711.94/2306: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Leahy) to the Secretary of State
[Received September 21—11:40 a.m.]
1213. Department’s 703, September 18, 5 p.m.46 Portions of Ambassador Henry-Haye’s telegraphic report on his conversation with the Secretary were read to us this morning in confidence by a friend in the Foreign Office. While the French Ambassador accurately informed his Government of the Secretary’s statements that present conversations with the Japanese have so far been only exploratory, it is not our impression that Henry-Haye reported at any rate with adequate emphasis the Secretary’s specific references to the situation in French Africa; or that he made reference to our anxiety over the probability of future German pressure to obtain concessions beyond the terms of the armistice prejudicial to the interests of the United States. He did, however, convey the Department’s feeling that French acceptance of the Japanese demands for military facilities in Indochina was the result of German pressure. (This Foreign Office officials emphatically deny is the case.)
The fact that some definite assurances that we shall insist on the maintenance of French sovereignty and rights in Indochina in our “talks” with the Japanese were not forthcoming has proved “disappointing” to the Foreign Office, said our friend.
This uncertainty may, under present circumstances, be the best impression we can leave.
Henry-Haye likewise reported his own emphasis on French contentions that we had failed to furnish adequate means for the defense of Indochina when so requested last year, the validity of which assertions he said “the Secretary accepted”. He added that the Secretary had “intimated that the United States had exercised a far greater restraining influence on Tokyo than the French Government realizes”. The reaction of our friend here to this last is that the French would like “to have seen a little more tangible evidence of the success” we may have had in such representations.