Memorandum by the Special Assistant to the President ( Elsey ) to the President
Memorandum for the President
Subject: U.S. Treaty Rights in Morocco2
The current appropriation act for the European Recovery Program provides that after November 1, 1950, none of the funds for [Page 1754] ECA may be used for aid “to any nation of which a dependent area fails, in the opinion of the President, to comply with any treaty to which the United States and such dependent area are parties.”
The purpose of this provision (inserted by the Congress) was to force France to comply with certain treaty rights which a group of American businessmen, who have been operating in French Morocco since World War II, claim have been violated.
In response to this rider, France has now filed an application with the International Court of Justice at The Hague for adjudication of U.S. treaty rights in Morocco.
It is anticipated that the same business groups which were responsible for the insertion of the anti-French provision will bring pressure to bear for the President to block ECA aid to France on the grounds that France is not living up to the Moroccan treaty.
It is the combined recommendation of the Department of State and all other interested agencies that, because the matter is now before the International Court, the President make no finding, and take no action under the terms of the new provision until after the matter has been adjudicated by the International Court.
A proposed State Department press release on this subject is attached for your information.3
Respectfully,
- In the Harry S. Truman Library at Independence, Mo.↩
- According to a memorandum to Elsey by Theodore Tannenwald, Jr., of the Executive Office of the White House, dated October 17, Tannenwald thought that this subject should be cleared with the President because of the substantive point contained in the last paragraph of the press release under reference (see footnote 3 below). (Truman Library, Elsey Papers)↩
- Not attached to the source text, however, see Annex B to the memorandum by Acheson, October 27, p. 1757.↩