851.48/104
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)
The French Ambassador17 called to see me this morning. The Ambassador expatiated at great length on the disastrous political effects which would ensue if the United States did not supply the French civilian population during the coming winter with food supplies.
I told the Ambassador that I was not in a position at this time to discuss this question with him since there were many angles to it, but that I felt it necessary to make it clear to him that this Government would not take any action which in its judgment tended to assist Germany in her present military campaign and make it easier for Germany to feed her own population by being relieved of the obligation to keep from starvation the people of the occupied countries.
[Page 550]The Ambassador insisted most vehemently that no demands of any kind had been made upon the Vichy Government for food supplies from unoccupied France.
I asked the Ambassador if he were equally satisfied that no food supplies had been taken by Germany from occupied France or that the Vichy Government had not been obliged by the German Government to send food supplies from unoccupied France to occupied France.
The Ambassador said that he was confident that all information of this character was erroneous.
I said that as a matter of information I would be glad to receive any specific and detailed statement on this point which he might care to make. The Ambassador said that he would do so.
The final argument advanced by the Ambassador as the reason why the United States should send food supplies to France was that if such food supplies were not sent, disturbances on the part of the civilian population in unoccupied France would undoubtedly take place and that the Germans would seize upon this condition as a pretext for undertaking the military occupation of unoccupied France as well as occupied France.
- Gaston Henry-Haye, who succeeded De Saint-Quentin September 11, 1940.↩