Memorandum from Lieutenant General Hoyt Vandenberg to President Harry S. Truman

TOP SECRET NLT (PSF-Intell8 CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE GROUP NEW WAR DEPARTMENT BUILDING 21st and VIRGINIA AVENUE, N. W. WASHINGTON, D. C. 31 January 1947 MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT Embassy Paris has reported information that Andre Le Troquer, while Minister of National Defense in the interim Blum Cabinet, threatened to dismiss General Alphonse Juin as Chief of the National Defense Staff on the ground that Juin was in compromising relations with extreme Rightist elements desirous of establishing an authoritarian regime headed by De Gaulle (see C.I.G. (attenhed Daily Summary, 16 January) There is some reason to suppose that Le Troquer's information to this effect may have come from Communist sources. With the present appointment of a Communist, Francois Billoux, as Minister of National Defense, Juin's position remains in jeopardy. Should he be dismissed, the United States may encounter greater difficulty in negotiating for military bases in TRUMAD French territory. NARA Juin has been generally cooperative in his attitude toward the United States. As Commander-in-Chief of the Vichy French North African Forces he resisted briefly the Allied landing in November 1942, but he participated ably and loyally in subsequent Allied operations in North Africa and in Italy, winning the esteem of his American associates. In August 1944 De Gaulle appointed him Chief of the National Defense Staff, (roughly equivalent to the US Joint Chiefs of Staff) which post he has retained under successive French cabinets. During the spring of 1945, under pressure of the vicissitudes of French politics, his disappointment in the scale of US support for the French rearmament program led to a coolness in his attitude toward the United States. More recently, however, in communica- tions with reference to the negotiation of United States military base rights in French territory, he has shown himself to be not only reasonable, but apparently anxious to reach a satisfactory agreement. Should Juin be dismissed, the appointment of his successor would rest with President Auriol, an anti- Communist Socialist friendly toward the United States. The appointment of an openly pro-Communist, anti-US general is DECLASSIFIED RAC,11/19/07 TOP SECRET Authority NLT-PSF-50-7-1 By. so NARA, Date 6/16/11