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BATTLE OF INDOCHINA

Said French High Commissioner Leon Pignon in Saigon last week: "What is happening in Korea is of far more importance to the situation in Indo-China than what is happening in Indo-China." Even while the Americans were winning in Korea and it was widely assumed that the Communist Chinese would not dare tangle with the U.S., the West's chances of holding Indo-China seemed dubious (TIME, Nov. 27). Last week, after the shattering news from Korea, French authorities ordered the evacuation of all French women & children from gravely threatened Hanoi and the Red River delta. It would take something of a miracle to save Indo-China now.

Too Late for Miracles. Neither the French nor their chosen native instrument, Bao Dai, showed any signs last week of being able to work miracles. Chief of State Bao Dai recently flew to Hanoi, supposedly to bolster the people's morale in the face of an expected Communist offensive. Bao Dai arrived in his C-45, which also carried a Scotty named Bubi, two bottles of King George Scotch, two guitars, three tennis rackets, 16 pieces of miscellaneous baggage and a cute, redheaded airline hostess named Esther. Wearing his inevitable dark glasses and a natty grey flannel suit, Bao Dai drove along roads lined with French Tommy-gunners facing the long grass where Communist snipers might be hiding.

Reported TIME Correspondent Eric Gibbs: "Bao Dai has great intelligence and charm and the pneumatic resilience of a heavy-duty tire. Some critics seem to assume that all would be well if only Bao Dai looked less like an amiable playboy and made more earnest speeches to rouse the people against Communism. But if Bao Dai were Peter the Hermit himself, I doubt that he could launch such a crusade. The key issue is a matter of principle, not of personality. To any Vietnamese who thinks about anything beyond his paddy field, national independence is the one dominant thought. And the bulk of Vietnamese still regard Bao Dai as a French stooge who cannot give them independence."

No Real Independence. At Hanoi last week, Bao Dai colorlessly delivered a colorless speech stressing independence and announcing the formation of three new Vietnamese divisions. Meanwhile, the French and the Vietnamese, after months of haggling, had reached an agreement that as of January 1951 the Vietnamese would run their own treasury and their own customs service. But the French still lacked the will or the imagination to grant the Vietnamese anything that looked to them like real independence.

High Commissioner Pignon last week called for all Western powers to organize a united front against the Reds in Southeast Asia. It was a little late in the day. Plainly, the Chinese Reds could take Indo-China, the gateway to Southeast Asia, any time they chose.

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