740.00119 Control (Italy)/8–645
The French Chargé (Lacoste) to the Acting Secretary of State
The French Chargé d’Affaires in the United States presents his compliments to His Excellency the Acting Secretary of State and has the honor to communicate to him as follows:
The French authorities have been advised unofficially that beginning September 1, 1945 AMGOT will relinquish its office in North Italy to Italian administration.
This news has especially engaged the attention of the French Government. If the substitution envisaged were applied to territories adjoining the French-Italian frontier it could not in effect fail to interest France directly.
The French Embassy is instructed under these conditions to intervene with the Department of State in order that in no case the replacement of AMGOT by the Italian administration should infringe upon the Morgan-Carpentier agreements or the local Doyen–Truscott50 agreements relating to the demilitarization of a zone of fifteen miles to the east of the frontier and to the pasture lands of Mont-Cenis and Haute Maurienne.
The Delegate of the Provisional Government of the French Republic at Rome has received instructions to act in the same sense with the Advisory Council for Italian Affairs and with the Allied Control Commission.
Mr. Francis Lacoste is happy to take advantage of the opportunity of this note to renew to the Honorable Joseph C. Grew the assurances of his very high consideration.
- Lt. Gen. Lucian K. Truscott, Jr., was commander of the U.S. Fifth Army.↩