890D.01/5–345: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Caffery) to the Secretary of State
[Received 6:20 p.m.]
2315. Duff Cooper showed me the text of his telegram reporting his interview with General de Gaulle.80
After Duff Cooper had expressed the apprehension of the British Government and of the Commander-in-Chief of the Middle East over the situation, de Gaulle replied that the maintenance of order in Syria [Page 1065] was a French responsibility. He added also that when the French cruiser Emile Bertin visited Beirut81 during the past year, it was an occasion for festivities. The French would be glad, of course, to send troops by civil tonnage, but all French ships were being used by the pool. Duff Cooper then suggested that they be sent to Alexandria and thence by land, to which de Gaulle replied that the British would probably make objection and difficulties for the overland trip.
As it was, de Gaulle said, he was sending in three battalions and withdrawing one, whereas the British have a whole division in Syria. He then added that there would be no disorder in the Levant unless it was stirred up by the British. Duff Cooper strenuously objected to this charge. De Gaulle, however, remained “incredulous” and said that the British wanted to weaken French influence in the Near East. SDe Gaulle then brought up the matter of the removal of the Vichy French troops after General Dentz’s surrender82 and without his consent; he referred also to the fact that when the British needed troops in Greece, they moved them from Italy rather than from Syria; and he spoke of the harm done by General Spears’83 policy and implied that Shone, while an improvement over Spears, had arrived too late to do much good.
De Gaulle said that he was willing to withdraw all troops if the British did likewise, but did not consider this a wise move. He also added that he had never said that he would hand over the special troops to the Syrians, but implied that he now might do so.
Repeated to Beirut as No. 14.
- For an account by General de Gaulle of his conversation with Duff Cooper on April 30 and General de Gaulle’s memorandum of this conversation, see The War Memoirs of Charles de Gaulle: Salvation, 1944–1946, pp. 186, 510.↩
- In despatch 638, January 24, 1945, the Minister to Syria and Lebanon reported the arrival of the Emile Bertin at Beirut on December 23, 1944 (890E.00/1–2445).↩
- For documentation on the surrender of Gen. Henri-Fernand Dentz, French High Commissioner in Syria and Lebanon, on July 14, 1941, see Foreign Relations, 1941, vol. iii, pp. 725 ff.↩
- Maj. Gen. Sir Edward L. Spears, who resigned as British Minister to Syria and Lebanon on December 15, 1944.↩