"The Only Way"

In the customary fashion, France's Deputy Foreign Minister Maurice Schumann set out on an oratorical tour of the cold-war world one day last week from the rostrum of the United Nations General Assembly. Suddenly he put down for a surprise landing in Indo-China. Was it not possible, he asked, to negotiate an end to the seven-year-old Indo-China war?

Perhaps, said Schumann, Russia and Red China would be willing to discuss a negotiated Indo-China peace at the impending Korean peace conference, or right after it. "Certain unofficial declarations," said he, "might have led to the thought that the two powers which . . . inspire and arm the Viet Minh [Communist] rebels were disposed to consider the opening of negotiations to put an end to the war." From France, Schumann's boss,Premier Laniel, uttered similar sentiments. "A strong people is not dishonored by negotiating," said the Premier.

First word of the negotiation talk reached Washington on the news tickers. "France today offered to negotiate with the Communists for peace in embattled Indo-China," began one dispatch. Coming as it did on top of the new U.S. decision to double aid to the French in Indo-China, and France's promise of a vigorous new military effort to beat the Reds (TIME, Sept. 28), the report shocked U.S. policymakers. "State Department officials were hopping mad," one correspondent reported. But when they read the complete text of Schumann's remarks and heard the hasty explanations of French officials,U.S. diplomats calmed down. Paris was still solidly behind General Henri Navarre's "We must attack" program for Indo-China, the French explained, but Paris was also hopeful that successful military operations might force Viet Minh Leader Ho Chi Minh, and his Russian and Chinese mentors, to give up the war and accept terms favorable to the Western powers and the three Associated States of Indo-China.

But the biggest and most important of the Indo-Chinese states, Viet Nam, was not so easily calmed. Assured at last of independence from France once the Communist threat is erased, the Vietnamese were in no mood to see their independence fall prey to a still strong and unreformed Ho Chi Minh. "The only way to end the war," said Viet Nam's Premier Nguyen Van Tarn, "is to beat the Viet Minh militarily and disperse their armies . . . Negotiations would have the effect of giving the Viet Minh an enormous advantage over us."

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