840.50/2836: Telegram
The Consul General at Algiers (Wiley) to the Secretary of State
[Received October 20—4:43 a.m.]
1797. From Murphy. My 1778, October 17, 3 p.m. I have had conversations with Massigli, Monnet29 and Alphand regarding the participation of the latter two in the meeting of the Council of the United Nations as representatives of the French Committee of National Liberation. Throughout these conversations their disappointment was that the French Committee is not being treated on a parity with the four great powers.
Monnet is definitely of the opinion that the only subject of interest to metropolitan France is the volume of immediate relief which can be organized for liberated areas. He of course is of the opinion that the European war may end in the not too distant future. He also believes that the meeting at Atlantic City may become bogged down by elaborate discussions and plans for long-term rehabilitation. In his opinion the French themselves are fully capable of making their own plans for longer-term French rehabilitation. Monnet and his associates are anxious in the thought that the Council will not succeed in organizing an immediate relief program. If this is not done, in their opinion the French population will face chaotic conditions resulting both from lack of foodstuffs and other supplies as well as a complete breakdown of distribution and transport.
[Page 1006]It is also obvious that Monnet and his associates favor the idea that French overseas territories should be enabled to stockpile for the specific purposes of relief in metropolitan France. In their opinion this would not violate the principle that a member of the United Nations group should be obliged to devote surplus of production over its own needs to an Allied pool. They point out that it is obvious that metropolitan France will need much more than any surplus that French overseas territories will be able to acquire. Therefore France should not be called upon to devote temporary surplus which may develop in French overseas territories prior to the liberation of France. They point to the fact that French producers in this area will certainly be stimulated if they are convinced that the fruit of their efforts will go to their own people in metropolitan France of whose present and future sufferings they are acutely aware, rather than to liberated enemy territory.
There is practical value in this point of view and I recommend that it be given sympathetic consideration. [Murphy.]
- Jean Monnet, member of the French Committee of National Liberation.↩