741.5127/7
The Ambassador in France (Bullitt) to
the Secretary of State
No. 3896
Paris, February 24, 1939.
[Received
March 9.]
Sir: I have the honor to refer to the
Department’s telegram No. 15 of January 6, 5 P.M.,4 adverting to an exchange of notes between the
British and French Governments regarding aerial navigation in the
Antarctic and communicating the text of a note to be addressed by the
Embassy to the Foreign Office reserving the rights of the United States
or its citizens with respect to the question of aerial navigation in the
Antarctic as well as to those questions of territorial sovereignty
implicit therein.
As directed by the Department, a note was addressed by the Chargé
d’Affaires ad interim to the Minister of Foreign Affairs on January 7,
1939, and the Embassy has now received a note in response (dated
February 21, 1939), copies and a translation of which are attached, in
which, it will be observed, the claim of the French Government to Adélie
Land is set forth.
With respect to the reference in the third paragraph of Page 2 of the enclosed copy of note to
information as to the French claim communicated to Mr. Sheldon
Whitehouse (at that time Chargé d’Affaires a. i.) on December 9, 1924,
the Embassy has the honor to invite attention to the Department’s
instruction No. 1209 of November 15, 1924, and the Embassy’s answering
despatch of December 19, 1924, copies of which (together with a copy of
an informal, undated memorandum from the Foreign Office, also appearing
in the 1924 files) are likewise attached to the present despatch.5
Respectfully yours,
For the Ambassador:
Edwin C.
Wilson
Counselor of
Embassy
[Enclosure—Translation]
The French Minister for Foreign Affairs
(Bonnet)
to the American Ambassador (Bullitt)
Paris, February 21, 1939.
Mr. Ambassador: By a letter No. 1486 dated
January 7, 1939, referring to the arrangement concluded on October
25, 1938, in the form of an exchange of notes, between the French
Government and the United Kingdom and Australian Governments
relating to aerial navigation in the Antarctic, your Embassy was so
kind as to inform me that the United States Government meant to
reserve its rights or those of its citizens as regards the question
of aerial navigation in the Antarctic as well as the questions of
territorial sovereignty raised implicitly on this occasion.
The terms of this letter are of a nature to lead my Department to
fear that a misunderstanding exists in the mind of the American
authorities, as to the unquestionable sovereign rights which France
has acquired over Adélie Land.
The territory in question was discovered during the course of an
expedition made in the direction of the South Pole during the years
1837 to 1840, on the corvettes L’Astrolabe
and La Zélée by Dumont d’Urville; this
navigator solemnly took possession of this land in the name of the
King of France on January 21, 1840, as appears from the official
report drawn tip by him at Hobart, on board the L’Astrolabe on February 19, 1840.
The discovery and the acquisition were, in conformity with the
procedure usual at that time, the object of notices published in the
Moniteur and Annales
Maritimes as well as in the Sydney
Herald (insertion of March 13, 1840).
All necessary details were, it must be added, furnished on December
9, 1924, to Mr. Whitehouse, then Counselor of the Embassy of the,
United States at Paris, who had called on my Department on the 5th
of the same month to inquire as to the claims of France over Adélie
Land, without the question being the object of any reservation on
the part of your Government.
The decrees of March 27, 1924, November 21, 1924, and April 1, 1938,
relative, respectively, to the exercise by the French of mining,
fishing and hunting rights on Adélie Land, to the administration of
this territory and the determination of its exact limits, as well as
the Franco-British arrangement of October 25, 1938, are therefore
only manifestations, on the part of France, of a sovereignty which
results explicitly from the original taking into possession of the
land.
[Page 5]
Under these circumstances, I take pleasure in thinking that the
reserves formulated by the United States Government do not concern
Adélie Land, over which the rights of the French Government have,
for nearly a century, been regularly established and have never
given rise to contestation.
Believe me [etc.]
