Page:Pentagon-Papers-Part V. B. 3. a.djvu/165



JULY 17, 1953


 * REPORT TO THE NATION BY THE HONORABLE JOHN FOSTER DULLES, SECRETARY OF STATE, AND THE HONORABLE WALTER S. ROBERTSON, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE, FRIDAY, JULY 17, 1953

…Last Tuesday night we finished a five-day meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Britain, France, and the United States.…

In the past, there has been some criticism of the French Republic for failing to promise liberty and independence to the three Associated States of Indochina, -- Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. It was felt that the peoples of these countries needed something of their own for which to fight. The basis for that criticism should now be removed. The French Government has given assurance that it stands ready to grant complete sovereignty and independence to the three Associated States. Negotiations on this matter will start in the near future.

Last Monday, Mr. Bidault, the French Foreign Minister, and I invited the representatives of these three States to meet with us. We found that they looked forward eagerly to working out arrangements with the French Government to complete their sovereignty and independence. It seemed that they do not want to be wholly divorced from France. They have, with France, strong bonds of a cultural, economic and military nature. These can be preserved, consistent with full independence, within the French Union, which, like the British Commonwealth, offers a possibility of free association of wholly independent and sovereign nations.

This action of the French Government makes clear the distinction between those who would grant independence and those who would destroy it. It should make it easier to stop Communist aggression in that part of the world. Rh