MESSAGE FOR PRESIDENT FROM MR. CHURCHILL 
      DATED APRIL 13th 1941
 
      
 
 
"Deeply grateful for your momentous cable 
      just handed to me by Ambassador Winant. 
 
      Will cable tommorrow at greater length but have no doubt that 
      the twenty-fifth 
 
      meridian is a long step towards salvation. All your wishes about 
      handling the 
 
      matter, publicity etcetera will of course be respected.
 
      
 
 
2. Your message about Rochat's note. We are 
      delighted that the Dunquerque is not to 
 
      be moved without your agreement or at least notice being given 
      to you. It is 
 
      remarkable how they have conformed to your representations. This 
      eases the position 
 
      for the immediate future. You will not, I am sure, expect us 
      to let the French 
 
      extort our agreement to abandon our rights of contraband control 
      even over 
 
      foodstuffs just because they do not send the Dunquerque back 
      to Toulon, observing 
 
      we could probably sink this ship in transit, or failing that, 
      bomb her nightly in 
 
      Toulon harbour as we are bombing the SCHARNHORST and the GNEISENAU 
      in Brest.
 
      
 
 
3. Your declaration about the Red Sea area 
      also most helpful. We are of course going all out to 
 
      fight for the Nile Valley. No other conclusion is physically 
      possible. We have half 
 
      a million men there, or on the way, and mountains of stores. 
      All questions of 
 
      cutting the loss are ruled out. Tobruk must be held not as a 
      defensive position but 
 
      as an invaluable bridge-head on the flank of any serious bye-pass 
      advance on Egypt.