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SENT DEPARTMENT 5035; REPEATED INFORMATION GENEVA 443.

LIMIT DISTRIBUTION.

Since Mendes was tied up in National Assembly today, he asked me to see Parodi and Ohauvel regarding his talk with Choi. Chauvel did all the talking and described the meeting as follows:

He said that Mendes opened the meeting telling Chou that he had been glad to agree to Chou's idea of a meeting and that he was interested to hear anything Chou had to say. Chou then spoke very fully and most of the time at the meeting, which lasted a little over two hours, was taken up by Chou's statements and the necessary translations.

Ohou in general followed the same line as he previously had taken with Eden and Bidault, with certain important exceptions, which Chauvel considered to represent a considerable advance over Chou's previous position.

Chou started by talking about Laos and Cambodia. He said, that the immediate problem was to obtain the withdrawal of all foreign forces including Viet Minh from the entire territory of both countries. He said that then the governments of the two countries should arrange political settlements within their own countries based on the will of the majority of the people. Chou said that while there should be no persecution of minorities, he had no objection to the two countries retaining their monarchical form of government if they so desired. The one thing upon which he insisted was that there should be no (repeat no) US bases in either Laos and Cambodia. He stated that he saw no objection to Laos and Cambodia remaining within the French Union, provided they so desired.

The talk then turned to Vietnam where Chauvel considered important advances in Chou's position were revealed. Chou said that he recognized that there were now two governments in the territory 44169