Ask the Scholar
Document scope · 1 page
Scholar
Ask about this object, its catalog metadata, its source description, or the page inventory.
For page-specific OCR and visual context, open one of the page chats.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
201253623
label
Memorandum, State Department Summary of Telegrams
core
doc
dtoType
document
citationUrl
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
201253623
contentType
document
title
Memorandum, State Department Summary of Telegrams
citationUrl
collections
Records of the Naval Aide to the President (Truman Administration)
State Department Briefs Files
subjects
Gaulle, Charles de, 1890-1970
thumbnailUrl
largeImageUrl
imageCount
1
hasImages
yes
source
import
hasTranscription
no
Source extras
naId
201253623
levelOfDescription
item
productionDates
day
11
logicalDate
1948-10-11
month
10
year
1948
recordType
description
ocrSource
nara-archive
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
photo
mediaId
4c2fe3daed7cc79f
ocrText
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY
WASHINGTON
October 11, 1948
SUMMARY OF TELEGRANS
FRANCE
Embassy Paris states that the current French coal strike
has been timed to take place at the lowest point in the
national morale in the past two years. The concept of the third force,
as an alternative to Communism and Gaullism, has disappeared in the recent
series of parliamentary crises and with it confidence in the parliamentary
system. Such little cohesiveness as existed between the non-Communist
groups is rapidly disappearing and the elements of disintegration are
gaining ground in the entire middle sector of French life. The indus-
trial and white collar workers are convinced that they are not receiving
their fair share of French economic recovery and there is real evidence
that a trend toward labor unity may set in which would result in the Com-
munists once more dominating French labor. Those elements of the middle
class who derive their income from industry, commerce and the professions
have regained their share of the national income and fear the effects of
the new tax and fiscal reform programs which they may be expected to make
every effort to defeat. The peasants are well off but so fearful of the
future that they withhold their produce from the market or invest their
profits in gold. The harsh and uncompromising attitude of de Gaulle,
the only dynamic rallying point for non-Communists, has done nothing to
induce harmony, while French labor fears that his return to power would
mean the loss of its right to organize, providing a further impetus
toward labor unity. For this reason many observers in France feel that
the Communists wish for de Gaulle to come to power in the belief that
this would reunite the labor movement even at the cost of a civil war
which, even if lost by the proletariat, would achieve the Communist aim
of disrupting ERP and the Western Union.
CHINA
Embassy Nanking has submitted three alternative courses of
action for our forces in Tsingtao in the event of a Communist
attack there which, under present circumstances, the government forces
would not be able to resist. These courses would be 1) to evacuate imme-
diately, or at the first sign of a Communist attack, a course which the
Embassy feels would be disastrous to Chinese morale; 2) to let it be
known that our forces would be prepared to defend Tsingtao, in which case
the Embassy feels that there would be a strong chance that the Communists
would not attack but that the danger of involvement in the civil war
would be too great to be warranted; 3) declare our neutrality and inten-
tion to stay in Tsingtao to protect American lives and property. The
Embassy is tentatively inclined to support the third course.
DECLASSIFIED
E.O. 12065, Sec. 3-402
T
State Dept. Guideline, June 12, 1979
By NLT- HL
NARS, Date 11-13-fo