Office of the Historian

740.0011 European War 1939/24606: Telegram

The Acting Secretary of State to the Chargé in France (Tuck)

Washington, October 10, 1942—9 p.m.

627. Your 1451, September 30, 8 p.m. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that the French Government has always considered that the temporary requisition of foreign ships held in its ports in no way affected the ownership of the vessels; that it has declared that it will return them in due course to their legitimate owners; and that by allowing them to be chartered at this time by their owners the French Government is only abiding by its original intention. It makes the strange statement that it is “not for the French Government to know or control the chartering contracts which may have been concluded”, thus indicating that it does not know that such contracts exist. But aside from this the French Government must know:

(1)
That by turning the vessels over to the German Government it would not be turning them over to the original owners.
(2)
That the vessels for the most part have been requisitioned by the governments of the former owners and that those governments, and not the former owners, have legal title to the vessels.
(3)
That the turning over to Germany of ships the title to which is in her enemies is an act wholly inconsistent with France’s professed neutrality.
(4)
That whatever may be said regarding the right of France to turn back to their owners foreign ships whether requisitioned by France or not, the bold facts cannot be disputed that France would thus be giving material and direct aid to the enemies of the United States and the other United Nations; and that this Government cannot regard such action as other than distinctly unneutral and detrimental to its interests and to the interests of its associates in the war.
(5)
That the statement in the last paragraph of the note that “by allowing their owners to resume possession of … ships which it holds the French Government … acts within the fullness of its rights” is self-contradictory since the French Government knows that the ships are not to be restored to their owners but are to be delivered to a dictator whose heel of oppression is felt not only by the countries whose ships they are but by France herself; and that under no conceivable circumstance could the United States admit that France acts within the fullness of her rights in a situation wherein the French Government commits a highly unneutral act.

You may reply to the note of September 30 in the sense of the foregoing and say that your Government hopes and expects that the French Government will reconsider the whole matter in a more realistic manner.

Welles

[On the night of November 7–8, American Armed Forces landed in French North Africa. For correspondence regarding this occupation, see pages 429 ff.]