851.01/6–2443
The British Prime Minister (Churchill) to President Roosevelt 67
325. Your No. 290.68 I told Parliament on June 8th that formation of new Algiers Committee of Seven (to wit: Giraud, de Gaulle, Georges, Catroux, Massigli, Monnet and Philippe) marked the end of my relations with de Gaulle as defined by letters exchanged in 1940 and that our dealings would henceforth be with Committee of Seven. Like you I was surprised when these seven suddenly sprouted out into fourteen. However I thought at first that it was a War Cabinet with other members attending its meetings. Presently it appeared that all members had equal status and therefore like you I feared that de Gaulle would have a clear working majority. This is not certain but if true would I am sure lead to nothing but trouble.
- 2.
- Accordingly I have now made it clear to Macmillan that His Majesty’s Government can at present deal only with Committee of Seven in its collective capacity expressed by a majority of the seven; otherwise no payments will be made. I am not however sure how much money the large Committee as a whole can draw from revenues of French North West Africa which are of course much increased by heavy United States and British expenditure there or how much they can draw from other parts of the French Empire. The Committee of Seven are floating loan to which there may be considerable response. De Gaulle has also a development fund of perhaps 150,000 pounds drawn from his partisans and admirers. We should in any case have to pay French soldiers and sailors who are serving locally with us in different parts of the world through local payments as a modus vivendi. [Page 162] It is therefore likely that the Committee may be able to get on without payments hitherto made to de Gaulle from British Exchequer.
- 3.
- We have also made trade arrangements with various French colonies who joined de Gaulle which are serviceable to us and vital to them and in addition we have guaranteed pay and pensions of all French officials who renounced Vichy and gave us their allegiance in these places. Should de Gaulle break with the Committee of Seven and go off into the wilderness I should consider that discharge of these obligations would depend on our relations not with him any more but only with majority of Committee of Seven. This would be a very much more powerful lever of control.
- 4.
- You will no doubt regulate your issue of arms and ammunition to French North African Army in accordance with the confidence that you have in the Authorities controlling it and we should both supply goods and shipping to other French colonies only on same basis.
- 5.
- On quite a different plane is the question of recognition of this Committee of Seven which they will certainly demand as representative of France in some degree or other. Here I feel with you that it would be most unwise to commit ourselves until we know much more clearly than we do now how they are going to behave. In this connexion I send you a paraphrase of message which is being sent to Stalin.69 The United Nations must certainly try to act together on this larger question also.