Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957, Africa, Volume XVIII

192. Telegram From the Embassy in France to the Department of State¹

Paris, May 28, 1956—1 p.m.

5604. Reference: Deptel 4429.² During discussion with Savary (Embtel 5499)³ he assured me that we should draw no implications from exclusion of base agreements in diplomatic convention excepting that Moroccans desired to have opportunity to discuss this matter thoroughly and neither Moroccans nor French wished to hold up diplomatic convention for such negotiation, which will surely be difficult and may be long.

Agreements which Moroccans automatically accepted were host of run of the mill diplomatic agreements covering such things as citizenship, copyrights and various economic matters which France had concluded in the name of the Moroccan Government. Base agreements clearly did not fall in this category and I presume that United States accepted this situation with eyes open when they were concluded in 1950. At that time base agreements were concluded with France as the power having sole authority for the defense of Morocco and as such agreements were purely Franco-American agreements and were not concluded in the name of the Sherifian Empire as was the case with the automatic run of the mill diplomatic conventions.

I saw Massigli this morning and he fully confirmed fact that no implications should be read into omission of base agreements in diplomatic convention except obvious fact that status of bases must be negotiated with Moroccans both by France and by United States. At same time Massigli gave me an informal memo, rough translation of which follows:

. . . . . . .

Massigli dwelt particularly on the first point in the memorandum regarding military aid to Moroccan forces. He pointed out that France had made a very considerable effort in giving the Moroccans equipment for their army and that they were prepared to continue to equip Moroccan army as necessary.

Therefore, they would find it very unpleasant if the United States should attempt to interfere in this field by offering military assistance to the Moroccans. The same considerations will also apply in the case of Tunisia.

Comment: I feel that this French point is very well taken and consider it important that all our military and diplomatic representatives who are apt to be in touch with the Moroccans on this subject be clearly instructed not to hold out any hopes to Moroccans for United States military aid. In addition to its bearing on relations with French this would seem to be most important from United States budgetary point of view.

Regarding Point 2C, I told Massigli that I was in full agreement with him as to advisability of insisting that our base negotiations with Moroccans be conducted on a tri-lateral basis. As a result of conversation here with Holmes I also told Massigli that Holmes shared the view that it would be preferable if negotiations could be kept on a trilateral basis.⁴ I pointed out, however, that the recent history of Franco Moroccan negotiations had shown it was not always possible to operate in the way that would be best and that it might be that the Moroccans would create a situation which could force both US and the French into purely bilateral negotiations. In this event I said that I was sure that United States would want to keep in the closest possible touch with the French so that we would be in effect conducting the negotiations jointly. Massigli said that he fully agreed and that this was basic objective of the memorandum which he had just given me.

I asked Massigli what his ideas were on time schedule and he replied he thought that we should move rapidly on the base question and commence negotiations with the Moroccans as soon as possible. In response to a specific question of mine he said he did not think it necessary to tie the conclusion of an agreement regarding the bases to the. completion of the overall Franco-Moroccan negotiations regarding the defense of Morocco. He felt the base question should be handled separately and on a priority basis.

Dillon

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 651.71/5–2856. Secret. Repeated to Rabat and Tangier.
2. In telegram 4429, May 25, the Department sought French interpretation of the exchange of letters between Morocco and France of May 20, whereby Morocco reserved its position with respect to the Franco-American Base Agreement of December 22, 1950. The apparent implications of this action disturbed the Department though, in general, it approved of Morocco’s diplomatic independence. (Ibid., 651.71/5–2256)
3. In telegram 5499, Dillon reported on May 22 that Savary provided him with the text of the Franco-Moroccan diplomatic agreement plus the texts of the accompanying letters. (Ibid.)
4. In telegram 572 from Tangier, May 31, Holmes commented that the French effectively eliminated themselves from participation in future negotiations by agreeing to exclude the base agreements from their diplomatic convention with Morocco. (Ibid., 651.71/5–3156)