851L.01/24
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Acting Secretary of State
The French Ambassador called to see me this morning at his request.
The Ambassador read to me a telegraphic instruction he had received from his Government instructing him to protest to this Government regarding the statement issued in New Caledonia which made it clear that the United States would only deal with the authorities in effective control of the French islands in the Pacific. The instruction he had received contained a portion of a statement issued by the Free French Committee in London which alleged that the action of the United States constituted recognition of the Free French Committee in so far as the Pacific was concerned and his instruction also contained a portion of a British Broadcasting Company announcement which further alleged that letters had been exchanged between the American Consul in New Caledonia and the Free French High Commissioner there which constituted formal recognition by the United States of those authorities.
I said to the Ambassador that I could not accept the protest. I stated that neither the Free French Committee in London nor the British Broadcasting Company were authorized to speak for the United States. I said that the official communiqué issued here in the State Department containing the text of the statement made in New Caledonia was the sole official statement issued by this Government on the subject and that that statement spoke for itself.
I then took up one by one the points mentioned in the Department’s telegram of March 4 [5] to Ambassador Leahy in clarification of the policy of this Government and of the views of this Government with regard to the situation in the French islands in the Pacific. I emphasized that the policy of this Government up to the present time and at this time was a policy of recognizing the right of the French people to maintain intact French territory. I said it seemed to me it must be obvious to the Ambassador that the best way of keeping French territory out of Axis hands was not to create dissidence within the French populations resident in French territories, but rather to encourage the French people to [Page 695] pull together and to unite wherever it was possible in order to resist Axis aggression. I stressed the fact that this Government was engaged in an all out war effort. It was inconceivable that the Vichy Government would expect us to discuss with it arrangements covering military and naval cooperation with the French in French islands in the Pacific over which the Vichy Government had no control whatever and much less to discuss these questions with the French Commissioner in Indochina who was engaged in a policy of all out and open collaboration with the Japanese.