Office of the Historian

500.CC/3–345: Telegram

The Ambassador in France (Caffery) to the Secretary of State

Paris, March 3, 1945—1 p.m.
[Received 5:25 p.m.]

1004. For Assistant Secretary Dunn. Referring to our conversation last evening Bidault instructed Catroux3 to endeavor to persuade the Russians to change their point of view, but he is not very optimistic as to the outcome.

Bidault himself is on the spot here because he obtained the approval of de Gaulle and the Council of Ministers for the Cadogan formula4 under an impression he said he had received at London that it was acceptable to the Russians, although I warned him that the Russians had to be consulted first. There was opposition in the Council of Ministers to approving that formula but Bidault won out with de Gaulle’s support. Now de Gaulle will not agree to his going back to the Council of Ministers and telling them the formula they had approved had not been cleared with the Russians. Bidault is in a bad jam and does not know what to do about it.

I explained the situation late last night to Bogomolov,5 who came to see me, but he has nothing on the subject from Moscow; nor has Duff Cooper been kept very well informed from London.

Sent Department as 1004, repeated London and Moscow.

Caffery
  1. Gen. Georges Catroux, French Ambassador in the Soviet Union.↩
  2. For text of formula, see telegram 1970, February 26, 3 p.m., from London, p. 95.↩
  3. Alexander Efremovich Bogomolov, Soviet Ambassador in France.↩