Dean Rusk interview

Q: Let me get into a more historical question. Taking you back to the Truman administration, could you describe the decision to help the French and what were we trying to get out of the French, as far as their own position in Indo-China?

A: Before the outbreak of the Korean War, we were on the one side giving assistance to France knowing that some of that would be going to Indochina. But, at the same time… …putting very considerable pressure on France to come to a political agreement with the then three States of Indo-China, because we felt that the independence of the great colonial areas of Asia like India, Burma, Malaya, Indonesia was the necessary path of the future. Now, we did not put intolerable pressure on the French because we were working with them very closely in the formulation of NATO and the Marshall Plan and things of sort. But, also, we did not want ahm them to simply say to us, all right we're getting out, it's your baby, and leave Indo-China on our doorstep. Well, when the Korean War broke out on that first weekend, we did not really know what ah what this meant in terms of the geographic scope of the war. We didn't know whether this might be a part of some general offensive in Asia. So, we intruded the 7th fleet between Taiwan and the mainland and we stepped up our assistance to ah ah the French in Indo-China just in case the Chinese were looking upon this as an opportunity for a more general offensive in Asia. As it turned out, we learned later that was, apparently not what they had in mind. But, ah, ah, we did give the French ah considerable addi ...addi ...additional assistance at the time of the outbreak of the Korean conflict. But, still hoping that they would come to a political settlement with the States of Indo-China comparable to those that the British had reached with the Indians, the Burmese, the Dutch had been forced to reach with the Indonesians.

Q: But, eventually, we began, we were (coughs) in effect subsidizing the French War in Indo-China?

A: Yes in one way or another.

Could you elaborate on it? Was this the beginning of our commitment?

Well, ahhh, in a, in a sense we were subsidizing the French presence at Indo-China because of France and what was going on in Europe. But, we were also pressing France to ah leave that area in the hands of three independent ex-Indo-China nations; Viet Nam, Laos, Cambodia.