Office of the Historian

711.51/205a: Telegram

The Acting Secretary of State to the Consul at Nouméa (MacVitty)

Washington, February 23, 1942—4 p.m.

31. You are requested immediately to call upon the High Commissioner to make the following statement in the name of the United States Government.

“The policy of the Government of the United States as regards France and French territory has been based upon the maintenance of the integrity of France and of the French Empire and of the eventual restoration of the complete independence of all French territories. Mindful of its traditional friendship for France, this Government deeply sympathizes not only with the desire of the French people to maintain their territories intact but with the efforts of the French people to continue to resist the forces of aggression. In its relations with the local French authorities in French territories the United States has been and will continue to be governed by the manifest effectiveness with which those authorities endeavor to protect their territories from domination and control by the common enemy.

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With the French authorities in effective control of French territories in the Pacific this Government has treated and will continue to treat on the basis of their actual administration of the territories involved. This Government recognizes, in particular, that French island possessions in that area are under the effective control of the French National Committee established in London and the United States authorities are cooperating for the defense of these islands with the authorities established by the French National Committee and with no other French authority. This Government appreciates the importance of New Caledonia in the defense of the Pacific area.”

You may leave a copy of this statement with the High Commissioner for whatever use he may desire to make of it. The Free French delegate in Washington, who has also received a copy, has been asked to arrange that no publicity be given to the statement either here or in London until after it has been made public in New Caledonia.73

Welles
  1. The text of this statement was made public by the High Commissioner of New Caledonia on February 28, 1942; for press release issued by the Department of State March 2, see Department of State Bulletin, March 7, 1942, p. 208.↩