851.00/2594: Telegram
The Consul General at Algiers (Cole) to the Secretary of State
5. From Murphy.
I am told by a reliable official that he has just seen the copy of a communication from the Government at Vichy to the effect that the memorandum handed by Marshal Pétain to Goering at the time of their recent meeting at Saint Florentin1 had been cancelled. The memorandum presented demands by France on Germany for economic [Page 255] and political relief. It was recovered by de Brinon at the time of his last visit to Berlin. The official said that this was done under Pétain’s orders on the grounds that Germany either had no intention of cooperating with France or was unable to do so; that obviously France could expect nothing but grief from Germany. He said that the French demands which probably contemplated some form of undisclosed quid pro quo are therefore to be considered as never having been presented.
According to my contact this information, read in the light of Pétain’s New Year’s message to the French people, which in his opinion is a declaration that the policy of collaboration is at an end, signals an encouraging and rising spirit of resistance to the Axis.
Repeated to Vichy and Tangier.