851.4061 Motion Pictures/213: Telegram

The Ambassador in France (Straus) to the Secretary of State

602. Referring to Department’s telegram No. 280, July 15, 1 p.m., the moving picture interests have apparently misinterpreted Mr. Harold Smith’s30 telegram to them which was designed merely to secure the added force of instructions from the Department. Ever since the discriminatory amendment to the cinema detaxation project was introduced the Embassy has been in almost daily touch with Smith and has made repeated representations in the matter. The rumor is inexact that Council of Ministers approved the decree law on July 9 and that it took effect on July 16. (See my despatch No. 2007, of July 1131).

Upon the receipt of the Department’s telegram under acknowledgment the Embassy again discussed the subject with the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in the sense of the instruction. Moreover, I today handed Monsieur Laval’s32 Chief of Cabinet a memorandum of the conversation embodying the Department’s objections. He stated that he was familiar with the matter and would do what he could.

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It appears that the amendment is still the subject of warm debate and that both Foreign Affairs and Commerce are doing their utmost to secure the deletion of the discriminatory provision but that Lafont (Minister of Public Health and author of the amendment) and probably the Minister of Education backed by powerful pressure from certain French cinema interests are so strongly insistent upon retention of the amendment as to place the final issue in doubt.

Straus
  1. European representative of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Inc.
  2. Not printed.
  3. Pierre Laval, French Minister for Foreign Affairs.