United States – Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense/I. A. Notes

by the Pentagon

I. A.

FOOTNOTES

1.	U.S. Department of State, Documentary History of United States Policy Toward Indochina, 1940–1953 (Historical Office, Research Project No. 354, April, 1954) TS; see also U.S. Congress, House, Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1944 (House Document No. 303, 1965), III, 769–784; Ruth B. Russell, A History of the United Nations Charter (Washington: Brooks Institution, 1958), 173–174.
2.	Ibid. Included in the Documentary History..., op. cit., is a Memorandum of Conversation between Roosevelt and Stalin, Teheran, November 28, 1943 (SECRET). The President is said to have then considered that a twenty-to thirty-year period would be necessary before the Indochinese peoples would be ready for independence.
3.	Speech of Foreign Minister Pineau, New York Times, March 5, 1956.
4.	Russell, op. cit., 79.
5.	Ibid., 174, quoting Cordell Hull, Memoirs, II, 1957; U.S. Department of State, Documentary History..., op. cit., 574.
6.	Ernest J. King and Walter M. Whitehill, Fleet Admiral King: A Naval Record (1952), 569; quoted in Russell, op. cit., A-10.
7.	John Ehrman, Grand Strategy: August 1943–September 1944, Vol. V. (1956), 442; quoted in Russell, op. cit., 574.
8.	U.S. Department of State, Documentary History..., op. cit., A-16.
9.	Ibid., A-16.
10.	Extract from Stettinius Diary; quoted in U.S. State Department Study, Documentary History..., op. cit., A-17.
11.	William D. Leahy, I Was There (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1950), 244, 269, 286.
12.	Russell, op. cit., 575.
13.	In March 1945, the President remarked to Gen. Wedemeyer, then commanding officer for U.S. forces in China, "that he must watch carefully to prevent British and French political activities in the area and that he should give only such support to the British and French as would be required in direct operations against the Japanese." U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, Diplomatic Papers: The Conference of Berlin (the Potsdam Conference), 1945, I, 917.
14.	The de Gaulle representations were made orally to the U.S. Ambassador. See U.S. Department of State, telegram 1196 from Paris, 13 March, and Documentary History..., A-19, A-20.
15.	Leahy, I Was There, op. cit., pp. 338–339. On the basis of research into the Air Force archives, Bernard Fall wrote in Street Without Joy (Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole, 1967, 4th ed.) note, p. 25, that General Claire Chennault, commander of the 14th Air Force, "...Did indeed fly support missions in behalf of the retreating French forces." [After the Japanese take-over in March.] In his The Two Viet-Nams, moreover, Fall cited the memoirs of General Lionel-Max Chassin, commander of the French Far East Air Force, to the effect that the 14th Air Force provided supplies and even fighter support to the French until at least April 26, 1945. (New York: Praeger, 1967, 2nd revised ed.) n. 10, pp. 468–469. In both books, however, Fall presents a strong case for the paucity of U.S. aid to the French in the 1945–1946 period. See also U.S. Department of State, Memorandum of Conversation by Assistant Secretary of State Dunn, 19 March 1945, and telegram to Paris 1576 of 19 April 1945.
16.	Russell, op. cit., 975.
17.	Russell, op. cit., 91; quoting from Cordell Hull, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull, 2 Vols., (New York: Macmillan Co., 1948).
18.	Russell, op. cit., pp. 176–177, 573–589.
19.	Ibid., 585, US Dept State, Documentary History..., op. cit., B-2.
20.	U.S. Department of State, Documentary History..., op. cit., B-1.
21.	U.S. Department of State, Documentary History..., op. cit., B-2, p. 2.
22.	Russell, op. cit., p. 1047.
23.	U.S. Department of State, Memorandum by the Director of the Office of European Affairs (Matthews) to the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee, May 23, 1945. The proposal for a division of responsibility between Chinese Nationalist and British forces was first made by General Marshall, head of the Combined Chiefs of Staff, on July 18, 1945. After some negotiation with Chiang Kai-shek over the precise dividing line, the British accepted the 16th parallel; Truman and Churchill formally agreed to the arrangement on July 24. See Foreign Relations of the United States (Potsdam), op. cit., I, 83 337, 922; and II, 1313, 1319, 1465.
24.	As for the O.S.S., the ranking American official in Northern Vietnam in 1945, Brigadier General Philip E. Gallagher, has attested: "...throughout the months before the Japanese capitulation, O.S.S. officers and men operated behind Japanese lines, to arm, lead and train native guerrillas who were organized by the Vietminh." (A situation report, undated, in the Gallagher Papers, quoted in Bert Cooper, John Killigrew, and Norman LaCharité, Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare: Vietnam 1941–1954 [Washington, D.C.: Special Operations Research Office, The American University, 1964], p. 107.) Other sources conclude, however, that O.S.S. assistance to the Viet Minh-led guerrillas was extremely limited, although it gave the Viet Minh the opportunity to proclaim that they were part of the Allied effort against the Japanese. (See Fall, Le Viet-Minh: La République Démocratique du Viet-Nam [Paris: Librarie Armand Colin, 1960], p. 34; Cooper, Killigrew, and LaCharité, op. cit.)
25.	U.S. Department of State, Documentary History..., op. cit., B-3.
26.	U.S. Department of State, telegram from Paris 6857, 28 November 1945.
27.	U.S. Department of State, Documentary History..., op. cit., B-4, B-6, B-9.
28.	U.S. Department of State, Political Activities Along the South China-Indochina Border (Office of Intelligence Research, Report No. 4575, December 29, 1947), 5.
29.	U.S. Department of State, Documentary History..., op. cit., B-5.
30.	U.S. Department of State, Political Activities Along the South China-Indochina Border, op. cit., 5.
31.	U.S. Department of State, Indochina Since 1939 (Office of Intelligence Research, No. 3602, 25 March 1946), 6.
32.	U.S. Department of State, Brief on Issues in Dispute Between France and Vietnam (Office of Intelligence Research, OIR Report No. 4303, March 10, 1947), 6.
33.	U.S. Department of State, Indochina Since 1939: A Factual Survey Office of Intelligence Research, No. 3602, 25 March 1946), Appendix A. Appended to the Accords of 6 March were a series of supplementary agreements, among which was a plan for withdrawing all French troops within five years.
34.	Ibid., 7, 11.
35.	In a note to the French Ambassador, of 10 April 1946, the Department of State confirmed that: "...the Franco-Chinese agreement completes the reversion of all of Indo-china to French control...." and that the Combined Chiefs of Staff "offer no objection" to the arrangement.
36.	U.S. Department of State, Documentary History...., op. cit., B-9, B-6. The Department of State files contain at least 6 communications from Ho in the period September, 1945, to February, 1946, addressed to the U.S. Government in his capacity as "President of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Viet-Nam" or as President and Foreign Minister of the "Provisional Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam": (1) Letter to President Truman, September 29, 1950 (confidential; file 851G.00/10-1845). (2) Letter to the Secretary of State, October 22, 1945 (from Kunming, desp. 38, October 24, 1945, confidential; file 851G.00/10-2445). (3) Letter to Secretary of State, November 1, 1945 (from Chungking, desp. 890, November 26, 1945, unclassified). (4) Letter to President Truman, undsted (from Chungking, tel. 1948, November 8, 1945, confidential; file 851G.00/11.845). (5) Letter to President Truman, January 18, 1946 (from Chungking, tel. 281, February 13, 1946, confidential; file 740.00119 PW/2-1346). (6) Letter to President Truman, February 16, 1946 (unclassified file 851G.10/2-2046).
37.	Ibid.
38.	U.S. Department of State, telegram to Saigon 305, December 5, 1946.
39.	Ellen J. Hammer, The Struggle for Indochina, 1940–1955, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1966), p. 155.
40.	Ibid., p. 186; Buttinger, op. cit., II, pp. 676–678.
41.	Hammer, op. cit., p. 190.
42.	Ibid.
43.	Ibid., p. 186.
44.	Ibid., p. 191.
45.	Ibid., p. 192.
46.	Ibid., p. 193.
47.	Ibid., pp. 193–194.
48.	Ibid., p. 195.
49.	Ibid., p. 197.
50.	Ibid., p. 195.
51.	Ibid., p. 195.
52.	Ibid., p. 207.
53.	Ibid., p. 204.
54.	Ibid., p. 199.
55.	Ibid., p. 208.
56.	Buttinger, op. cit., 806–807.
57.	Chart is based on contemporary publications of the U.S. Department of State, Office of Intelligence Research, together with Hammer, op. cit., and Buttinger, op. cit., passim.
58.	U.S. Department of State telegram to Paris 6586 of 24 December 1946, CONFIDENTIAL.
59.	U.S. Department of State telegram to Paris 75, 8 January 1947.
60.	U.S. Department of State memorandum for Mr. Acheson, dated 8 January 1947, subject "French Indochina."
61.	Ibid.
62.	State Department telegram 431 to Embassy in Paris, 3 February 1947, SECRET.
63.	Hammer, op. cit., 202.
64.	U.S. Department of State telegram to Paris 1737, 13 May 1947.
65.	U.S. Department of State telegram from Paris 3621 of 9 July 1948, and telegram to Paris 2637 of 14 July 1948.
66.	U.S. Department of State telegram to Paris 3368, 30 August 1948.
67.	U.S. Department of State telegram from Paris 5129, 30 September 1948.
68.	U.S. Department of State telegram to Paris 145, 17 January 1949.
69.	U.S. Department of State telegram to Saigon 77, 10 May 1949.
70.	U.S. Department of State telegram, Marshall 9741 to Nanking, 2 July 1948.
71.	U.S. Department of State, Appraisal of Communist Efforts in Southeast Asia: 1948 (Office of Intelligence Research Report No. 4778, October 12, 1948), 12–13.
72.	U.S. Department of State Bulletin, Vol. 16 (March 23, 1947), 536.
73.	Ibid.
74.	Committee of European Economic Cooperation, General Report, Vol. 1 (U.S. Department of State Publication 2930, 1947), 13.
75.	Congressional Record, Vol. 94, Part VI, 80th Congress, 2d Session, 7791.
76.	Charles Wolf, Jr., Foreign Aid: Theory and Practice in Southern Asia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960), 40–52.
77.	Ibid., 53–54.
78.	Documents on American Foreign Relations, 1949, 626.
79.	Memorandum for the Executive Secretary, National Security Council, from the Secretary of Defense, dated June 10, 1949, subject: United States Policy toward Asia.
80.	A Report to the National Security Council by the Executive Secretary on "The Position of the United States with Respect to Asia" (NSC 48/1, December 23, 1949).
81.	A report to the President by the National Security Council on "The Position of the United States with Respect to Asia" (NSC 48/2, December 30, 1949).
82.	U.S. Department of State, telegram to Saigon 25, January 20, 1950.
83.	U.S. Department of State, Press Release No. 104, February 1, 1950.
84.	U.S. Department of State telegram to Saigon 59, February 4, 1950.
85.	Background Information Relating to Southeast Asia and Vietnam, Committee on Foreign Relations, March 1966, p. 30.
86.	U.S. Department of State, Documentary History..., op. cit., B-48.