861.77 Chinese Eastern/520: Telegram
The Chargé in France (Armour) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 1—10:30 a.m.]
540. I have communicated to the Foreign Office your telegrams Nos. 392, November 30, 7 p.m., and 393, November 30, 8 p.m. The French Government will be glad to transmit on behalf of our Government through the French Ambassador at Moscow to the Soviet Government the statement contained in your telegram No. 393. Furthermore, the French Government, as I informed you in my telegram 535, November 28, noon, agreeing in principle with our proposal, wishes itself to make a similar statement as requested in paragraph 7 of your telegram 384, November 26, 2 p.m.41 However, today is Sunday and the Minister of Foreign Affairs being absent from Paris it will be impossible to have such a statement prepared [Page 369] and forwarded to Russia and China before tomorrow at the earliest. The Foreign Office feels that if the two statements might be made simultaneously to China and Russia and published together they would have a greater effect. So far as the effect on the Soviet Government is concerned they pointed out, and I am sure you will agree, that the presentation of the American statement by the French Ambassador on one day to be followed, say a day later, by a statement from his own Government, if it did not give rise to misinterpretation, would at any rate be less effective than his presenting the two statements simultaneously.
In view of the above the French Government asks (1) whether we will not delay the publication of the statement set for the morning of Monday, December 2nd, until the morning of Tuesday, December 3rd, at the earliest, and (2) whether they may delay the transmission of our statement to the Soviet Government until it can be forwarded together with their own (presumably they would appreciate our delaying the delivery of our statement to the Chinese Government also until their statement could be communicated simultaneously).
I have assumed the responsibility of informing the Foreign Office that it may delay the transmission of our statement to Moscow until I have received a reply to this telegram which I hope you will be able to send me in time to be communicated to the Foreign Office tomorrow. May I express my own personal recommendation that this apparently reasonable request be granted, particularly as it is after all occasioned by a desire to comply with the suggestions contained in paragraph 7 of your telegram 384, November 26, 2 p.m., and the last sentence of paragraph numbered 1 of your telegram No. 392, November 30, 7 p.m.