NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
CONFIDENTIAL
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Text of the French Memorandum
1. One of the essential aims of the free world is the containment of Communist expansion in the Far East. France is not defending her own interests alone In Indo-China any more than the United States is defending solely its own interests in Korea.
2. From the juridicial point of view, there is no connection between the Korean War waged by the United Nations and the war in Indo-China waged by France and the Associated States. But on the Allied side it has often been ascertained by the highest military and political authorities, that the Far East, on a line stretching from Korea to Malaya through Indo-China, constitutes a single front, divided into several theatres of operations.
3. It is therefore logical that nations which have waged or which continue to wage the same battle separately be united in the pursuit of peace, just as they have helped and still help one another in war.
4. Conversely, it would be absurd that the conclusion of an armistice in Korea, fervently desired by the French Government as well as by all other members of the United Nations, should have as a consequence an increase in the support lent by Communist China to the Vietminh. The mission of the United Nations would not be fulfilled if the cease-fire in North Asia should result in an intensification of the war in South Asia.
5. Without being in a position to state that the prospect of a truce in Korea is the cause, the French Government notes at this very moment, with great concern, that the supply of war material and articles of all sorts to the Vietminh by Communist China has considerably increased during the past three months. It is to be feared that this state of affairs is going to deteriorate further during the months to come.
CONFIDENTIAL
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