851.01/3802: Telegram
The Acting American Representative to the French Committee of National Liberation at Algiers (Chapin) to the Secretary of State
[Received 8:18 p.m.]
1584. From Murphy. During the course of Monday’s83 debate in the Consultative Assembly in Algiers, Costa, a member from Tunisia, asked that additional information be furnished the Assembly regarding the Clark–Darlan “agreements”.84
General de Gaulle who was present made the following statement in reply:
“Will you permit me to say a word regarding the Darlan–Clark agreement? I wish to say publicly that France does not consider herself bound in the least by arrangements which may have been [Page 686] made by the Allied military authorities on one hand and by Darlan on the other.
“As a matter of fact time has passed, and many de facto changes—a de facto situation then existed—have now taken place in the functioning of what I still hear called, I don’t know why, the Darlan–Clark ‘agreements’.”
The foregoing, read in the light of a resolution unanimously adopted by the Assembly at the end of the session, expressing the wish that the French Committee of National Liberation officially assume the title of “Provisional Government of the French Republic” has evoked considerable interest. As the Department is aware, the provisions of the Clark–Darlan agreement of November 22, 1942 provide bases on which Allied military operations in French North Africa are conducted. Conversations with the French looking to a revision of this agreement have been in course during the past several months. It is my understanding that the President and the Department desire that these negotiations be kept on a military level as a matter resting in the discretion of the Supreme Allied Commander, Mediterranean Theatre.
One interpretation of General de Gaulle’s public declaration made locally is that of a unilateral denunciation of an obligation. I have discussed this question with AFHQ (General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson left last evening for Italy) and it will be the subject of further discussion at today’s meeting of the political committee. I feel that we should, on the political level, choose to ignore the statement as an expression of de Gaulle’s personal opinion made without reflection during the course of debate. Macmillan and I agree that the best procedure would be for the Chief of Staff AFHQ to call in the French Chief of Staff, Béthouart, and inform him that we assume that this public declaration contemplates no change in the existing status and that it is also assumed that the provisions of the Clark–Darlan Agreement remain in full force and effect until they are revised by mutual consent.
As the Department may know, an Anglo-American French Committee has been considering over a period of months in that connection the revision of the agreement, and with the return of General Richmond, Judge Advocate, from Washington this week the conversations will be resumed.
When they have been concluded, the question of a signature will arise. The French undoubtedly will wish to treat the matter on a government level, but I assume that our position remains unchanged and that the Department will wish signature to be made in behalf of the United States and Great Britain by the Supreme Allied Commander, Mediterranean Theatre. [Murphy.]
- May 15.↩
- For text of the Clark–Darlan Agreement signed at Algiers November 22, 1942, see Foreign Relations, 1942, vol. ii, p. 453.↩