Independence, in Principle

Seated in Louis XVI armchairs around a long table in Paris, some 20 French and Vietnamese officials agreed "in principle" and at long last to a two-treaty package.

Treaty No. ^1: France to grant "total" independence to Viet Nam.

Treaty No. 2: Viet Nam to remain "inside" the French Union.

The ceremony lasted no more than twelve minutes, and there was no diplomatic glass of champagne afterwards. The French had long been unwilling to grant their Vietnamese subjects even this much independence; they had delayed the agreement right up to the Geneva Conference, when it finally became necessary to remove the stigma of "colonial war" from the Indo-China campaign. Then Vietnamese Chief of State Bao Dai, who has lifted do-nothingism into a career, had balked for three days on the grounds that the package would probably be undone at Geneva by the French. Despite last week's agreement in principle, both Frenchmen and Vietnamese are still haggling over the legal and financial specifics of independence, and might not sign the treaties for several weeks (underlings were left to work out the details; Bao Dai relaxed in his chateau at Cannes). "Independence has come in such a way," grumbled one Vietnamese official back home, "that we cannot even have an Independence Day that anyone can take seriously."

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