851.30/181: Telegram
The Chargé in France (Tuck) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 3—5 p.m.]
967. I saw Laval this afternoon at 4 o’clock and delivered the message contained in your 411 July 3, 1 a.m. Rochat was present and Admiral Auphan was hurriedly summoned.
[Page 215]Laval’s immediate reaction was one of extreme annoyance. He characterized our suggestion as “injurious and insulting” and remarked that the President must have a very curious conception of French honor. He then asked me whether this message constituted a reply to his two communications to me of July 1 (Embassy’s 956 July 1, 7 p.m.) and of July 2 (Embassy’s 962 July 2, 7 p.m.). I replied that the message from my Government made a reference only to the communication which he had made to me on July 1. He requested me to forward a reply to my Government of which the following is a close translation.
“Mr. Tuck delivered today at 4 o’clock to the Chief of the Government an American note. This note is drawn up in terms so inacceptable that the French Government is forced to believe that it does not constitute an answer to the aide-mémoire which was delivered yesterday—July 2—to the American Chargé d’Affaires.
Before delivery [of] a suitable reply to this note the Chief of the French Government has asked Mr. Tuck to question his Government on this point.”
Laval considered that our suggestion and offer to the French Government was beyond all reason. Why he asked was our Government averse to the French Fleet in Alexandria proceeding to a French port? France had originally with difficulty obtained German agreement to retain these ships in Alexandria and we were now suggesting that the French Government should take action contrary to the Armistice Convention, while at the same time we continuously insisted upon the strict observance of the terms of that Convention.
I said that if I had understood him and Admiral Auphan correctly, their main preoccupation was to preserve these ships for the French Navy and that the proposal made by our President did in effect guarantee their return to France at the end of the war. Laval stated that the French Government could under no circumstance accept our suggestion and that he hoped that when our Government had had time to review the message which he had delivered to me on July 2 and which embodied the communications received from the Armistice Commissions at Wiesbaden and Turin, it would be prepared to reconsider its position. It was for this reason that he would limit himself for the time being to the reply above quoted.