Word: mende
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DDay, Tuesday, July 20: The last day of Mendès' 30 dawned sunny and hot. In the morning, Mendès finished his talks with Pham Van Dong. Under pressure of Mendès' stubborn insistence on the 18th parallel as the partition line, Van Dong had moved from the 14th parallel to the 16th. For the first time, Mendès indicated that he might yield a parallel and Van Dong said he might wait for more than a year for elections. At 4 p.m., Eden, Molotov and Van Dong gathered at Le Bocage, another French...
Missed Deadline. But there was a hitch. In a small office in the Palais des Nations, a mild little man reached for a telephone, and called Mendés. He announced himself: Tep Phan, Foreign Minister of the Kingdom of Cambodia. He was sorry, he said apologetically, but he had no intention whatever of signing the projected agreement...
...little man was peremptorily summoned, got an irate reception from Mendès, Eden and Molotov. The agreement provided that Cambodia and Laos were to be "neutralized."' But explained Tep Phan politely, Cambodia did not want to be neutralized. The agreement banning any foreign bases violated Cambodia's sovereignty, would deprive it of allies if Cambodia were invaded. French. British and Russian stormed in vain. Molotov denounced the whole thing as an American trick. Bedell Smith was called and asked to reason with the awkward fellow. Tep Than would not budge...
...Midnight-Mendès' deadline-came and went. At 2 a.m., the Communists, who plainly wanted their cease-fire badly, gave in to Cambodia's obdurate Tep Phan. Changes in the texts were ordered, to allow Cambodia to call for outside help if it considered its security threatened. Tep Phan was gratified, but he had one more question. Who would pay for the truce operations? Said Molotov with a laugh: "You have won everything else-you at least ought to foot the bill...
...agreements for Laos and Cambodia were the same, Eden then pointed out. If the Communists had made this concession to Cambodia, it ought to be made to Laos, too. Molotov agreed. But the Laotian delegates were already in bed; to get them up would mean more delay, and Mendès was anxious to have something signed. Well, they certainly would welcome the concession, he pointed out. "so let's write it in their agreement and tell them about it in the morning." Secretaries went to work retyping the texts...