Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, The Conferences at Cairo and Tehran, 1943

Roosevelt Papers: Telegram

Prime Minister Churchill to President Roosevelt¹

secret

London, 13 November 1943.

Prime Minister to President Roosevelt. Personal and most secret. Nr. 504.

1. You have, no doubt, been informed of the lamentable outrages committed by the French in Syria.² These completely stultify the agreements we have made with the French and also with the Syrians and Lebanese.³ There is no doubt in my mind that this is a foretaste of what de Gaulle’s leadership of France means. It is certainly entirely contrary to the Atlantic Charter⁴ and much else that we have declared. The situation will be most grave throughout the whole of the Middle East and the Arab world and also every where people will say: “What kind of a France is this which, while itself subjugated by the enemy, seeks to subjugate others?”

2. Accordingly, I am of the opinion that the British and United States Governments should take this up in the strongest manner together. Already we have seen the character of the body we recognised at Quadrant⁵ totally altered by de Gaulle’s complete assumption of power. The outrages in the Levant are of a different character and afford full justification, with the support of world public opinion, of bringing the issue with de Gaulle to a head.

3. Our position should be that the kidnapped Lebanese President and Ministers should be set at liberty and permitted to resume their full function, and that the assembly should meet again as soon as conditions of law and order can be guaranteed. If he fails to do this at once, we should withdraw our recognition from the French National Committee and stop the process of arming the French troops in North Africa.

4. Meanwhile, I am enquiring carefully into the state of our forces in the Levant. At the same time, should action be taken it would be necessary to take precautions in North Africa, for I assure you there is nothing this man will not do if he has armed forces at his disposal.

1. Apparently sent to Washington via military channels, and forwarded by the White House Map Room, by pouch on November 15, 1943, to Roosevelt; received by Roosevelt November 20 at Oran.
2. See ante, p. 84, footnote 2.
3. See (1) George Kirk, The Middle East in the War (a volume of the Survey of International Affairs, 1989–1946, published by the Oxford University Press for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1952), pp. 107–109, 124–126; (2) J. C. Hurewitz (editor), Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East; A Documentary Record (Princeton: D. Van Nostrand Co., 1956), vol. ii, pp. 231–232; and (3) the sources cited on those pages.
4. August 14, 1941; for text, see Foreign Relations, 1941, vol. i, p. 367, or 55 Stat, (pt. 2) 1603.
5. The body referred to is the French Committee of National Liberation. The records of the First Quebec (Quadrant) Conference, August 1943, are scheduled to be published subsequently in another volume of the Foreign Relations series.