Page:Pentagon-Papers-Part-V-B-3b.djvu/447

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011

Page 5 of telegram to AMEMB PARIS

TOP SECRET
——————————————
Classification

a cruel and costly war. However, my Government equally has the duty not to endorse a solution which would seem to us to impair seriously certain principles which the US believes must, as far as it is concerned, be kept unimpaired, if our own struggle against Communism is to be successfully pursued. At the same time, we do not wish to put ourselves in the position where we would seem to be passing moral judgement upon French action or disassociating ourselves from the settlement at ' a moment and under circumstances which might be unnecessarily dramatic.

It is also to be considered that if our conduct creates a certain uncertainty in the minds of the Communists, this might strengthen your hand more than our presence at Geneva in a form which would expose probably to the world, and certainly to the Communists themselves, differences which tho Communists would exploit to the discomfiture of all three of us.

Under all these circumstances, its seems to us that the interests of both of our countries are best served by continuing for the time being the present type of US representation at Geneva. This consists of able and responsible persons who are in close contact with the President and me.

If circumstances should alter so that it appeared that

TOP SECRET
——————————————
Classification

46857
629