751G.94/185
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)
The French Ambassador called to see me this morning at his request. The Ambassador said that he desired to give me the latest information that he had received with regard to the situation in Indo-China. He read to me two telegrams that he had received directly from Admiral Decoux, the Governor General, explaining that after the agreement with Japan had been signed, the Japanese Kwangsi army, in complete disregard of the terms of the agreement, had invaded Indo-China near Langson; that the French forces had resisted and that notwithstanding the efforts of General Nishihara to prevent a continuation of the conflict, hostilities had been in progress in various sections along the frontier throughout the day and night of September 23. Admiral Decoux stated in his telegram that the French forces were determined to resist to the last man.
The Ambassador added that he, himself, was delighted that this resistance had been shown and that he hoped that the American press and public opinion in this country would realize that the French were not as supine as they had recently been made to appear.
The Ambassador asked if it were not possible for the United States to give some assurance that the Indo-Chinese Government could obtain munitions and aviation materiel in the United States. I said to the Ambassador that as a matter of policy the Government of the United States would furnish, so far as might be found possible, material assistance to the victims of aggression in the Far East but that when he made this request of me I was forced to remind him of the fact that [Page 147] at the very moment he was requesting us to sell our planes to Indo-China, ninety airplanes which the French Government had purchased from the United States were fast deteriorating on the hills of Martinique. I said this was an absurd situation which the Ambassador would readily comprehend. The Ambassador again stated that he had done his utmost to persuade his Government to send these airplanes to Indo-China. He stated that in response to his very vigorous telegrams to his own Foreign Office on the subject he had received only negative replies which had, in fact, shown great irritation with him because of his insistence.
I asked the Ambassador if he could explain to me the reasons why his Foreign Office, on the preceding day, had issued a statement to the press alleging that the Government of the United States had approved the agreement of August 30 between the Vichy Government and the Japanese Government when, as a matter of fact, as the Ambassador well knew, no such approval had ever been given. This statement, I said, had obliged the Department of State to issue a flat denial.96 The Ambassador was very uneasy in commenting upon my inquiry and all that he could say was that he could only assume that the press had misquoted what the French Foreign Minister had stated. The Ambassador said that he well knew that this Government had not approved the agreement and that all he had gathered was that this Government had understood the difficult situation in which the Vichy Government found itself. He said that he intended to hold a press conference at his Embassy in the afternoon at which he would make this fact clear and at which he also trusted the course of events in Indo-China, which he would relate to the press correspondents, would obtain a more sympathetic feeling on the part of the public here with regard to France’s situation.
[For remainder of this conversation, which concerned the British and Free French attack on Dakar, see volume II, section entitled “Interest of the United States in Political and Economic Conditions…” under France.]
- See press release issued by the Department of State, September 23, Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. ii, p. 297.↩