Word: bidault
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...fuss?" asked France's Georges Bidault wearily, as he entrained from Geneva to face a hostile assembly in Paris. "When the game is over, why not merely...
Then Molotov deliberately demolished all Bidault's hopes for a quick ceasefire. The conference must "examine without further delay the political questions," said Molotov blandly. These should include, "first of all," the "granting of sovereignty" to all three Indo-Chinese states, the holding of "free elections" in each, and the withdrawal of all "foreign" troops. Political discussion, he said, should be parallel with the military, and should be conducted by "direct contact between the representatives of both sides"-an arrangement that would force recognition of the bogus and largely nonexistent "liberation" movements of both Laos and Cambodia...
...Angrily, Bidault snapped that Molotov's remarks were "not couched in decent fashion." Retorted Molotov: "I don't think anyone can attack facts, even though they are bitter facts." Dead Hopes. The bitter facts were that Molotov had killed all hope that the Communists would settle for a cease-fire or a partition of Viet Nam alone. Molotov was demanding all of Indo-China-and on the Communists' own terms. Next day China's Chou En-lai echoed Molotov's every word, rejected the West's plea for an impartial commission of Southeast Asia...
Radical Socialist Edouard Daladier, Foreign Minister at the time of Munich and now a man Molotov praises, struck first. Foreign Minister Georges Bidault, he cried, had "failed to get anywhere at all." Bidault, just off the train from Geneva and even more sleepy-lidded than usual, confessed that he could not report "promise of certain success" at Geneva...
...Bidault's firmness reflected and helped increase some sense of a new firmness in France itself. The fall of Dienbienphu had not led to hysterical demands for peace at any price, as the Communists had hoped. French pride was offended. French anger aroused. At the much feared debate on Indo-China, French Assemblymen had cried not for immediate surrender, but for more vigorous efforts to meet new Viet Minh attacks. The Cabinet itself reacted. It pledged itself to the defense of the whole Red River Delta. Marc Jacquet, an apostle of despair, was forced out. General Navarre was relieved...