Editorial Note
The French Government replied to the American note of May 12 with one of its own on May 30. The French note, translated by the Embassy in France and sent to the Department in telegram 7355, May 30, was handed to Minister Bohlen by Parodi. The French note expressed surprise and displeasure at what seemed to be an abandonment by Washington of its October 1950 commitment of $200 million in military aid supplementary to and therefore in addition to the economic aid upon which the French Government had been firmly counting and upon which it had projected its 1951 budget. At no time during the many discussions between French and American officials in Paris and Washington between October and early May had the United States given any indication that it had decided to change or modify its initial aid commitment, the French note continued, but, in light of the American note of May 12, the French Government could only conclude that the United States had indeed changed its policy on French economic assistance and would not fulfill its October 1950 commitment to France. The American decision to cut aid to France could only produce the gravest repercussions, the French note concluded, since the French Government had already presented to Parliament a particularly heavy civil and military budget whose satisfactory execution could not be achieved, short of a serious danger of domestic inflation, if [Page 393] contemplated financial aid for economic recovery and rearmament failed to materialize from the United States. (751.5–MAP/5–3051)