124.51/154: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Bullitt) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 7—4:15 a.m.]
17. Your 683, 29th. I presume you refer to facilities granted me at Paris. German authorities permitted freedom of movement in the Paris area for me and my staff. There is local telephone and postal service but at time of my departure86 there was no long distance or telegraph service and no mail service outside the occupied territory. The Minister in charge of the reopened German Embassy informed me that he would accept for transmission via Berlin a limited number of clear telegrams but that courier service could not be permitted. The German Embassy requested that we communicate with the German authorities through its medium. The German Embassy also agreed to accept letters to our Embassy in Berlin containing whereabouts and welfare telegrams for transmission to the Department. A number of such letters were handed the German Embassy but we do not know whether they were ever received by our Embassy in Berlin.
Every facility was granted to communicate American citizens in the Paris region. By and large American property has been respected and our citizens not molested. The Embassy has issued approximately 700 certificates which have been affixed to business and residential properties owned or controlled by our nationals. As far as we are able to ascertain these have been respected by the German [Page 447] military. Several American organizations such as the American hospital, the American church, the American Red Cross, et cetera, continue to function and a small number of American business organizations are resuming activity.
- Mr. Bullitt left Paris June 29 to visit the American Embassy near the French Government in the vicinity of Clermont-Ferrand. Soon after, he crossed border into Spain and on July 16 left Lisbon, Portugal, by clipper for Washington for consultation with Department. He remained in the United States, submitting his resignation November 7, which was not accepted until January 7, 1941.↩