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NIACT

FOR SECRETARY AND LIMITED DISTRIBUTION

In going over file since drafting EMBTEL 73 we have determined that Department as well as Defense were informed of French plans to withdraw to inner perimeter of Tonkin delta on May 30. At that time GeneralyGeneral [sic] Ely handed General Trapnell, former chief MAAG Saigon, who had been sent to Paris by General Ridgway to take part in Indochina talks, copy of new Defense plan and permitted Trapnell to make notes on it. EMBTEL 4605, repeated Saigon as 318, Geneva as 560 for Chiefs of Mission and passed to Defense for Ridgway informed Department of new plan in numbered paragraphs 4, 5 and 6. Details of plan were carried to Washington few days later by Trapnell himself.

It therefore cannot be alleged that French did not (repeat not) inform us in advance through both military and diplomatic channels of their plans to withdraw to inner perimeter of Tonkin delta. We cannot (repeat not) help but feel that Kerr Article plus what Department's own spokesman has been quoted as saying can only serve to make our position here vis-a-vis Mendes and his government increasingly difficult and undermine the confidence of both the French Government and people in our own candor in these most difficult times.

DILLON

MEJ/9 44220 Rh