Memorandum of Conversation with Secretary of State Dean Acheson and General Carlos P. Romulo

303 TOP SECRET 82. March 10, 1950 conf Conversation with General Romulo General Romulo called on me, off-the-record, at his request. The subject about which he wished to talk was the long letter he had written me about Indo China. Most of this letter complained of our recognition of Bao Dai on the grounds that he was and is regarded throughout Asia as a French puppet. One paragraph of the letter urged that we ask the French to make a declaration that the present agreements were merely part of an evolutionaly process. Summarizing our conversation, the following points came out 1) I told the General that we believe that the present agreements were only a step along a longer route; that we had so expressed ourselves to the French, and that we agreed with him that some further statement would be desirable. I told him we have to be careful here that the French did not get discouraged by internal difficulties at hime and withdraw from Indo China. If their troops were withdrawn there would be a real danger of the first magnitude. The General did not disagree with this. 2) I asked him whether, as a practical matter, he advocated our recognition of Ho Chi Minh. He denied any such idea and thought that it would be most disastrous. said that he had known Ho before World War Two and,although he was a Communist and a Moscow-trained Communist, he thought that he was a patriot and that his overtours to Tito indicate a desire to let both Stalin and Mao know that he was not a mere tool of theirs. I asked the General whether this meant that he thought Bao, Dai should come to terms with Ho and whether he was thinking ofroalition government, He hastily denied either suggestion. RECOURSE 3) I then asked the General just what he would propose that we ee should do. The only suggestion that he put forth was that we should find some way of determining whether Ho was being backed into a corner and whether he could not be induced to give up the struggle DECLASSIFIED proyver NLT 78.71 By, NCTHC NARS, Date 3.28.79 TOP SECRE