Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
| 14. | The import of Secretary Acheson's statement of February 1 is made clear by the first paragraph of the Department of State press release of that date: "The recognition by the Kremlin of Ho Chi Minh's communist movement in Indochina comes as a surprise. The Soviet acknowledgment of this movement should remove any illusions as to the 'nationalist' nature of Ho Chi Minh's aims and reveals Ho in his true colors as the mortal enemy of independence in Indochina..." |
| 15. | As President Truman was later to write concerning his view of Chinese operations in November 1950, "The situation in Korea...was not the only instance of a new aggressiveness on the part of Communist China. There was evidence that the communist rebel forces in Indochina were receiving increasing aid from Peiping. Also, in the last days of October, Communist China had moved against the ancient theocracy of Tibet. We were seeing a pattern in Indochina and Tibet timed to coincide with the attack in Korea as a challenge to the Western world." Memoirs of Harry S. Truman, Volume 2, p. 380. |
| 16. | On May 3, 1949, General Chennault told two Congressional Committees that unless the U.S. took immediate steps to save the Nationalists, all Asia would fall to the communists. |
| 17. | Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, from Joint Chiefs of Staff, Subject: Strategic Assessment of Southeast Asia, April 10, 1950 (TS). |
| 18. | NSC 48, 64 series, 124 series, 177, 5405. |
| 19. | NSC 64, p.2. |
| 20. | NIE 5, Indochina: Current Situation and Probable Developments, December 29, 1950, p.2 (TS). |
| 21. | NIE 5, p. 2. Lucien Bodard in his The Quicksand War (pp. 228–229) contends that the French High Command "systematically put out false intelligence that was meant to end up in Washington" on this and related issues. Only subsequent events showed the French that there was a real Chinese threat. |
| 22. | Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, April 5, 1950 (TS). |
| 23. | NIE 5, pp. 1, 2. |
| 24. | Ibid., p. 1. |
| 25. | See Department of State Outgoing Telegram to AM Consul Saigon 25, Personal for Jessup from Butterworth, January 20, 1950, "...marked opposition has been encountered which demonstrates at least that Bao Dai's popular support has not yet widened." |
| 26. | NIE 5, p. 1. |
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TOP SECRET – Sensitive
