851T.00/69: Telegram
The Consul General at Dakar (Barnes) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 25—1:55 p.m.]
523. The Glassford7 Mission has successfully established contact with the civil, military and naval authorities and is now engaged in full discussion with these authorities of the problems enumerated in the secret directive of December 9 issued to the Mission by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. On the whole the French authorities appear ready to cooperate fully. It does not seem likely that those who still entertain reservations such as perhaps the commanding general of the land forces, the commander of the air force and certain naval officers should be able materially to lessen the good results hoped for. On the other hand it is not probable that any United Nations command established here can hope to have the last word with respect to the employment of French West African forces. The Governor General seems really to have made his choice and to possess the authority and force of character necessary to impose decisions so long as matters of high policy or high military strategy with respect to which Darlan would seem to be supreme are not at issue.
Progress has been rapid through the efforts of Generals Fitzgerald, Hyde and Smith who were on the ground here sometime before the arrival of the Mission. Arrangements are now in effect for the construction and the early operation of a temporary airfield for the transport command and for the construction of a new permanent air field for United Nations needs. Materials for the temporary field are now being unloaded from the first American ship to enter this port since September 1940 and army engineer corps personnel of perhaps a thousand are expected soon. It is anticipated that General Fitzgerald now on his way to Washington will remove his headquarters from Accra to Dakar within the next few months.
French authorities while still strongly anti-British understand the primacy of British concern in these waters and have requested that British representatives on Glassford Mission arrive soon. It is probable that such United Nations aid as may be necessary to perfect port facilities can be provided only by us and that the presence of United States Navy construction battalion may be required for a time.
In so far as it can be said that public opinion exists in this colony of 16 million natives and a slight and scattered European population the general attitude of the inhabitants with respect to the Government [Page 490] in the new situation created by our action in Africa seems to be one of “let’s wait and see”. The contrast between Vichy policy and French objectives at the outset of the war and the resumption now of the earlier position that Germany and not England is the enemy has provided fertile soil for doubt and skepticism. The authorities anticipate that civilian supplies from the United States particularly cotton goods and rice will go far to correct this situation. The presence of American troops although non-combatant of necessity should also have a good effect but energetic employment in the war effort of such French resources and manpower as remain should prove the best antidote to the present confusion and apathy.
The Mission will deal with the problems of civilian supplies and United Nations utilization of the economic resources of the country as the more urgent military and naval problems are disposed of. The imminent arrival of American forces has brought the exchange rate question to the fore.
Repeated to Algiers for Murphy.
- Rear Adm. William A. Glassford, Head of the United States Military Mission to French West Africa. For information on this Mission, see Howe, The Mediterranean Theater of Operations, Northwest Africa, pp. 271–272.↩