Office of the Historian

740.0011 European War 1939/29614: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Consul General at Algiers (Wiley)

Washington, June 4, 1943—6 p.m.

1070. Your 986, May 28, noon. For Murphy. It is difficult to perceive what we would gain by a formal declaration of war on the part of the Sultan of Morocco. Various declaration and acts of the Sultan in 1939 gave unreserved support to France and are considered to have had the effect of including French Morocco among the belligerents.47 French Moroccan troops of course have been associated with the Allies in the fighting in North Africa.

Unless you have some specific views to the contrary, we are furthermore inclined to believe that the possible complications in Tangier and Spanish Morocco of a war declaration by the Sultan would outweigh any advantages to be derived from such a move.

Hull
  1. For correspondence relating to the reservation of American treaty rights as affected by emergency war measures in the French Zone of Morocco, see Foreign Relations, 1939, vol. iv, pp. 684 ff.↩