851.33/296: Telegram

The Ambassador in France (Leahy) to the Secretary of State

361. Department’s 143, March 2, midnight. Following is the text in translation of note dated March 9 signed by Admiral Darlan relative to the transfer of the Dunkerque from Oran to Toulon: [Page 209]

“By letter dated the fifth of this month, Your Excellency kindly transmitted to me a new note6 from the Government of the United States regarding the recent transfer of the Dunkerque. In this note the Federal Government expressed the opinion that in its communication of April 8, 1941, the French Government had simply meant that its consent as regards advising the movements of the Dunkerque would facilitate agreement concerning the other questions mentioned ‘but in no sense was acceptance of the latter conditions ever made a condition of the agreement’.

I have the honor to recall to Your Excellency that in so far as the sending of supplies to the unoccupied zone is concerned, it was the Government of the United States itself which, in its memorandum of April 4, 1941, took the initiative of linking this question to that of the Dunkerque. On the other hand, the French Government unequivocally associated, in its note of April 8, 1941, the maintaining of the Dunkerque at Oran with putting a stop to the seizures of French merchant vessels by the British naval forces. As its note of April 8 remained unanswered, the French Government had the right to consider that the position thus taken by it met with no objection on the part of the American Government. In any event, it was at that time, and not at present, that the American Government might have usefully put forward its observations.”

Leahy
  1. See telegram No. 143, March 2, midnight, to the Ambassador in France, p. 206.