NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
CONFIDENTIAL
obtained from the French Headquarters by ways more or less devious. It is also interesting to note that throughout last year 5 French officials stridently denied that they intended to enclose Vietnam in a framework of directly administered French territories.
External Relations
Vietnam or the individual three Kys are flatly denied foreign representation as such. It or they will have the right to participate in the representation of the French Union particularly in the surrounding countries where it or they have economic and cultural interests to defend. But Vietnamese diplomats will represent, regardless of their grade, only the interests of the French Union.
Army
The States will have only armed forces which will be integrated into the single army of the French Union. The army of the "etat libre" of March 6 has thus d disappeared although in time of peace the police forces of the associated states of Indo China will assure "internal order".
Commissioners
The Commissioners of the Republic will be attached to the local government. According to MICHEL, he or they will have only a very small staff: a political, economic, and possibly a cultural, adviser or counsellor. His or their task will be to protect French interests. His position as defined is very nebulous but it will develop great strength as the defender of French interests. It offers such possibilities that no attempt can yet be made to evaluate its workings.
CONCLUSION
The position taken in the speech is the logical development of French policy in Indo China. As France's military strength improved with willingness to make concessions diminished. Before French troops were in place in Tonkin, France was willing to concede recognition of Vietnam as an "etat libre". having its own government, parliament, army and finances. By the Modus Vivendi of September 14 France was demanding much strengthened Federation with control of customs of primary importance. It was on the willingness of the French to enforce this customs control that the Haiphong incident of November 21 developed. It was from the desire of the French to reduce the Vietname Government to impotence that the French counter-position, of November 23 with its famous ultimatum was taken.
At the present time, there are only two reasons for France to make any concessions whatsoever; world opinion (to which the Indochinese French have always been more or less immune — note the pre-war opium monopoly) and the fact that they are faced with armed resistance.
CONFIDENTIAL
