890.00/6–745

The French Ambassador (Bonnet) to the Acting Secretary of State

[Translation]24
No. 184

The Ambassador of France presents his compliments to His Excellency the Acting Secretary of State and has the honor to request him to be so good as to propose to the American Government, on behalf of the French Government, the meeting of a conference on Near Eastern matters as a whole, in which would take part, besides the British Government and the French Government itself, the American, Soviet and Chinese Governments.

The French Government believe, in fact, that the events which occurred recently in Syria and Lebanon, and lastly the open intervention of Great Britain in these two countries, necessitate an examination of the present situation in the Levant with a view to as early a settlement as possible. The attitude of Great Britain in this matter has been manifested under such conditions that, in the opinion of the French Government, the settlement cannot be sought in exclusively Franco-British [Page 1141] conversations. The London Government, furthermore, itself recognized this in proposing several days ago a conference in which the Government of the United States would be associated. Since then, the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics has, for its part, in a note addressed simultaneously on the first of June to the American, British, Chinese and French Governments,25 noted the importance that it attaches to the solution of the Syrian affair from the point of view of international security. This point of view is that of the French Government.

Moreover, these differences with the Damascus Government are essentially concerned with military questions: organization of the command and conditions for stationing Allied troops at the present time; for the future, defining an arrangement for security in the region. The difficulties that it has experienced in settling these questions with the Damascus and Beirut Governments arise from the fact that they are not confined to Syria and Lebanon. They concern all of the Near East, Egypt included, and cannot be treated so far as the two states of the Levant are concerned without being made the object of a general settlement for the region of which these two states form a part. It is for this reason, furthermore, that the British command, whose headquarters are at Cairo, considered itself justified in intervening, and it is for that reason that the French Government is impelled to request a general examination, in the exercise of principles the application of which is now being worked out at San Francisco by the five major powers. In this spirit, it would gladly welcome their representatives to Paris for the proposed meeting, if the choice of that city should be agreeable to them.

Monsieur Henri Bonnet is happy to take [etc.]

  1. Translated copy filed under 890D.01/6–745.
  2. See note from the Soviet Chargé, June 1, and footnote 93, p. 1128.