MR. RANDOLPH CHURCHILL SIR,—Having been both in Indo-China and in
Algeria at the appropriate moments, may .1 attempt to set your correspondents, Messrs. Randolph Churchill and Graham Greene, straight on the attitude of many French paratroop officers towards General Raoul Salan?
Mr. Greene is, of course, strictly accurate in saving that Salan was not directly responsible for the folly 'of Dien Bien Phu. General Navarre was the archi- teat of the policy that led directly to that final disaster.
But both men, as senior commanders during the Indo-China campaign, are tarred with the same brush. Dien Bien Phu is now a symbol. The men who were taken prisoner by the Vietminh as a result of the battle felt that they were defeated by the 'policy of abandonment'—and they blamed the 'rear.' as front-line soldiers always will. They lumped Salan, Navarre and others, then as now, all together as only one stage less contemptible than the Paris politicians whom they hated most of all.
It may be added that Salan has behaved flabbily, to say the least, in recent weeks. This has not greatly endeared him to the `paras,' even though they have been glad enough to push him forward when it suited them, to give the Committee of Public Safety move- ment respectability of sorts.—Yours faithfully,
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