PCR
Ser 27/60-
PA
114
CONFIDENTIAL TK 243/322/1.
INDO-CHINA
I paid a routine call last week on Mr Lahiguera, the Vietnam-watcher in the US Consulate-General, to catch up with developments in Indo-China during my absence. You may find one or two points of interest (especially about the prospective consulates in HO CHI MINH City, unless this was publicised while I was away). But allowances should be made as usual for Mr Lahiguera's extreme anti- communist views.
2.
I began by asking whether there had been any indication of change in Vietnam/China relations.
Mr Lahiguera said that although the Vietnamese had been carefully polite to the Chinese (as witnessed by their latest message of congratulations to the newly elected C C P Central Committee), other evidence suggested that they had, if anything, moved back slightly closer to Moscow. Their recent foreign policy statements (including on Ireland) had supported the Soviet line in as strong terms as ever and economically they seemed to be looking to the Russians even more than before. There was apparently an acute grain shortage throughout Vietnam as a result of various natural disasters, and since the prospect of getting any aid out of the Americans was still minimal (the new US administration were if anything more opposed to aid as the price for normalisation than Dr Kissinger had been) the flow of Russian materials and personnel into Vietnam had hit an all-time high. In particular, the number of Russian ships going to Ho Chi Minh City had increased and this had enabled the Russians to bang home the point that they could 'not look after their sailors and thus facilitate the flow of aid to the South without a mission there. As a result, the Vietnamese had finally agreed to the establishment of a Russian Consulate-General in Ho Chi Minh City. As a balancing act, the Chinese had also been granted permission to open a consulate-general in Ho Chi Minh City. (These details have been confirmed to me by a member of the French Consulate- General here, who mentioned that there had also been talk of the Indians opening up a mission in Ho Chi Minh City, but this was now unlikely and meanwhile the French themselves hoped that their office would be tacitly recognised as a Consulate-General by the Vietnamese when the Russians and Chinese turned up.) However, there was also evidence that the dominance and domineering attitude of the Russians in Vietnam was causing problems for the Vietnamese Government, since local resentment was inevitably building up against them more, Mr Lahiguera seemed to think, in the South than in the North.
3.
Meanwhile, Cambodia was conducting a war on three fronts (with Thailand, Laos and Vietnam). The American intelligence assessment was that despite all the publicity
CONFIDENTIAL
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