851.01/3595: Telegram
The Acting American Representative to the French Committee of National Liberation at Algiers (Chapin) to the Secretary of State
[Received 7:48 p.m.]
1052. With reference to my 977, March 25, 10 a.m.39 Duff Cooper and I were called officially to the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs last night and presented with copies of the ordinance concerning civil and military authorities in metropolitan France during the course of its liberation.
In presenting the copies Massigli again cautioned as to the extreme secrecy of the text and stated the time had come when in the opinion of the Committee it was necessary to explain to the British and American Governments the views of the French Committee on this matter. He stated that the document had been drawn up to accord with such limited information as had reached the FCNL from source in the US and Great Britain as to Allied plans for military and civil government upon the invasion. He reiterated what he had told me as reported in paragraph 4 of my 970, March 28 [24], 8 p.m. that the provisions of article 4 of the text did not mean that FCNL intended unilaterally to fix the limits of the forward and interior zones but rather expected to issue the decrees defining such zones only after receiving the wishes and indications of the Allied Commander in Chief.
Copy of text and translation are being forwarded by earliest courier mail.40
Sent to the Department as 1052, repeated to London as 125.