851.01/848
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Secretary of State (Berle)
M. Tixier came in to see me today. He presented a note dated June 11, 194253 referring to his note of May 18.54
He said that he hoped we would study the note and thereafter discuss it with him orally. His personal view was that the note should not be the foundation for an exchange of notes. (Having glanced at it, I fully agree with M. Tixier.)
The note is, in brief, a protest against our “neutralization” of the French colonies in the New World and an insistence that what we are really doing is creating a third French government, namely, the government of Admiral Robert. The note then wanders on to a statement that unless we turn over these various colonies to the Free French we diminish their effectiveness in the war effort and their usefulness in the ultimate reorganization of France.