740.00112 European War 1939/2548
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)
The British Ambassador called to see me at his request. Lord Halifax said that Mr. Eccles8 had just arrived and that he had spent part of the afternoon talking with him. He stated that the chief difference between the policy which the United States was considering pursuing with regard to North Africa and the policy which the British Government wanted to carry out, was that the British point of view, as expounded by Mr. Eccles, was that before anything at all was done in the way of cooperation with General Weygand and the other French authorities in North Africa, certain fundamental commitments should be obtained from the French Government. These commitments included such matters as the return of British consuls to North Africa, the removal of the entire French fleet from ports of Metropolitan France to North African and Atlantic ports, et cetera. The United States policy appeared to be, the Ambassador said, that cooperation would be undertaken by the United States with the North African authorities provided the distribution of any supplies received in North Africa from the United States was carried out under American control, and provided a sufficient number of American observers could be stationed in North Africa to keep such distribution and consumption under effective supervision, and then to work out the other [Page 284] basic problems in which the British were primarily interested through further negotiations with the French authorities.
I told Lord Halifax that all of these questions were now up for very careful review and consideration. I said that Mr. Atherton9 was conferring with representatives of the French Embassy and that I myself was talking with the French Ambassador. I said further that Mr. Atherton had told me that he was arranging to see Mr. Eccles and other representatives of the British Government and that Mr. Wallace Murray was likewise undertaking conversations with these latter gentlemen. I said it was clear that many things had occurred in recent days in France relative to French policy which were profoundly disquieting to the United States and which, unless they were satisfactorily solved, would make it impossible for the United States to continue any practical policy of cooperation with the Vichy Government. In general, I said, as Lord Halifax well knew, it was our belief that full cooperation with Marshal Pétain, provided we were completely assured that such cooperation would in no way prejudice the British war effort, would serve a very useful purpose by strengthening the personal position of the Marshal; and by increasing his authority, we believed we could make him refuse any further assistance to Germany beyond the terms of the armistice; and likewise, by remaining on close and friendly terms with him, we could help to avoid friction and misunderstanding between the British and French Governments which might well otherwise tend to provoke actual hostilities between the French and British with all the resultant exceedingly serious detriment to the British cause that such hostilities would create.