851.248/410
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)
The French Ambassador called to see me this morning. I had been out of town when he arrived and this was my first formal interview with him.
The Ambassador spent a considerable period of time in expressing to me his chagrin at the nature of the reception he had been accorded in the United States and at the impression held so generally in this country with regard to the Government which he represented. He expatiated in great detail upon his personal career, upon his many previous visits to the United States, and upon the fact that in French political life he was always referred to as the “American”. The Ambassador further gave me at length the incidents which had occurred when as Mayor of Versailles he had had to receive the German officers commanding the German troops of occupation.
[Page 522]The Ambassador likewise spoke of his desire to cultivate the American press more than his predecessors had done and also of his hope that because the Vichy Government was in its present parlous situation the American press would not indefinitely believe that the men who composed the Vichy Government were in the slightest degree influenced in their own beliefs by the German Government.
To all of the above I made no reply.
The Ambassador then said that after his earlier conference with Secretary Hull he had communicated with his Government inquiring whether the French airplanes in Martinique could not be returned to the American manufacturers, or at least be shipped for use in Indo-China. He said that his Government had given him a negative reply to both of his requests and had informed him that either of the two alternatives suggested would, under the terms of the armistice with Germany, require the explicit agreement of the German Government. Since the Vichy Government knew beforehand that the German Government would refuse its acquiescence, it did not desire to risk an official rebuttal.
I took occasion to say that it seemed to me in the highest degree ludicrous that the French Mission from Indo-China should now be imploring the Government of the United States, with the support of the French Embassy, to furnish munitions, and particularly airplanes, to French Indo-China, when at this very moment 90 new planes, manufactured in the United States and the property of the French Government, were rotting on the hill sides of Martinique.
The Ambassador said he quite agreed.