Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Eastern Europe; Soviet Union; Eastern Mediterranean, Volume VIII

750G.00/10–853: Telegram

No. 129
The Ambassador in France (Dillon) to the Department of State¹

secret
niact

Paris, October 8, 1953—1 p.m.

1386. On receiving telephonic clearance from Byington last night. Embassy officer called Margerie at 1 a.m., to tell him that we and UK wished to deliver important message re Trieste. Margerie suggested waiting morning as Bidault had retired and wished to handle the matter personally.

This morning, Bidault sent for me at 10:30, having simultaneously asked Harvey² to see him at 10 o’clock. In view of Bidault’s desire to see us separately, main explanation was made by Harvey, who left with Bidault copies of proposed press statement, as well as copies of our instructions to Belgrade and Rome.³ When I arrived, Bidault asked me if I had any message to give, and I said that my instructions had been to see him jointly with Harvey, and that the papers which he had received from Harvey were the same as contained in my instructions. Bidault then asked me to inform the State Department and the Secretary personally that he was very upset, hurt and displeased at the way in which this action had been taken. He said that he had no substantive objection to what US and UK were doing but only to the manner in which the decision had been taken. While the purely military aspects of Trieste were obviously a US–UK problem, there were serious political implications in our decision, and France should have been associated with these decisions. He could not accept the explanation that our reason for not informing the French was because of fear of a press leak. This explanation, he said, merely added insult to injury.

The basic fault in our action, he said, was that a decision originally taken by three powers, i.e., the 1948 declaration, could not be modified by a two power decision. He then said he would never be able to understand why such a highly ungracious course of action had been adopted. In spite of all this, France would give every counsel of moderation to both Belgrade and Rome, although, under the circumstances, France naturally could not assume any responsibility for the action being taken by US and UK. In no event, however, could he agree to the suggestion contained in the last paragraph of Deptel 1299,⁴ which he considered the worst part of the whole affair. He recalled that he personally had originally announced the March 20th 1948 declaration, and, clearly, he could not agree publicly to its being changed unilaterally by the US and the UK. He then said that while it would not change his feeling of chagrin, it would satisfy his intellectual curiosity if he could be told of any real reason why this action had been taken on a bipartite rather than a tripartite basis.

I told him the only information I had from Washington conformed to the press leak story given him by Harvey, but that, as an outsider who had had no part in the affair, it had occurred to me that the US Government might have had some thoughts along the lines of those indicated in paragraph 5 Deptel 1299. Bidault did not seem to think that this thought was of any importance or could be valid as an explanation, so I dropped the matter promptly.

His whole attitude during interview was one of hurt and chagrin, rather than of anger. I believe this feeling will pass if we are particularly careful of French susceptibilities in the immediate future.

Dillon

1. Repeated for information to London, Rome, Belgrade, and Moscow.
2. British Ambassador in Paris Sir Oliver Harvey.
3. The instructions to Rome were contained in Document 123. The instructions to Belgrade were contained in Document 124. The text of the press statement was transmitted to Paris in telegram 1298, Oct. 6. (750G.00/10–653) For the text of the press statement, released on Oct. 8, see infra.
4. Not printed.