740.00112 European War 1939/6022
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Chief of the Division of Near Eastern Affairs (Alling)
Acting under Mr. Berle’s77 instructions, I asked Mr. Guérin to call at the Department with reference to his telephone communication of yesterday requesting a decision whether the French ships now in New York could obtain fuel oil there or whether they would have to fuel at Aruba. I told him that a decision had been taken that it would be necessary to fuel at the latter port. Mr. Guérin indicated that he understood the reasons for the decision.
I told him that I had also been instructed to inform him that the Department would now be willing to enter into negotiations regarding economic assistance for French West Africa. I said that in effect I believed that this would mean the extension to French West Africa of the present agreement covering North Africa. I added that this would of course involve the stationing of control officers in West African territory. Mr. Guérin expressed the view that there would be no difficulty on this score. He said that he supposed that we should want to obtain goods from West Africa, and I told him I believed that to be the case and asked what goods they could offer in addition to peanut oil. He said he thought there was little else except perhaps a few skins, since in ordinary times at least ninety-five percent of the exports from West Africa consisted of peanut oil. Mr. Guérin indicated that he would inform his Government of the foregoing and seek instructions with a view to entering into negotiations for the proposed West African agreement.
- Adolf A. Berle, Jr., Assistant Secretary of State.↩