851.24/3071: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Consul General at Algiers (Wiley)

305. Personal from the President for Murphy.

“I wish our good friends in North Africa would get their feet on the ground. You can tell them that at no time did I or General Marshall promise equipment for the French divisions on any given date. What was agreed on was the principle of rearming them—to be clone as soon as we found it practicable from a shipping point of view.

You are at liberty to tell them from me also that I have the same kind of cries for help from Russia on the north route, Russia through the Persian Gulf, the British for supplies in England, the British for building up strength in Burma, the Chinese throughout China and several South American States who believe they will be bombed out of existence before the week is out. I had hoped that our French friends in Africa would not join the chorus, for the very simple reason that they can well realize that I am shipping everything that the available ships will carry.

Tell them that it is uncooperative to start stories that they are disillusioned, that they have been let down in equipping an Army to go into France, or that slowness in supplying armaments is holding up political progress. You can intimate that they ought not to be children but should act quickly in denying all these silly rumors. Tell them the whole outcry can be summed up in the French words ‘une bêtise’.

I am going ahead with their rearmament as fast as I can get it over. But, of course, it is also true that the present situation in Tunisia is necessarily affecting dates of delivery.

Give General Giraud my very warm regards and to tell all his people that they must remain calm and sensible. Roosevelt.”

Hull