Page:Pentagon-Papers-Part V. B. 2. b.djvu/76

Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011

 

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Ministers. The Joint Chiefs of Staff would reaffirm their views and recommendations expressed above, as well as in the remainder of their memorandum of 5 April 1950, and recommend further that they be reflected in the basic draft position paper.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff would make further specific comments on the basic draft position paper as follows:

a. The seventh unnumbered paragraph under the heading Background should be revised along the following lines:

The "missing component" in the picture consists of three factors, namely, political, military, and economic. The first two are at present the most important and should be emphasized. In the military field the greatest defect has probably been the lack of coordination between the French and the indigenous forces, coupled with immediate deficiencies in various items of equipment and material and with uncertain morale on the part of the Indochinese and the French. Very early, and continuing assistance is needed by the Indochinese and the French forces in order to meet their present needs. Such assistance must consist in general of additional equipment within reason (unavailable to the French from other sources) and of appropriate military advice.

b. The second unnumbered paragraph under the heading Discussion should be revised along the following lines:

The success of the military program depends upon the support given by the French, Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians to the coordinated operations plans prepared in Indochina, and, to a lesser extent, upon the receipt of specific items of military material from the United States. In view of the larger aspects of the struggle against world communism, judicious political concessions in Indochina by the French, and timely and adequate, but controlled, aid on the part of the United States will eventually pay dividends to both.

c. Under Recommendations, the paragraph headed Discussions with the French should be revised to:

(1) Incorporate in Recommendation 2) a provision that the arrangements for United States military aid be made in Indochina as a result of conversations there between United States, French, Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian military representatives; and

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