740.0011 European War 1939/17700: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Leahy) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 20—3:45 a.m.]
1573. Embassy’s 1537, December 14, 7 p.m.53 The Foreign Office has just delivered to us a note signed by Marshal Pétain replying to the message from the President, a translation of which reads as follows:
Note for the Ambassador of the United States. December 19, 1941. The Marshal thanks the Ambassador of the United States for the message which he conveyed to him in the name of President Roosevelt. He notes the assurances given by the Government to the French Government.
The French Government is happy to note that the American Government continues to recognize fully the validity of the accord between the two Governments concerning the maintenance of the status quo in the French colonies of the Western Hemisphere.
It also notes with satisfaction the intentions of the United States Government as regards the resumption of the program of economic assistance to the territories of French North Africa. In view of the urgent needs of North Africa it would be grateful to the American Government if it would indicate the date on which this program could actually be resumed. Pétain.
Rochat, with whom we talked, as well as the person mentioned in our 1540, December 14, 9 p.m.,54 said that the Marshal’s reply had been addressed to me rather than to the President and had been carefully drafted in order to avoid giving the Germans any pretext for taking exception to it. “Obviously”, Rochat said, “they will in due course obtain its text”. Rochat went on to say that he “hoped we would read between the lines and that the program of economic assistance to North Africa would be resumed at the earliest possible moment”. “Time”, he said, “is of the utmost importance. If you could resume sending supplies and dispatch a ship to North Africa in the immediate future we would be able to use the resumption of the economic accord and our urgent North African needs which only you can fill, as an argument for resisting German demands there.”