740.0011 European War 1939/16111: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Consul General at Algiers (Cole)
293. For Murphy. Your 525, October 23. With regard to General Weygand’s inquiry concerning the American officials who have proceeded to French Equatorial Africa, you may inform him that Colonel Cunningham, of the War Department, accompanied by Laurence Taylor, Foreign Service Officer, and Commander Mitchell of the Navy, [Page 453] proceeding to Equatorial Africa on a fact-finding commission on behalf of their respective departments. In no sense should they be considered a mission to General de Gaulle’s territory and there is no change in the position of this Government as regards the Free French movement.
This Government, when it was informed on the Comité National Français in London, replied that “in its relations with the local French authorities in French territories the United States will be governed by the manifest effectiveness with which these authorities endeavor to protect their territories from domination and control by those powers who are seeking to extend their rule by force and conquest or by the threat thereof.”