The Ministers of France gathered one morning last week in the President's Elysée Palace to hear a crucial report from the Minister of Defense, just back from the Indo-China battle fronts. The military situation is not critical, reported René Pleven, but it is discouraging. The French Union forces cannot win decisively over the Communists, but they can keep the Communists from winning. Pleven's recommendation: hold on and try to negotiate an honorable settlement of the Indo-China war.
Cautiously, Premier Joseph Laniel and Foreign Minister Georges Bidault tried to extract a policy out of...