862U.014/9–2446
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Director of the Office of European Affairs (Matthews)
| Participants: | President Bidault |
| Mr. Alphand67 | |
| Secretary Byrnes68 | |
| Mr. Matthews |
The Secretary called on President Bidault at the former’s request at 4 p.m. yesterday. There was some preliminary discussion of President Bidault’s difficulties in the strike of the Treasury Department employees and the Constitutional problem raised by General de Gaulle. Then followed a brief discussion of today’s meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers, the Secretary’s hope that means would be found to speed up the Conference work, and Bidault’s pessimistic view that all that would come out of the meeting would be another 14 hours’ discussion on procedure which frankly bored and annoyed him.
Bidault, who was in a depressed and agitated frame of mind, then came to the real purpose of his talk. He has the Communists sniping at him from the Left and the unpredictable de Gaulle attacking him on the Right, he said. His position is fast becoming untenable and if his Government falls, he said, he might be succeeded by a Communist Government. (Apparently sensing that this latter development was highly improbable, he promptly added that perhaps he was exaggerating and did not really expect the Communist Party to take over.) For two years now he has been Foreign Minister and has produced no results. This is particularly true with respect to Germany. The [Page 608] time has come when he feels compelled to act. He therefore proposes to take action unilaterally with regard to the Saar. The United States had publicly expressed its intention to support French claims with regard to the Saar in the Secretary’s speech at Stuttgart and he appreciated that support. What he wants now, however, is not support for the Saar but the Saar itself. He must act now, he reiterated. He was not asking Mr. Byrnes to approve his action or to encourage him; he merely wants the United States to refrain from any strong reaction or protest. If a protest is necessary in our view, he hoped it would not be too strong. President Bidault said he was planning to have a similar conversation with Mr. Bevin and emphasized several times the extreme importance of holding his statements in strictest confidence. Mr. Matthews inquired just what action President Bidault proposed to take. Bidault replied, turning the pages of a lengthy memorandum on the subject which he had on his desk, that he proposed to set up a customs barrier between the Saar and Germany and likewise to introduce a French currency into the Saar. During this “first stage” he would continue to maintain a customs barrier also between France and the Saar but it was clear that the latter is a temporary measure designed, I believe, to soften the impact of France’s unilateral action on the outside world and prevent any outcry of “annexation” prior to the peace settlement. He said that he would tell Mr. Molotov of his proposed action but apparently not until just before the step is taken. He anticipates a strong Soviet reaction but said that the French Communist Party will support him because they cannot do otherwise in view of popular feeling in France and reiterated that he must have something to show on German policy for his two years in office.
The Secretary again declared his intention to support French claims with regard to the Saar but said M. Bidault’s method of procedure presented a very grave problem of unilateral action. He wondered why M. Bidault could not wait until the Council of Foreign Ministers met in November to discuss the German problem, at which time the United States would again back the French position on the Saar. M. Bidault replied that he could not wait, first because it would be too late to have the desired effect on the French elections, and secondly because he had no confidence that the Council of Foreign Ministers’ meeting on Germany would produce any results. “The longer we wait”, he said, “the more difficult it will be to accomplish what we want in Germany and there are already signs of agitation in the French Zone, particularly in the Saar.” He frankly admitted however that his principal motive was to produce some tangible result to present to the French electorate.
[Page 609]The Secretary reiterated that the proposed step if taken unilaterally was a grave one and might well mean the end of four-power collaboration in Germany. Furthermore, the Russians might well place the blame for the breakdown of such collaboration on the Western Powers with consequent harmful effect upon world opinion. Bidault admitted that his proposed move was a serious one and might, in fact, end the pretense of quadripartite collaboration but seemed unmoved by this consideration. The Secretary stated that the United States position was that all such territorial arrangements must be settled at the Peace Conference and this was the position he had taken with regard to Eastern Germany. Mr. Bidault said that he agreed entirely that the final decision should be left to the Peace Conference but said that he knew perfectly well that the Russians had no German customs barriers at Koenigsberg at the present time, so felt they could not properly complain if the French took similar measures with regard to the administration of an area of their zone.
At this point the Secretary remarked that he had never quite understood why President Bidault had not made more political capital at home out of the American proposal for a 25 or 40 year treaty to keep Germany disarmed; he did not see why M. Bidault had not proclaimed to the French public that he had obtained from the United States what Clemenceau had failed to get from Wilson. Bidault hastened to say that he had been the first and only one to give full support to Mr. Byrnes’ treaty proposal; but times had changed since the last war and conditions were different.
The Secretary then said he thought the French press had misrepresented his Stuttgart speech in several respects. For one thing, he had not blamed France for holding up the establishment of Central Administrative Agencies though this was of course the fact and no reference to this had appeared. Also, the French press had failed to emphasize that he had promised that American troops would stay in Germany as long as occupation forces were there and that his treaty permitted the retention of such forces and a corps of inspection engineers to prevent any German armament manufacturing. The French press, he continued, likewise seemed disturbed lest the Stuttgart speech meant that we were intending to establish a strong central government in Germany. On the contrary the Secretary had in mind only a loose and highly decentralized federation such as we have in our own 3 Länder at the present time.
President Bidault said that he was in no way responsible for what the French press said as anyone could gather from the comments they made about him. As regards the Central Agencies he did not wish to imply that his opposition to their establishment would continue in [Page 610] the future (i.e. after the elections). When they are established, however, he was confident that they would be the means of Soviet penetration into the Western zones. The Secretary smilingly said that is where they disagreed. President Bidault reiterated that France would make sacrifices and was prepared to compromise but not if the returns to her were zero. It was clear that the only aspect of the German problem he wished to discuss was his proposed move in the Saar.
In conclusion the Secretary said that he was anxious to do what he could at any time to help M. Bidault in his present difficult internal political situation. On the other hand, the probable consequences to four-power collaboration of the unilateral action which M. Bidault was proposing to take were so serious that he felt he must give the question some reflection. He implied that it would be difficult for the United States to acquiesce but said that he would communicate further with Mr. Bidault at an early date. He agreed that he would consider the conversation entirely confidential for the present, as President Bidault requested.