Word: bidault
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...plain fact was that the British, not the French, had become the appeasers of Geneva. From Geneva, confidential dispatches went back to the British Cabinet complaining of Bidault's "truculence" toward the Communists, as if that were a sin. "We are the only ones with a policy for Indo-China." the British told newsmen. "Our policy is that we will not fight in Indo-China." They added: "The French should have done what Britain did in India and Burma right after the war. We can't go in now to make it stick. You have to have land...
...Neutral? While Eden flirted, Georges Bidault seemed to gather resolution and strength. "You don't get results by begging for peace," he said. To the Communist proposal that the military men discuss "regroupment areas" for Laos and Cambodia, thus setting up Communist enclaves in those countries, Bidault retorted defiantly that the only problem there was for the Communist invaders to withdraw...
Regroupment in Viet Nam itself would mean nothing unless supervised by an effective control commission. Bidault rejected the Communists' plan for commissions made up of the two sides. "In case of violations, it would be impossible to control the situation," he said. "There would be interminable quarrels without arbiter, without control, and without end." Russia's Gromyko suggested supervision by a "neutral" control commission comprised of Poland, Czechoslovakia, India and Pakistan. Bidault retorted that a commission which merely balanced countries of opposite tendencies would be impotent, as the Korean commission had shown, and "being impotent...
...Communists threw a crumb. Viet Minh's Pham Van Dong* suggested an immediate cease-fire and a readjustment of the zones held by the two sides into large "economic areas." The U.S.'s Bedell Smith promptly declared that this would lead to a "dishonorable" peace. But Bidault seized the crumb, carried it off to Paris and a meeting with the Cabinet. He returned with orders to examine the proposal prayerfully and to suggest a modification: troops should stay in their present general positions, thus creating a smallpox pattern instead of large divisions, which would amount to partition...
More persuasive than pleas was Bidault's effort to shore up France's military posture. In Paris, he asked the Cabinet "to make one last military effort in IndoChina to back up my diplomatic effort." The Cabinet, which has acquired a certain courage from the realization that nobody wants to take over its unpleasant task, agreed, and set about sending reinforcements to Indo-China (see below...