881.00/10–145
Memorandum by the Chief of the Division of African Affairs (Villard) of a Conversation With Mr. Francis Lacoste of the French Embassy
Mr. Lacoste came in to say that the French Government had now received the adherence of all the interested governments to the Franco-British accord for the provisional regime in Tangier, and [Page 666] that the French Foreign Office proposed to issue the text of this document and of the Final Act on October 11. The Foreign Office pointed out that the four Powers at the Paris Conference had considered it “useless” (inutile) to publish the two declarations regarding Spain, made by Russia on the one hand and Great Britain, France and the United States on the other.
I said that I was not aware of any agreement at Paris according to which the text of these two declarations would be omitted from the Final Act at the time of publication. I observed that the declarations were an integral part of the Final Act, and that the document would be incomplete if this Section were omitted. I said that we, for our part, were very much interested in having our declaration regarding Franco Spain given publicity, and that I was sure the Russians would not have insisted on making their declaration on this subject if they had thought it was going to be filed in the archives.
Mr. Lacoste said that he was unable to give any explanation as to why his government assumed the declarations were not to be published but he thought that the French Government was inclined to be as easy as possible on Spain and might not wish to irritate that country by publishing the declarations at this time. He said he would transmit our views to Paris and would point out that the apparent French understanding in this matter conflicted with that of the American Government.
Mr. Lacoste himself commented that this was the second instance in which his government seemed to be under the impression that a decision had been taken at Paris which was contrary to the understanding of the United States. He referred to the previous telegram from his government stating that the Paris Conference had agreed to give France the exclusive right to assure the provisioning of the Tangier Zone in the interim period. Mr. Lacoste said he would call the attention of his government to these apparent discrepancies in our understanding of the decisions made by the Conference Powers.