611.51G31/7
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)
The French Ambassador called to see me this morning at his request.
The Ambassador left with me an aide-mémoire giving certain legal information with regard to the autonomy of the Indochinese Government under legislation enacted by the Vichy Government. The aide-mémoire is attached herewith.19
The Ambassador then read to me a telegram which he had received today from Admiral Decoux, the Governor General of French Indochina.
The Governor General stated that at Tonkin the Japanese troops were refusing openly and in many diverse ways to recognize the sovereign authority of the French Government of Indochina. So far Admiral Decoux had been able successfully to resist these attempted encroachments on the authority of his Government. He added that the Annamese had so far been completely loyal to the French Government. At Haiphong the Japanese authorities were attempting to censor and to stop all cables, even those of the French authorities, which were not entirely satisfactory to the Japanese high military officials.
[Page 12]The Governor General concluded his message by stating that as a result of the recrudescence of hostilities along the frontier of Thailand, the French troops had lost two officers and thirty noncommissioned officers who had been killed, and six officers and some fifty noncommissioned officers who had been wounded. The Ambassador made this the basis for a very urgent appeal that munitions be supplied immediately to the Government of Indochina by the unfreezing of sufficient of the blocked balances of the Indochinese Government to purchase the munitions required. I told the Ambassador that I would again ask that full consideration be given to this request but that I must state to him again very emphatically that there was no way by which this Government considered it could release to the Government of Indochina any airplanes until and unless the French Government had agreed to ship the airplanes at Martinique to Indochina.
The Ambassador then asked urgently that this Government intervene with the Government of Thailand so that United States influence might be exercised to prevent the outbreak of open warfare between Thailand and Indochina.
I told the Ambassador that I had two statements in this regard to make to him. First, I stated that the Secretary of State himself would see the Minister of Thailand20 tomorrow morning21 and communicate to him the views of the Government of the United States with regard to the situation which was developing between Thailand and Indochina. The opinion of the United States would be expressed that Thailand was permitting itself to be maneuvered by Japanese influence into such a position that it would soon find itself completely under the hegemony and domination of Japan and would be reduced to a state of outright vassalage.
Secondly, I stated to the Ambassador that the British Government had agreed in principle and upon certain conditions to interpose no objection to the shipment of airplanes from Martinique to Indochina.22 I added that since this was the case, I assumed that the Ambassador would now carry out the plan which he had mentioned to me in our previous conversation and urge that his Government obtain immediately the authority which it apparently believed necessary under the terms of the armistice with Germany in order that these planes might be shipped to Indochina.
The Ambassador expressed great gratification for these two statements which I had made to him and said that, with regard to the second, he would urge that his Government take immediately the action suggested.
- Not printed.↩
- Mom Rajawongse Seni Pramoj.↩
- See memorandum by the Secretary of State, January 13, p. 10.↩
- For correspondence, see Foreign Relations, 1940, vol. ii, under France, section entitled “Concern of the United States Over the Disposition of French War Vessels and Airplanes in Martinique After the Capitulation of France to Germany.” ↩