Office of the Historian

893.51/6905: Telegram

The Ambassador in France (Bullitt) to the Secretary of State

Paris, June 6, 1939—5 p.m.
[Received June 6—3 p.m.]

1076. Personal for the Secretary. When I talked with Leger37 this morning I asked him if the negotiations of the French Government with the Chinese Government for a loan to support the Chinese currency and for a credit for purchase of railroad equipment and factory equipment in France had been brought to a successful conclusion.

Leger replied that Bonnet38 had been opposing the conclusion of these agreements. Bonnet seems to be using at the present time a conversation which Ambassador Saint-Quentin had had with you as the basis for his argument that France should not give China at this time either the currency loan or the credit.

Saint-Quentin’s report of his conversation with you according to Leger indicated that the Government of the United States believed that France should do nothing at the present time which might incur the displeasure of the Japanese Government because the Government of the United States believed that by following a policy of appeasement with the Japanese Government it might be possible to detach Japan from its relations with Germany and Italy.

I said to Leger that I had no information whatsoever with regard to your conversation with Saint-Quentin; but I believed that the French Ambassador must have misinterpreted your thoughts.

I called Leger’s attention to the fact that Bonnet had said to me on July 6th last and on August 5 last (see my telegrams No. 1077, July 7, noon,39 and No. 1228, August 5, 11 p.m.40) that if the American Government should consent to give a loan to China the British and French Governments would follow suit. I added that I felt certain that you could not have intended to convey the idea that the Government of the United States believed that France should not now grant the loan and credit which had been promised to the Chinese Government.

I am sending you this information in the form of a personal telegram because I feel that you might possibly wish to send for Saint-Quentin and say to him that our Government far from opposing a loan and credit from France to China would welcome the granting of [Page 672] such assistance by the French Government and that we had not forgotten the statements in this regard of Bonnet to me on July 6 and 17, 1938.

Bullitt
  1. A. Léger, Secretary General of the French Foreign Office.↩
  2. Georges Bonnet, French Minister for Foreign Affairs.↩
  3. Foreign Relations, 1938, Vol. iii, p. 534.↩
  4. Not printed.↩