862.24/655: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Leahy) to the Secretary of State
[Received 1:08 p.m.]
511. The following note, dated April 4, and signed by Darlan, has been received in reply to our note embodying the Department’s telegram no. 199 [198], March 22, 4 p.m.
“In a note dated March 24 Your Excellency informed me that the American Government, in consideration of the assurances given by the French Government in its communication of March 14, is prepared to resume the operation of the program of supplying North Africa by authorizing the loading of two French vessels now in New York ‘under the same conditions that have governed the previous voyages’ of these vessels.
Your Excellency adds however that ‘The French Government will appreciate that the continued operation of this service will be governed by conditions existing at the time of possible further scheduled sailings which must involve an adjustment of the problem presented by the existence in North Africa of strategic materials such as cobalt and rubber.’
Furthermore, and in response to a request made in the French Government’s communication of March 14, Your Excellency again defined in the nature of the Federal Government the position of the United States and stated that the American Government fully respected the rights and the interests of France in different parts of the world.
I have the honor to inform Your Excellency that the French Government takes note of the assurances given by the American Government by virtue of which the lie de Noirmoutier and the He d’Ouessant now in New York will be despatched with their cargoes at the same time as the Aldebaran and the Ile de Ré leave Casablanca for New York. With regard to the further operation of the supply agreement detailed instructions have been sent by the French Government to its Ambassador at Washington. I am communicating the substance of these instructions to Your Excellency by separate note and I should be obliged were he to intervene with his Government with a view to securing a favorable reception on the part of the American Government to the proposals made in this connection by the French Government.” (Copy of this separate note which we understand to be merely a repetition of Henry-Haye’s instructions is being sent to the Department by air mail despatch).
Lastly I take note of Your Excellency’s statement defining the position of the United States with regard to French sovereignty and take occasion to call [recall?] that from both the political and juridical standpoints the French state is alone entitled to exercise the rights of French sovereignty in all the territories constituting its Empire.”