Editorial Note

No official record, of this conversation has been found. The exact time of the meeting is derived from the President’s appointment calendar in the Roosevelt Papers. From Hull’s memorandum of January 2, 1942, to Roosevelt (post, p. 387) it appears that the meeting considered the preparation and issuance of a communiqué regarding the problem of St. Pierre and Miquelon. According to Hull (vol. ii, p. 1134), the Secretary of State told Churchill that the latter’s remarks at Ottawa about the Vichy Government and de Gaulle had been “highly incendiary”. He pleaded with Churchill to issue [Page 157] a statement supporting the United States policy toward Vichy, but Churchill “was not cordial to the suggestion.”