890D.01/6–445
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Acting Secretary of State
The French Ambassador called on me this afternoon and left with me a note to the President dated today,11 in which the Ambassador communicates to the President a quoted message from General de Gaulle with regard to the situation “in Syria and in the whole of the Near East”. The Ambassador said that General de Gaulle’s message was sent from Paris on June 1 and through some unexplained delay had reached him only today.
The Ambassador added that the order of the Provisional French Government to the French forces in Syria to cease fire had been sent from Paris at 11:30 p.m. on May 30, and that Churchill’s message to General de Gaulle had been received only on the afternoon of the thirty-first.
After reading the note, I observed that General de Gaulle was merely making a statement to the President, and that no inquiry was contained in the message, and I therefore assumed that General de Gaulle would not expect a reply from the President. The Ambassador said that this would depend on the President’s wishes, and that in any case he would be ready to transmit a reply if the President so desired. I said that I would transmit the note promptly to the President this afternoon.
- Infra.↩