Office of the Historian

851G.711/1–2547: Telegram

The Ambassador in France (Caffery) to the Secretary of State

confidential
Paris, January 25, 1947—noon.

336. Question of censorship in Indochina discussed with Baudet43 last evening. He said that a message had been sent to d’Argenlieu pointing out the possible injurious effect on American public opinion of censorship policy recently adopted. Baudet added, however, that Foreign Office did not feel it had the authority to issue instructions to d’Argenlieu on a matter which is considered to be a military question.44

Caffery
  1. Philippe Baudet, Director of the Asiatic Division of the French Foreign Office.↩
  2. Despatch 187, February 19, from Saigon, gave a detailed account of steps taken since mid-November to control the dissemination of information in Indochina and the flow of information out of Indochina. As the Chief of the Division of Southeast Asian Affairs (Moffat) commented in a memorandum of March 7, “the picture of the censorship exercised by the French as it appears in this despatch is that of a totalitarian regime at its worst.” The Department on April 28 commended the writer of the despatch for compiling “this discerning and comprehensive report on a subject of the greatest interest to the Department.” (851G.918/2–1947)↩