NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
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-2- 4566, May 27, 6 p.m., from Paris
prepared to enter combat. This would be unsatisfactory because training and advising methods of French and Americans were dissimilar.
2. Ely stated that O'Daniel had presented an operational plan for continuing the war but that he found it unrealistic on basis that it gave priority to operations in the south while the principal and immediate threat is in the north.
3. Ely referred to increasing frequency of American criticism of French conduct of war. He explained that it was easy to criticize post facto and when things went wrong. As Trapnell knew, the war in Indochina was of a very special nature and it was unfair for people who perhaps didn't understand this fact as well as he and Trapnell to criticize. It was useless to compare the wars in Korea and Indochina; they were entirely different. He hoped that Trapnell could use his influence to reduce the degree of present US criticism of past and present French performance in Indochina in the interests of good Franco-American working relations in the important joint tasks at hand.
4. At about this stage of the conversation, Ely remarked that it was virtually impossible to discuss specific military questions in Indochina without getting into the major political questions including the possibility of US intervention, the prospects for a Pacific pact and the whole question of where the defense of Southeast Asia was to take place and by whom. Trapnell referred to his terms of reference which prevented him from discussing other than specific military questions, particularly that of the regrouping of existing forces in Indochina for the defense of the Delta.
5. When Trapnell asked Ely what the immediate military prospects were in the Delta, he replied that the five Viet Minh divisions released from Dien Bien Phu were moving rapidly forward and should be at the Delta perimeter between the 10th and 15th of June. Normally at that season they would return to their regrouping areas for rest, "self-criticism" and general revision. Whether they will do so this year or not is still uncertain, although there are indications at the moment that some Viet Minh forces are moving to regrouping areas.
6. When Trapnell asked what Ely was doing to regroup his forces for the defense of the Delta he replied two basic things: First, removing units from pacification and other static missions to the Delta to become part of mobile defense groups; secondly, he was recovering units from inactive posts in Laos, Central Annam and other areas for transfer to the Delta to become part of these same mobile forces.
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