Message to the President of France on Bastille Day.

ON THE OCCASION of your national holiday, I wish to extend to you, Mr. President, and to the French people the heartiest best wishes and congratulations of the American people. I recall with particular pleasure your visit to Washington last April and the opportunity which it gave us all to further friendship of our two countries.

During the past year the French and American peoples have made heavy sacrifices for liberty. They have successfully resisted aggression. Their strength, together with that of other freedom-loving peoples, has grown steadily. The continuation of these joint efforts will assure peace because it will discourage aggression.

I wish also to congratulate you on the progress, thanks in considerable part to French initiative, in the development of a closer community relationship among the free nations of Europe and the North Atlantic community in both the economic and defense fields. These combined efforts will, I am certain, promote the stability, prosperity and strength not only of Europe, but of the entire free world.

HARRY S. TRUMAN

[His Excellency, Vincent Auriol, President of the French Republic, Paris, France]