862.33/253: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Leahy) to the Secretary of State
[Received 7:39 p.m.]
494. Referring to Department’s 197, March 22, 3 p.m. The following is translation of a note dated April 1st signed by Admiral Darlan received from the Foreign Office today:
“By letter dated the 24th instant Your Excellency was good enough in the name of Your Government to take note of the new measures adopted by the French Government to ensure the maintenance of the position of neutrality of French possessions in the Western Hemisphere; Your Excellency likewise took note of the assurances given by the French Government concerning the maintenance of the agreements concluded between Admiral Robert on the one hand and Admirals Greenslade and Home on the other.
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of this letter and to inform Your Excellency that under date of March 26 the French Government instructed its representatives near the interested powers to inform them that dating from April 1 it will not permit, under any circumstances and under any pretext whatsoever, military planes and warships of belligerent countries to enter the territories, ports and territorial waters of French possessions in America.
In the same letter, Your Excellency informed me of the intention of the Government of the United States to reserve as regards the said French Colonies and in the operation of the aforementioned agreements the full liberty of action which it may consider necessary in the defense of the Western Hemisphere but, that in reserving this liberty of action, the Government of the United States does not intend to modify French sovereignty of the territories in question whatever temporary measures are required through the development of the military situation.
The French Government takes note of the renewed assurance that it is not the intention of the American Government to modify the sovereignty of France over its American possessions; but it must make the most explicit reservations concerning the liberty of action which the Federal Government intends to retain under the circumstances and which is not compatible either with the commitments undertaken at the time of the Greenslade–Robert and Horne–Robert agreements or with the assurance given on December 14 [13?] by President Roosevelt himself ‘that the United States will continue to recognize fully the agreement between our two Governments concerning the status quo of French Colonies in the Western Hemisphere’.”