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SENT TO: Amconsul GENEVA TEDUL

Re DULTE 179 and 180.

1. It is our view that final adjournment of Conference is in our best interest provided this can be done without creating an impression in France at this critical moment that France has been deserted by US and UK and therefore has no choice but capitulation on Indochina to Communists at Geneva and possibly accommodation with the Soviets in Europe. Because of this, if the French want to keep the Conference at least nominally alive, we would go along with the idea of recess and the maintenance of tho small observation group as you propose in Geneva. We trust that the developments at Geneva will have been such as to satisfy the British insistence that they did not want to discuss collective action until either Geneva was over or at least the results of Geneva were known. I would assume that the departure of Eden would be evidence that there was no adequate reason for further delaying collective talks on SEA defense.

2. Re paragraph 1 above we assume any recess would only relate to the Indochina phase of Conference and the Korean phase would be closed out as indicated last para DULTE 179 and SECTO 435. Rh