Tuesday, 30 January

In the afternoon, I went shopping in Paris with Kitty. At six I waited for Xie Baoqiao and Liang Lipan (梁立泮) at the bookstore. After having tea at Hotel Marignan, we went to A l’ Auberge du Père Louis, 17 rue de Ponthieu, 8eme. (Ely 19-39) for dinner. The roast chicken there was quite delicious. We met two Englishmen and an English woman. The said two are managers of a shop selling ladies’ hats, and the woman is also the purchasing officer of a Leicester hat shop. They came to Paris to discover the latest hat styles, and will try to imitate them when they are back in Britain. We had a happy chat with them. Then we went to La Nouvelle Eve together. It was not until one in the morning that Mr. Liang and others accompanied us to return home. I did not go to bed until 3.00 a.m.

The Indian representative, Mr. B.N. Rau, declared in the Political Committee of the United Nations that he had received news from the highest leader (he was referring to Mao Zedong) that if the American proposal of condemning the CCP was passed, then the door for a peaceful settlement would be closed. This statement should certainly not stop the proposal from passing. This indication from the CCP is redundant. What Rau has proclaimed will have a contrary effect in that it will arouse ill-feeling.

The Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has received informal news.  The Soviet Union would propose to Italy and France a pact of non-aggression. But the Soviet Union raises the conditions that their two countries should stay neutral during periods of war and stop accepting military and economic assistance from Britain and the United States. The Soviet Union is willing to guarantee the integrity of French proper, as well as its colonies, and order Vietnamese Communists to stop their activities. With regard to Italy, the Soviet Union also promised to help Italy to take back Trieste and it would provide economic assistance to the two countries. But there is no way that the said two countries would accept such assistances.