851G.01/8–1049: Telegram
The Chargé in France (Bonbright) to the Secretary of State
3322. Following is translation of Auriol’s letter of July 27 which Coste-Floret delivered to Bao Dai. Letter was counter-signed by Queuille, Schuman, Coste-Floret and Ramadier.1
(Begin translation) The Government of the Republic has received the official notification of the constitution by Your Majesty of the Vietnam Government charged with ensuring the implementation of the agreements of March 8, with establishing the state, with carrying out urgent reforms, with preparing and ensuring peace and, the peace won, with organizing the free consultation of the people on the final choice of their political regime and their government.
We are convinced that Your Majesty will bring these tasks to a successful conclusion.
As far as it is concerned, the Government of the Republic has just made the greatest efforts to attain this objective and will assist you therein until the complete and sincere execution of the agreements concluded between us.
In loyal negotiation it has entirely satisfied the national claims of the Vietnam people, such as have been expressed by Your Majesty since 1945 and such as were specified at that time by the de facto government of Ho Chi Minh: The unity of the Vietnam was approved by the vote of the French Parliament and by a French law changing the status of Cochin China.
The independence of the Vietnam State was recognized in the agreements of March 8, 1949 by the Government of the Republic.
The relations between Vietnam and France within the framework of the French Union were clearly and extensively defined in the very terms of the constitution in order to assure common prosperity and the common defense, more indispensable than ever in the instability, the uncertainty and the anxieties of the world.
Thus, the armed conflict, allegedly launched for the fulfillment of these national claims, has no further object. The peace, ardently desired by the Vietnamese people as well as by France, is in the hands of the Vietnamese people and their hands alone.
Undoubtedly, Sire, an atmosphere of confidence, of friendship and of loyal and sincere collaboration must be established between our associated states in the French Union.
The fact that the Government of the Republic and I, myself, in my capacity as President of the Republic and of the French Union, vouch for the loyal and entire execution of the agreements signed, will contribute to its establishment.
The High Commissioner has received all instructions to transfer to Your Majesty’s government the services, for which the responsibility will henceforth be incumbent on the Vietnam State, and to place at its [Page 72] disposal the cadres and advisers whom you may desire and for such time as you may deem necessary.
Our military chiefs will give you their collaboration for the organization and instruction of the Vietnam army placed under the responsibility of your government and acting in concert, for common security, with our army.
I confirm to you for my part in the name of the government of the Republic the terms of my telegram of May 22, 1949 according to which I declared myself ready to accredit the Ambassadors, Ministers and Consuls appointed with your approval and on your recommendations to the states provided for in our agreements: As also to accept, in agreement with you, the Ambassadors, Ministers and Consuls appointed to your state by foreign powers.
Under the conditions provided in the act of March 8, 1949 the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the French Republic will support, before the General Assembly of the U.N., the candidacy of the Vietnam State to this great international organization, in order that, through the French Union and world solidarity, the independence, security and frontiers of the state be guaranteed.
Lastly, it is with great satisfaction that the Government of the Republic and I have heard the noble appeal, highly appreciated, of Your Majesty in making a formal promise to submit to the sovereign will of the Vietnam people—after all necessary preparations for a pacified and organized territory—the choice of their constitutional regime, political institutions and government.
If, for the organization of the territory and for this consultation, the Vietnam people decided to unite for the cessation of hostilities, which, we repeat, depends only on themselves, the Government of the Republic and I will be glad to see thus established the peaceful conditions for the renaissance of Vietnam and for the renewal of the bonds of friendship which must unite our two nations for a sound prosperity and security.
If this were not so, if—despite the real and effective satisfaction of aspirations which they themselves defined at the outset of this conflict—certain men or certain political movements, for reasons or changes in orientation concealed by vain pretexts, should maintain their attitude, it would mean that they would wish to isolate Vietnam in order to lead her later towards destinies which at that time would appear clearly and would open, too late, the eyes of sincere and temporarily misled Vietnamese.
We wish to believe that it will not be so.
In any case, ‘Sire, certain of being in agreement with your government and with the populations torn and ruined by war, the Government of the Republic will not abandon the peoples of Vietnam nor the other associated states to this terrible solitude and to these dreadful adventures in which those peoples, thus abandoned, risk losing their independence and the liberties to which all men are entitled. France will not abandon them and, if need be, would assure with their government and, should the need arise, with the assistance of the U.N., the defense of their independence and their security against all external attacks if they came to be threatened.
It is in this spirit that the Government of the Republic and I associate ourselves with the appeal which Your Majesty has already [Page 73] addressed and will renew to all political, intellectual and spiritual organizations of the Vietnam, to all the so hardly tried urban and rural populations, in order to fulfill our common wish: Peace, reconstruction and prosperity.
Having confidence in your efforts and those of your government to realize the objectives recalled in this letter and to establish your communal organizations in the depths of the scattered villages and rice fields, I pray you, Sire, to accept for the Vietnamese people, the expression of the friendship of the French people, and for Your Majesty, the expression of my highest regards. (End translation.)
- Paul Ramadier, French Minister of National Defense.↩