890D.00/913: Telegram
The Minister in Egypt (Kirk) to the Secretary of State
[Received September 10—11:41 a.m.]
1604. My 1573, September 5, 11 a.m.67 In a conversation with Casey today he told me that the original of de Gaulle’s message quoted in Gwynn’s telegram September 1, 1 p.m.,68 reached him only 3 days ago and that a reply was being sent today. In brief this reply stated that he was at a loss to understand de Gaulle’s contention that the military direction of the Allied Forces in Syria and Lebanon be transferred to the French Command as from all information and statistics available the preponderance of forces lies with the British and that, consequently, the prerequisite to the contingency set forth in the Lyttelton–de Gaulle agreement is not established.
Casey added that the situation in that area was a source of serious preoccupation to him, but that so far no recent step with a view to settling Franco-British relations there basically had been initiated other than suggesting that de Gaulle proceed to London to see Churchill. To that suggestion de Gaulle has so far given an evasive reply and the matter of Casey’s visit to Beirut is still apparently regarded unfavorably in British circles partially on the basis of the [Page 632] question of prestige involved which would favor de Gaulle’s proceeding here instead.
I observed to Casey that the most immediately serious aspect of this matter, as I personally saw it, was that de Gaulle, in one of his most extreme flights of emotion might commit himself to a point beyond which there could be no turning back and that under the circumstances I did not see why considerations of prestige should preclude Casey from making a flying trip to Beirut in an effort to bring de Gaulle to reason before it is too late. I added, as my personal opinion, that it was high time to recall to de Gaulle that the efforts to [of?] Fighting France would be for naught unless its integration with the United Nations was maintained and that this stubborn insistence at this time on present, on post-war trend problems in the Levant States was only serving to jeopardize the Allied war effort and place him in the position of furthering the very designs which had caused him to break with the Vichy Government.
Casey said he had just sent one of his senior officials to Beirut “to feel out the situation”, but that as matters stood he himself could not go without London’s sanction.