Agreement of a Sort

After three brooding sessions, French Premier Edgar Faure and John Foster Dulles last week proclaimed themselves in agreement on South Viet Nam. "We may have different degrees of hope," was the way Premier Faure put it, "but it is certain that our desires are the same."

Essence of what the French called "total agreement": 1) France said it would loyally support Nationalist Premier Ngo Dinh Diem, 2) the U.S., with unconcealed distaste for Bao Dai, agreed that he should stay on as absentee chief of state until a Vietnamese assembly could be elected to decide his fate.

Both the U.S. and France agreed to remove those of their functionaries in South Viet Nam who are deemed disturbing to Franco-American harmony. The French agreed to pull the sects of warlords and gangsters off Diem, thereby indicating unblushingly that they have been manipulating them from the start. The French wanted the U.S. to get its man Diem to soft-pedal his anti-French line, to which the U.S. replied that Diem was not its stooge, nor did it want him to be.

In Saigon, Premier Diem bowed to criticisms of his governing base by appointing nine new Cabinet members, and preparing for elections, which he expected would lead to the dethroning of Bao Dai and the establishment of a republic.

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