740.0011 European War 1939/7710: Telegram
The Consul General at Beirut (Engert) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 18—9 a.m.]
14. I had my first long talk with the new High Commissioner, General Dentz, last night. He stated among other things that the [Page 687] mission which had been entrusted to him was primarily to keep Syria out of the war but to defend it against anybody who attacked it. He then attempted to justify France’s surrender last June44 by now familiar complaint that Great Britian had not furnished enough support and he accused the British of pursuing a selfish and shortsighted policy which might yet throw Vichy into the arms of the Germans.
I purposely ignored these and several other more outspoken and even less reasonable criticisms of England because I thought it best, at least to begin with, not to give him the impression that I was here to defend the British and Free French cause. However, when the High Commissioner asked me whether the astronomical figures recently mentioned in connection with the American rearmament program did not smack of militarism he gave me an opportunity to present the American point of view. I told him that our rearmament and conscription were not a sign of militarism but proof that we loathe militarism. We had hoped that militarism had been completely discredited by the last war but now that we found the world again tortured by militarist ambitions the American Government and people were determined to prove that democratic methods could be even more vigorous and effective than those of militarized dictatorships. I said we were arming on an unprecedented scale and with unprecedented speed because of our growing awareness of a threat to the peace and security of the Western Hemisphere and more especially because we felt that any compromise between the democracies and nations whose word could not be trusted would be but a precarious truce. The General made no comment except to say that France had long maintained that force was still the determining factor in international relations but nobody had believed her. He was glad to hear that the United States had become more realistic in that respect.
Repeated to Vichy.
- For correspondence on this subject, see Foreign Relations, 1940, vol. i, pp. 217 ff.↩