken direct, specific steps toward national independence, would be able to carry the day. But, the events proved otherwise.

Stop please, let me just look through my notes...

In the Spring of 1950 President Truman asked me to take on the job of Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs...He also at the same time, invited Mr. John Foster Dulles to come back into the administration. Mr. Philip Jessup became Ambassador at Large and the hope was that we somehow could work very closely with the leaders of both parties and work out a better bipartisan understanding with re— regard to policies in Asia. Well we succeeded pretty much across the board, except for China itself.

Ah, we were clear that uh we were gonna have a Japanese peace treaty, our uh attitudes on a toward Taiwan itself offered no partisan problems as it turned out; attitudes toward Indochina provided no ah partisan difficulties in the Congress itself. Now, there's never unanimity, there were groups around the country, different sorts of groups, uh, criticizing us from one point of view or another, but that's normal.

Ahm, but uh finally when we gn understood that we could not get bipartisan understanding on the subject of China, proper, then Mr. Dulles was pulled off of that effort and given responsibility for the negotiation of the Japanese peace treaty, which he did with great success 'n beautifully.

Uhm, but uhm, actually, so long as there is a bipartisan consensus in the Congress, then, ah, the fact that there may be margins of discontent or criticism from different people around the country or from other countries, uh was relatively unimportant, provided you were sure about the main stream of support for what you were doing.

I want to be sure I understand this. That the domestic pressures, in terms of uh the people

...domestic pressures in terms of...

...uh anti Communism, in the face of the the Chinese events is wh just not significant, you're saying in terms of policy.

Domestic pressures in my judgment did had very little to do with our attitudes toward Indochina. (background voice) Uh, the um, the McCarthy period, uh, was one of those uh evil chapters, but it did not have as far reaching effect on policy as many people supposed. And so we would not uh we did not feel constrained by the attitudes of the people of the United States ...uh to do one thing rather than another as far as Indochina was concerned. This was more a matter between the executive branch and the Congress, and the leaders of the two parties in Congress at that time.

And that wh—and that was functioning that that that was there was enough agreement that there was no uh impairment of that relationship.

Yes, there was always I think sufficient bipartisan agreement on Indochina itself so that we never really had any serious, deeply gouging political struggles over the Indochinese situation.

Thank you. Um, I think we can stop...