800.51 W 89France/364: Telegram
The Ambassador in France ( Herrick ) to the Secretary of State
[Received 4:13 p.m.]
313. There are reports current in the Paris press of the ratification next week of the Washington agreement and of Bérenger’s immediate return to Washington. Bérenger has just told me that these rumors are premature. He said that considerable progress has been made, and that although he could guarantee nothing, he had hope of the agreement being ratified before Parliament adjourns. However, the Government has come to no decision as yet. He added that he would not sail for the United States in any event until the agreement had been ratified.
Seydoux23 has read to me Mr. Mellon’s letter of July 14 to Lacour-Gayet,24 but for some unknown reason it is apparently being treated as a secret communication and only a few people in Paris are aware of its existence.
This morning Pertinax,25 who is generally anti-American, says in L’Echo de Paris that the Washington agreement must be ratified to get the foreign credits that the Government finds after all are essential, although he regards the agreement as iniquitous.