851.248/357: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in France (Bullitt)
445. Your 759, May 20, 10 a.m., and 797, May 21, 8 p.m.86 The President desires me to inform you, in reply to question number 1 set forth in the first of your two telegrams above referred to, that it would be silly for France to buy the old PM obsolete planes. The same thing applies to the P2X2–3’s which are becoming obsolete. They only make 139 MPH without bombs. The Department replied to your question number 2 in its 425, May 21, 1 p.m. The President desires me to say in reply to your question number 3, that under no circumstances could the War Department declare any of the 75’s surplus and this has to be done in order to sell them to a foreign country. The Department replied to your question number 4 in its telegram 378, May 16, 1 p.m. With regard to your question number 5, an answer approving your views as to the inadvisability of a written message from Reynaud to the President was given you over the telephone by the President himself and was not repeated in a telegram.
- Latter not printed.↩