800.51W89 France/1057: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Bullitt) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 1—4:15 p.m.]
1177. Continuing my 1176, December 1, 6 p.m. I pointed out to him as I had pointed out to Delbos that this particular “egg” could not in my opinion be “unscrambled” from the Mellon-Berenger agreement.40 I pointed out further that the United States in my opinion could not accept a payment of this sort as a specific payment on account of the “war stocks” but could only hold it in a special fund against the unpaid amount due us under the Mellon-Berenger agreement. I went over the exact amounts due to us under that agreement and asked him if he thought there was the faintest possibility of the French Chamber and Senate accepting a proposal which also would be acceptable to the American Congress.
He replied that he did not.
I then cautioned him against stirring up bad blood by starting polemics on both sides of the Atlantic on the subject of the debt. He finally said: “You mean that you think we should make no offer whatsoever?”
I replied that I did not mean that but that I felt any offer made must be a very serious one and that the worst thing that could happen for relations between our two countries would be a public reopening of debt conversations which would lead to ultimate disagreement.
[Page 588]He thereupon asked me to discuss the matter further with him and Minister of Finance Auriol. I said that I would be glad to do so.
- For the negotiations between the Secretary of the Treasury and the French mission charged with the settlement of the French war debt to the United States, see Combined Annual Reports of the World War Foreign Debt Commission, 1922–1926, p. 44; for text of agreement see ibid., p. 257.↩