772.00/10–2752
Memorandum of Telephone Conversation by the Secretary of State1
Subject:
- Tunisia
Participants:
- The Secretary
- Mr. George W. Perkins, Assistant Secretary—European Affairs
Mr. Perkins telephoned me to discuss the status of the proposed letter to Foreign Minister Schuman and the oral communication to be made by Ambassador Dunn to him.2
Mr. Perkins said that the text of the letter and the oral presentation had been telegraphed to Ambassador Dunn in Paris, and that the Ambassador had replied to the effect that it was most important to send the letter and that he would like to do so today, in anticipation of the French Cabinet meeting tomorrow. Mr. Bruce, however, had suggested that it would be advisable to delay delivery of the letter until next week so as to precede next week’s Cabinet meeting; this would reduce the possibility of leaks.
Mr. Perkins went on to say that Ambassador Dunn felt that the message to Schuman could be shortened by dropping the fourth paragraph beginning with the words “in those same conversations” (stressing our view that the General Assembly should not impose a solution but bring about an accommodation between the parties). The Ambassador also wished to drop the sixth paragraph beginning with the words “in this connection” which made the point that he would be compelled on legal grounds to vote in favor of the competence of the General Assembly to deal with the subject if the French pressed for a separate vote on this question. The Ambassador believed that this would be a very controversial point with the French and should be worked out with the French in New York.
I cautioned Mr. Perkins that we must be very careful not to leave the French under any misapprehension about our position on the matter of competence. I said that if the matter were not discussed in the letter it must be raised with the French orally so that the French would not again be disappointed. I said that I had no strong feeling as to whether the paragraph remained in the letter in its present form or whether the earlier, longer version was retained, but I thought that we had to state our position fully in such a way that if there were leaks the whole story, and not just part of it, would be revealed. We agreed that the paragraph should be left in the letter. Mr. Perkins then passed on a suggestion from Ambassador Dunn for an editorial change designed to avoid repetition of the thought that the French goal for the [Page 835] protectorates was autonomy. I agreed that it was sufficient to make this point only once in the letter.
I asked Mr. Perkins why Ambassador Dunn was reluctant to make an oral presentation. The reply was that his last experience with such a presentation had been very bad and that such a presentation did not get across to the Cabinet as a whole. I said that we needed active consultation with the French and active participation by them if we were going to work effectively in the Assembly; the French could not sit back and expect us to do all their work for them. I said that Ambassador Dunn must impress two main thoughts on M. Schuman; first, that if the French insist on focusing the discussion on a motion that the Assembly is not competent, the discussion of the French record in North Africa would tend to be subordinated to that motion and, second, that we could not be very effective in helping the French if we had to say that despite the fine French record in the Protectorates we were going to have to vote against them on such a motion. I pointed out that it was precisely this possibility that had led me in the letter to hedge on my own participation in the debate. I believed that the French could not get the full picture on this point unless both the oral and written presentations were made. I also said that if it were possible to delay the presentations until the end of the week, that would be most desirable.
- This memorandum of conversation was drafted by Popper.↩
- See footnote 2, infra.↩