851.01/2078: Telegram
The Consul General at Algiers (Wiley) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 29—4:38 a.m.]
728. From Murphy. My 697, April 24. Giraud told me Sunday night12 that he wonders whether there is a real desire for unity as evidenced by the French National Committee’s reply, except on the Committee’s own terms. He said, however, that he was prepared to go as far as he could to make agreement possible, but that he could not agree that the French Commander-in-Chief should be excluded from the central authority or be completely subservient to it or that the central authority should immediately control the administration of [Page 102] the departments of France as they are liberated. He must insist, he said, on the recognition by the French National Committee of the procedure established by the constitutional laws of the Third Republic (Tréveneuc Law of 1872). He is not unalterably opposed to Catroux’s proposal that joint responsibility be exercised by him and by de Gaulle, but believes latter is passed [possessed?] by an unlimited ambition for personal political power.
He was to inform Catroux of the foregoing in a conversation and to suggest that an early meeting with de Gaulle be fixed. This would presumably take place on French territory, but not in the town of Algiers. [Murphy.]
- April 25.↩