751G.92/200: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Leahy) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 24—1:15 p.m.]
97. General Huntziger,54 on whom I paid a formal call this morning, after some preliminary conversation brought up France’s current difficulties in the Far East. He emphasized how deeply he felt, first as one who had spent most of his career in Colonial service and secondly as a soldier, at the pitiful defenseless position of Indochina. While he was cordial throughout and appreciative of our present attitude toward France he frankly stated that our Government had been urgently asked to assist in providing France with the means to defend Indochina as early as last August and that up to the present none of the planes, guns and munitions so badly needed has been forthcoming. It is particularly humiliating he said not to be able to stand up against a country like Thailand. The latter, as nearly as he is informed, has over a hundred modern planes; whether they had been provided by the Japanese or the British he was not sure though Japan was, of course, giving Thailand important aid in military material. He went on to say that whatever their differences elsewhere—and he emphasized France’s difficult position caught as she is “between the ever-tightening German vice and the British blockade—it was a question in the Far East of the prestige of the white race. There, he felt, the policy [interest?] of the United States, France and Great Britain was parallel and that all three should stick together. He urged that our Government do all it could to make available to France the means to defend Indochina.
He said that no reply had yet been received from Wiesbaden with respect to the airplanes on the Bearn but that he feared it would be unfavorable. He admitted quite frankly that the French had been in error in considering those planes unserviceable.
- Charles Huntziger, French Minister of War.↩