711.51/227
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Secretary of State
The British Ambassador called at his request.
I said that among other matters coming to my attention since my return was the information I had received yesterday to the effect that Foreign Minister Eden had notified Canada that it would be agreeable for her to cease diplomatic relations with the Vichy Government, and in effect he indicated there was no further occasion for diplomatic connections. I commented that it probably would have been very advisable [Page 180] to have had a conference or an exchange of views between the British, the Canadian and the United States Governments on this whole question relating to the Vichy and the French situation with a view to salvaging whatever might be possible in this respect to the advantage of the governments associated in the war against the Axis. I said that, of course, this was a matter for the British and Canadian Governments to pass on and I was not undertaking to make suggestions with respect thereto, especially at this late date. I added that it would apparently not be possible for the United States Government long to keep up diplomatic contacts with the Vichy Government after Canada had rebuffed that Government, and especially since the British propaganda agencies continue their past policy of making it appear that the British Government is not only opposed to American diplomatic relations with Vichy but that in some respects those relations are of a sinister nature relating as they do to Hitler and Hitlerism and the Vichy Government conducted in whole or in part by pro-Hitler Frenchmen. The Ambassador immediately began to urge that we not dissolve relations with the Vichy Government for different reasons and I repeated that we, of course, could not be left out on a limb by ourselves very long in the circumstances I had described.
The Ambassador said he proposed to take this matter up with Eden at once. I replied that that was a matter for them to determine among themselves; that I was merely commenting on the situation as it was presented at this time.