711.51/265
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)
The French Ambassador called to see me this afternoon at his request.
The Ambassador spent the better part of an hour in giving me a detailed account of his life, along lines which I had heard previously, as an indication of why he should not be regarded as anti-American and pro-cooperationist and why he should be recognized as having contributed greatly towards maintaining relations of friendship between the French and American peoples. In this connection he emphasized particularly the fact that he had never permitted his military, naval or air attaches to report to the French Government anything regarding the war effort of the United States that had not been published in some American newspaper or periodical. He stated that his whole record for twenty-five years had been one of devotion to the cause of friendship between France and the United States and that it was incredible to him that such an incident as the Musa incident87 could now make people in this country believe that he could possibly be guilty of undertaking activities which were inimical to the welfare of the United States. He stressed also recent messages he had sent to Laval urging him to desist from any measures which might be regarded as persecution of the Jewish people in France.
At the end of this monologue I merely stated that I felt sure the Ambassador would realize that he was confronting what I believed was an insuperable obstacle. I said I did not see how he could expect the people of the United States for a moment to forget that the Ambassador was representing in Washington a Government in Vichy which was openly assisting Germany in detriment to the vital war interests of the United States and whose head, Monsieur Laval, had publicly proclaimed that he hoped for a German victory. I said [Page 194] that under these conditions I thought it was only human and reasonable for the people of this country to be suspicious of the activities of the embassy in the United States which represented that Government and that, of course, the Ambassador, whatever his private beliefs might be, would necessarily have to figure as the chief figure in that embassy.
The Ambassador expostulated again at some length and endeavored to make out that Laval did not really mean what he had said nor did he actually intend to assist Germany against the United States. I said I regretted to have to state that there were no arguments which the Ambassador could offer me which would change my already formed opinion in that regard.
- Jean Leonard Musa, a naturalized citizen of Swiss birth, was arrested on July 14, 1942, and accused of giving the Vichy Government information and propaganda service without registering with the State Department as agent of a foreign power.↩