851.01/10–2244: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant)
Washington, October 22, 1944—9 p.m.
8790. The following is secret for information of Foreign Office and is to be held confidential until released here.89 Reurtel 9075, October 22, 8 p.m.,90 text of Department’s proposed press release (arrange paragraphs in numerical sequence91) to be issued in Washington at time of recognition reads as follows:
- “1. The Government of the United States has today recognized the French de facto authority established in Paris under the leadership of General de Gaulle as the Provisional Government of the French Republic. Mr. Jefferson Caffery, Representative of the United States at Paris, will assume the duties of Ambassador to France.
- 2. This action on the part of the United States Government is in harmony with its policy toward France as publicly enunciated from time to time by the President and the Secretary of State.
- 3. As the Secretary of State in his speech of April 9, 1944,92 stated, it was always the thought of the President and himself that Frenchmen themselves should undertake the civil administration of their country and that this Government would look to the organization then known as the French Committee of National Liberation to exercise leadership in the establishment of law and order. In accordance with this policy, agreements were entered into between the Supreme Allied Commander and the de facto French authority, headed by General de Gaulle, covering the administration of civil affairs in France and other related subjects.
- 4. In accordance with the procedure envisaged in the civil affairs agreement, an ‘Interior Zone’ has been established to include a large part of France, including Paris. The agreement provides that in the Interior Zone the conduct of the administration of the territory and responsibility therefor, will be entirely a matter for the French authorities.
- 5. Today the vast majority of Frenchmen are free. They have had opportunity during recent weeks to demonstrate their desire to have the duties and obligations of government assumed by the administration which is now functioning in Paris and which has been reconstituted and strengthened by the inclusion of leaders of the valiant forces of resistance within France.
- 6. The intention of the French authorities to seek an expression of the people’s will at the earliest possible date, following the repatriation of French prisoners of war and deportees in Germany, has been made known on different occasions. Pending the expression of the will of the French people through the action of their duly elected representatives, the Provisional Government of the French Republic, in its efforts to prosecute the war until final victory and to lay the foundations for the rehabilitation of France, can count on the continued, full, and friendly cooperation of the Government of the United States.”
Stettinius