740.0011 PW/3–1345: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Caffery) to the Secretary of State
[Received March 14—1:23 p.m.]
1196. General de Gaulle12 asked me to come to see him at 6. He spoke in very quiet, affable, friendly fashion, but this is what he said: “We have received word that our troops still fighting in Indochina have appealed for aid to your military authorities in China and the British military authorities in Burma. We have received word that they replied that under instructions no aid could be sent.[”] They were given to understand that the British simply followed our lead.
He said also that several expeditionary forces for Indochina had been prepared: Some troops were in North Africa, some in southern France and some in Madagascar, and the British had promised to transport them but at the last minute they were given to understand that owing to American insistence they could not transport them. He observed: “This worries me a great deal for obvious reasons and it comes at a particularly inopportune time. As I told Mr. Hopkins13 when he was here, we do not understand your policy. What are you driving at? Do you want us to become, for example, one of the federated states under the Russian aegis? The Russians are advancing apace as you well know. When Germany falls they will be upon us. If the public here comes to realize that you are against us in Indochina there will be terrific disappointment and nobody knows to what that will lead. We do not want to become Communist; we do not want to fall into the Russian orbit, but I hope that you do not push us into it.”
He then went on to say that difficulties were being created too in regard to the promised armament—difficulties he could not understand unless that were part of our policy too. I told him I had been given to understand that the armament was arriving here as promised.
In any event, I said, I would telegraph at once to Washington all that he had said.