890D.01/476
The Chief of the Division of Near Eastern Affairs ( Murray ) to the Counselor of Embassy in France ( Wilson )
Dear Ed: We have just received and read with great interest your despatch No. 2276 of May 17, 1938, furnishing information regarding your discussions with the Foreign Office concerning the rights of the United States and its nationals in Syria and the Lebanon. First of all, let me extend my sincere congratulations for the very effective and able manner in which you conducted your discussions with M. Lagarde. I cannot imagine that your presentation of our case could be improved upon.
We are naturally disappointed that the Foreign Office declines to accept our point of view but as a practical matter I think that we can work out an arrangement which will prove mutually satisfactory and avoid the discussion of doctrinaire principles. In anticipation of your despatch, the Treaty Division has been working for some weeks upon drafts of treaties which we would wish to negotiate with Syria and the Lebanon. We hope to be able to send these to you within the comparatively near future. It may be necessary for you, in presenting these discussions to the Foreign Office, to enter a reservation of our position with respect to the French viewpoint as expressed in the Foreign Office note of April 27, 1938. If we consider such a step essential, we shall try to word our reservation in such a manner as not to provoke further arguments by the French.
One thought occurs to me in connection with the French note mentioned above. In the final sentence of the third paragraph, the note points out that the United States would be justified in contesting the validity of the Franco-Syrian treaties only in the event that those acts ignored the rights which the powers in question possessed by virtue of the charter of the mandate. This argument might be carried somewhat further and the point developed that those members of the League of Nations sitting on the Council do, in fact, have an opportunity to contest the validity of the Franco-Syrian and Franco-Lebanese [Page 1025] Conventions since those agreements will eventually have to be approved by the League Council. Thus, the United States, in claiming a similar right, is only asking that it be placed in a position equally favorable with that of members of the Council. That the United States intended to obtain for itself such a position is made clear, to some extent, by the provision in all of our mandate treaties to the effect that the mandatory governments should furnish us with a duplicate of the annual report which they make to the Council.
With best wishes [etc.]