124.51/239: Telegram
The Chargé in France (Tuck) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 9—2:05 a.m.]
1651. Laval sent for me this evening at 7 o’clock. Rochat was present at our meeting. He desired to inform me that at a Cabinet meeting this afternoon it had been decided that the United States in carrying the war into French territory of North Africa had by that fact severed diplomatic relations with France.
He said that in conveying to me this momentous decision he wished at the same time to assure me of his sincere regret. The fact that our troops had landed on the soil of French North Africa could not be viewed in any other way but as an act of aggression and for this reason it was no longer possible to maintain diplomatic relations between our respective Governments.
[Page 202]As regards the technical details in connection with the eventual departure of the Embassy personnel, the staffs of our Consulates and certain other Americans including journalists he said that he wished to approach the problem in a spirit of sympathy and comprehension. He presumed that an exchange of diplomatic and consular personnel between the American and French Governments could be effected in the same manner as the exchange recently carried out between the German and Italian officials and our representatives in those two countries94a and that eventually our people in France could proceed through Spain to Lisbon.
He left all technical details in connection with our eventual departure in the hands of Rochat and instructed him to take up the matter with me. He said that we would be free to use our codes for the time being and it would be decided when this privilege would terminate.
Repeated to London.
- See vol. i, pp. 285 ff.↩