881.00/8–1745: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Caffery) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 18—3:54 a.m.]
4988. From Villard. Concerning legislative assembly we proposed yesterday that this assembly not be reconstituted during the provisional Tangier regime. The British proposed that the legislative assembly be made consultative in character.
[Page 637]After some discussion in which the French delegation insisted as an example of democratic processes on the reconstitution of the original assembly with adequate American and Soviet representation, the French stated that the limit of their concession in this regard would be a provision in the agreement relating to the provisional regime according to which “the committee of control may at any time by an ordinance adopted by a majority of two-thirds, decide on matters which enter according to the terms of the Statute within the attributes of the legislative assembly. These ordinances thus rendered would be promulgated, published and executed in the same manner as similar acts of the assembly.” We believe the French proposal offers a reasonable compromise with adoption if possible of suggestions contained in Dept’s 3675 August 4.
Question of the number of American and Soviet members of the legislative assembly has not yet been determined but the thinking of the Conference is a distribution of the seats among nationals of the powers participating in the regime as follows: France 4, Spain if admitted 4, US, Great Britain and USSR 3 with 1 for each of the other powers participating in the regime.
Repeated Tangier as 40, copies sent by pouch to Moscow as 223, London as 603 and Madrid as 322. [Villard.]