Office of the Historian

275. Memorandum of a Conversation Between the Under Secretary of State (Dillon) and the French Ambassador (Alphand), Department of State, Washington, September 24, 19591

Washington, September 24, 1959

SUBJECT

  • Statement of French Military Attaché in Laos

After Ambassador Alphand had finished talking with me on another subject I told him I had one item in connection with Laos which I wanted to raise with him. I recalled his conversation of September 162 with Under Secretary Murphy, and, in particular, the view which I understood was shared by the French Government and ourselves that our officials in Vientiane should make every effort to present a unified position in conversations with the U.N. Subcommittee, and not emphasize any minor divergencies as to the factual situation which we might have.

I then said we had just received a report which had disturbed us very much. We had heard that the French Military Attaché had informed the U.N. Subcommittee that there was no real foreign military intervention in Laos, and that the Laotian Government’s action in requesting U.N. intervention was possibly inspired by the political aims of “a certain large power”.3 Ambassador Alphand agreed that this was certainly a most serious thing. He said that as a result of his talk with Mr. Murphy and later talks of Couve de Murville with the Secretary, a very strict instruction had been sent to Vientiane a few days ago directing that the French Embassy, and particularly the military elements there, do everything possible to present a united front with the United States. If the statement attributed to the French Military Attaché had been made after the receipt of these instructions it would indeed be a most serious situation. In any event, Ambassador Alphand said he would promptly call it to the attention of the Quai d’Orsay in Paris and he was sure that they would see to it that this did not happen again.

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 751J.00/9–2459. Secret. Drafted by Dillon.↩
  2. See Document 270.↩
  3. Reported in telegram 811 from Vientiane, September 23. (Department of State, Central Files, 751J.00/9–2359)↩