761.94/1186
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)
The French Ambassador called to see me this afternoon. After taking up the question of representation of French interests in Moscow [Page 100] should diplomatic relations between France and the Soviet Union be severed, the Ambassador talked in his usual desultory manner about the situation in the Far East and the general situation in Europe, reading me some telegrams which his Government had sent him on those subjects, none of them containing information of any particular significance.
In so far as the Far Eastern situation was concerned, the French Government does not seem to have dispelled any of the concern earlier evinced with regard to the possibility of a Soviet-Japanese rapprochement, and the reports sent to his Government by the French Ambassador in Tokyo were replete with prophecies that the present Japanese Government would soon fall unless the Government of the United States agreed to negotiate a new commercial treaty with Japan. In the event that the Government of the United States did not take such action, the reports prophesied immediate understanding between Japan and the Soviet of a political character with resultant blockade and probable occupation of French Indochina, et cetera.