690D.116/3: Telegram
The Chargé in France ( Murphy ) to the Secretary of State
[Received February 9—9:42 a.m.]
188. We left at the Foreign Office this morning an aide-mémoire along the lines of the Department’s air mail instruction No. 1929 of January 25 and made as directed a general reservation with respect to American treaty rights covering trade relations with those French colonies and mandated areas to which the treaties under reference apply.
Rageot45 read the aide-mémoire with evident perturbation. He said that all that the Department pointed out was unquestionably true but that the French Government’s attitude was dictated by wartime necessity which were overwhelming.
Although Rageot promised that we would be provided at a later date, when an opportunity had been afforded for a careful study of our aide-mémoire, with a more comprehensive statement of the French position, which could be reported to the Department, he ventured the informal opinion that there could be no withdrawal from the policy which had been adopted and that the probability of protest such as ours had been discounted in advance of these various measures.
- Maxime Rageot, Assistant Chief of the Division of Near East and African Affairs, French Ministry for Foreign Affairs.↩