851.48/323
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Acting Secretary of State
The British Ambassador called to see me this afternoon.
Before the Ambassador took up with me the matter he wished to discuss, I told him that my attention had just been drawn to a statement given out by the French Ambassador after his conversation with the President this morning. I said that I had consulted the President with regard to this statement and that, with the approval of the President, I was giving the following information to the press:
The French Ambassador undoubtedly has reference to a request he has submitted for emergency release of food grains for unoccupied France as cargo for two French ships now in New York. He has been informed that the President was entirely willing that this request should be raised with the American Red Cross which now has it under consideration.
It is, of course, obvious that the American Government must assure itself that the final consumption of all food sent takes place within the area of unoccupied France.
I said to Lord Halifax that this raised a question which I had wished to discuss with him in view of his conversation with Secretary Hull last Saturday39 and in view of a conversation I had had on the telephone with Secretary Hull this morning. I said that this Government believed it wise as an intermediate step—in order to make it evident to the French people that food supplies could be obtained from the Western Hemisphere and that the American Government was by no means unsympathetic in their present distress—for the American Red Cross to send two cargoes of food grains to unoccupied France, such [Page 128] cargoes to be purchased with funds coming from the President’s relief fund. I said that this Government had it in mind to inform the French Government that it intended to take this step and to inform the British Government thereof, provided that the four conditions relating to distribution, et cetera, to which the French Government had already agreed, be scrupulously carried out by the French Government, and provided that the French Government would further agree that if these cargoes were sent in the two French steamers now laid up in New York, these steamers would be returned to American ports. At the same time I said this Government had it in mind to make it clear to the French Government that such action on our part was predicated not only on the observance of the conditions mentioned, but also on the taking by the French authorities of steps necessary to prevent further infiltration of Germans into North Africa and on the taking of such further steps as might remove from the mind of this Government the belief that there existed any possibility that French resources—naval, military or material—would be permitted to fall into German hands or that the French Government would undertake any action in the interest of Germany outside of and beyond the conditions of the armistice agreement between France and Germany.
I stated that if these conditions were satisfactorily observed and if assurances concerning the latter points were given to us by the French Government in a form satisfactory to this Government, the Government of the United States hoped that the British Government would see its way to agreeing upon a course of procedure which would make it possible for the French Government to purchase with its own funds such additional food supplies as might be required for the needs of civilian populations in unoccupied France, always, of course, with the understanding that such food supplies from the United States would be sent in “driblets” and that American supervision as to distribution and control would be made watertight.
I said it would be very desirable if the British Government could let us have a reply as promptly as possible with regard to the dispatch of these two gift cargoes in French bottoms under the conditions above specified. I said that the President believed that this step was wise and in the interest of both Great Britain and the United States as a means of convincing the French people that they would be given sympathetic treatment, provided the authorities gave both the British and American Governments the assurances required.
Lord Halifax stated that he would send a telegram in the sense desired this evening and that he would let me have the reply as soon as it was received.