890D.00/921: Telegram
The Diplomatic Agent and Consul General at Beirut (Wadsworth) to the Secretary of State
[Received 7:20 p.m.]
478. To explain the reference in the third numbered paragraph of my telegram No. 480 of November 24, 1 p.m.35a I should add the following to the brief report made in telegram 458 of November 18, 9 a.m. of my conversations of the previous day with General Catroux:
When handing him copies of my letters credence and proposed remarks I said that, while I felt sure there was nothing therein which he would not find agreeable, I should perhaps mention and explain what to him might appear to be a regrettable omission, namely an absence of recognition such as the British Government had given of a “preeminent, privileged position of France” in the Levant States.
I explained that, as he would no doubt have learned through the National Committee in London, this was a point which Monsieur Tixier had discussed informally with officials of the Department of State and with respect to which he had been informed that, in accord with our traditional policy dating from the inception of the mandate principle, the American Government could not recognize any such position as accruing to any mandatory power in any mandated territory.
He commented in substance that he quite understood that such a longstanding policy was not one from which it would be convenient for us to vary in the present circumstances, and he ended on a note which I took to give clear indication of the objective of present de Gaullist policy in this country that in the normal course of events the termination of any mandate would normally entail the conclusion and entry into effect of a treaty of alliance between the mandatory and the Government of the mandated territory.
I limited my reply to saying that I was of course aware that such a treaty had been considered quite “normal” at the time of Iraq’s admission to membership in the League of Nations.
General Spears’ views on this subject were strongly put in a despatch of September 19 to Mr. Eden (see enclosure to Gwynn’s despatch No. 545 of November 1436) where he wrote inter alia “It emerges all too clearly that their main preoccupation is not the winning of the war but the maintenance of the French position in these states and in the maintenance indefinitely regardless of the declaration of independence”. [Page 670] General Spears’ ill health prevents his receiving my call, but three members of his staff whom I have known at former posts insist there can be no two views on this subject.