811.34551B/1: Telegram
The Consul at Leopoldville ( Mallon ) to the Secretary of State
[Received 8:30 p.m.]
The following is transmitted in translation at the personal request of General de Gaulle.
“American broadcasts have announced that all American Republics signatories to the Treaty of Havana, have put confidence in the United States to take necessary measures with respect to the French colonies in America should the Vichy government strengthen its ties with the Axis.
In the name of all Frenchmen who, rejecting the armistice, faithful to alliances of France and representing the true soul of captive France, have decided to continue the struggle against Germany and Italy, General de Gaulle wishes to submit to the President of the United States and to the Department of State the following comments:
First, the Antilles and French Guiana as well as the Islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon are among the oldest French colonies. The occupation of these colonies by the forces of a friendly power such as the United States, if that occupation were decided upon unilaterally, would cause profound grief to all Frenchmen and would hurt all the more in that it would happen in an hour of distress and humiliation for France.
Second, De Gaulle understands all the motives which make it indispensable to the United States and to the peoples of the American hemisphere to be assured that the French colonies in America shall not be utilized by the Axis Powers.
Third, De Gaulle has available naval, military and air forces exclusively French sufficient, in cooperation with the American Fleet, to assume the protection of the French colonies in America.
Fourth, De Gaulle will announce on [in?] October [or] November the formation of a council of defense of the French Empire of which [Page 505] the principal members will be General de Gaulle; General Catroux, former Governor of Indochina; the Reverend Father D’Argenlieu, Provincial de France de L’Ordre des Carmes; Professor Cassin, President of the Federal Union of the Mutilated of the War of 1914; Eboue, Governor of the Chad; General de Larminat, Governor General of French Equatorial Africa; General Leclerc de Haute Clocque, Governor of French Cameroon; Vice Admiral Muselier, Commander of the Free French naval forces; Governor Sautot, High Commissioner of the French colonies of the Pacific; Medical General Sice.
Fifth, the raison d’être of the Council of Defense of the French Empire is the fact that the Vichy government is neither constitutional nor free. This Council will therefore exercise in the French territories which refuse to submit to the armistice all the powers that belonged to the last Free French government, which powers its members already hold in fact.
The Council already has a territorial nucleus consisting of French Equatorial Africa, Cameroon, and the French colonies of the Pacific excluding Indochina. It has troops and substantial supplies.
In the name of France the Council of Defense of the French Empire proposes to the President of the United States that in case the policy adopted by the Vichy government should make it necessary that the American hemisphere be guaranteed against any possibility of the securing of a foothold by the Axis Powers in the French colonies in America, the responsibility for the administration of those colonies shall be assumed by the Council. Furthermore, Free French forces are able to contribute to the defense of these same colonies.
Sixth, on this basis the Council of Defense of the French Empire is prepared to negotiate an agreement with the Government of the United States granting to the United States the use of air and naval bases in the French colonies in America, which agreement could be instilled with the same spirit as those agreements which have been recently concluded for the same purpose by Great Britain for certain of its possessions situated in the United States hemisphere.”