Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
"Now, let me call your attention to this independence theory. Senator Lodge, on my instructions, stood up in the United Nations and offered one country independence if they would just simply pass a resolution saying they wanted it, or at least said, 'I would work for it.' They didn't accept it. So I can't say that the associated states want independence in the sense that the United States is independent. I do not know what they want.
"I do say this: the aspirations of those people must be met, otherwise there is in the long run no final answer to the problem.
"Q. Joseph Dear, Capital Times: Do you favor bringing this Indochina situation before the United Nations?
"THE PRESIDENT. I really can't say. I wouldn't want to comment at too great a length at this moment, but I do believe this: this is the kind of thing that must not be handled by one nation trying to act alone."
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- Remarks Made by Under Secretary Smith in Answer to Questions Prepared for Use on "The American Week" over the CBS Television Network, April 11, 1954, on the Importance of Indochina, Department of State Bulletin, April 19, 1954, p. 589:
"Q. Why is Indochina important to Americans?
"MR. SMITH: For one vital basic and two special additional reasons. In the first place, the vital basic question is: Shall we or can the free world allow its position anywhere and particularly in Asia to be eroded piece by piece? Can we allow, dare we permit, expansion of Communist Chinese control further into Asia? Propagandists of the Soviet Union and of Communist China have made it clear that their purpose is to dominate all of Southeast Asia. Remember that this region helps to feed an immense population. It stretches all the way from India to Japan. It's a region that is rich in raw materials, full of tin, oil, rubber, iron ore.
"Now, from the strategic point of view, it lies across the most direct sea and air route between the Pacific and South Asia. There are major naval and air bases located in the area. Communist control of Southeast Asia would threaten the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand directly, would threaten Malaya; it would have a very profound effect upon the economy of other countries in the area, even as far as Japan.
"Q. The President, at his news conference on April 7, described the process of Communist conquest as the 'falling domino' principle. Is that a good description of the threat in Southeast Asia?
