<snip> Yes, France's stand is taken. It is taken by the condemnation that she harbors for the present events. It is taken by her determination not to be, wherever it may be and whatever may happen, automatically implicated in the eventual extension of the drama and, in any event, to keep her hands free. ...
In France's view, if it is unthinkable that the American war apparatus will be annihilated on the spot;
there is, on the other hand, no chance that the peoples of Asia will subject themselves to the law of the foreigner who comes from the other shores of the Pacific, whatever his intentions, however powerful his weapons.In short, as long and cruel as the ordeal must be, France holds for certain that it will have no military solution. ...
But the possibility and, even more, the opening of such broad and difficult negotiations would depend, obviously, on the decision and the commitment which America would have wanted to take beforehand to repatriate its forces within a suitable and determined period of time.
Without a doubt, such an outcome is not at all ripe today, assuming that it may ever be. But France considers it necessary to assert that, in her view, there exists no other,
except to condemn the world to ever-growing misfortunes. ...
{France} is saying this because of the exceptional and two-century-old friendship that ... she has for America, because of the idea she has up to now had of her - like the one America has of herself - that is, the idea of a country championing the concept that we must aIlow people to determine their own destiny in their own way.
She is saying this in consideration of the warnings which Paris long repeated to Washington when nothing irreparable had yet been done.She is saying this, lastly, with the conviction that, in view of the power, wealth and influence at present attained by the United States, the act of renouncing, in its turn, a distant expedition once it appears unprofitable and unjustifiable and of
substituting for it an international arrangement organizing the peace and development of an important region of the world, will not, in the final analysis, involve anything that could injure its pride, interfere with its ideals and jeopardize its interests.
On the contrary, in taking a path so true to the Western genius, what an audience would the United States recapture from one end of the world to the other, and what an opportunity would peace find on the scene and everywhere else. </snip>
Charles de Gaulle, Sept. 1, 1966, Phnom Pehn
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