851.01/847
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)
M. Tixier, the delegate of the de Gaulle committee, called to see me this afternoon at his request.
M. Tixier first handed me a copy of a message42 addressed by General de Gaulle to the French resistance organizations which M. [Page 516] Tixier had received yesterday by telegram. He said this would show how greatly General de Gaulle’s manner of thinking had developed since the General had been in touch with important leaders of French resistance and particularly since his, Tixier’s, recent conversations with de Gaulle in London. M. Tixier asked me to read the document, which I did hastily, and I then said that it seemed to me interesting and that I would read it more carefully when I had more leisure.
M. Tixier then said (having evidently received some information from the British Embassy with regard to my recent conversation with Lord Halifax on this subject) that General de Gaulle and he were heartily in favor of enlarging and strengthening the membership of the French National Committee, but within certain very definite limits. He stated that he had received a message from General de Gaulle saying that the leaders would be willing to cooperate in enlarging the French National Committee, providing that the following categories of persons were not to be included therein: (a) individuals who were in any way connected with the signing of the French armistice or who had opposed the departure of the French Government to North Africa; (b) individuals who had cooperated with the Germans through association with the Vichy government; and (c) individuals who had openly attacked and criticized General de Gaulle and his associates.
M. Tixier said he wished, by General de Gaulle’s instructions, to know what I thought of these limitations.
I stated that I was surprised by this request, inasmuch as any discussions which I might have with M. Tixier were not on a personal basis but purely in my official capacity. I said that in that capacity and speaking for my Government, I wished to make it very clear that questions of this character were regarded in Washington as matters for the French who were cooperating in resistance to the Axis powers to determine for themselves. I said that it was, however, very decidedly the opinion of this Government that in the interest of the restoration of France and in the interest of the great objective which the Free French and the peoples of the United Nations both were endeavoring to achieve, namely, the defeat of the Axis powers, it seemed in the highest degree desirable that all elements among the French people sincerely resisting the Axis powers might be joined together in a common effort and might not be split by internecine feuds which had had and which were increasingly having a disastrous effect upon public opinion in this country. I said it seemed unbelievable in the present state of world affairs that French men and French women, who were supposedly determined to do their utmost to further the victory of the United Nations, should be spending ninety-five percent of their time in [Page 517] petty quarrels of the character which was only too evident among the Free French in the United States and in England.
[Here follow accounts of complaints by Mr. Welles regarding inaccurate and unfriendly reports as to his conversations with former French Premier Camille Chautemps on a personal matter, and regarding M. Tixier’s criticism of another Free French official.]
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