The Counselor for the Department of State to the German Ambassador (Bernstorff)
My Dear Mr. Ambassador: In reply to your memorandum of the 20th instant, and your note of the 21st transmitting two copies of the key to the cipher to be used in sending messages to your Government via Tuckerton, and two messages for conveyance by this means to your Government,1 I would inform you that these two messages have been forwarded to Tuckerton for transmittal in the usual course.
Inasmuch as the censor who will be entrusted with the use of the cipher will be stationed at Tuckerton, and as the transmittal of messages to Tuckerton would be greatly facilitated by telegraphing them in plain English, I have to request you to advise me whether there is any objection to telegraphing the messages between Washington and Tuckerton in the English language, the cipher being used between Tuckerton and Berlin.
In order that these messages may be expedited I would also request that the Department be furnished with duplicate copies of the messages for transmittal and that these messages be signed by some member of your Embassy.
It is understood, of course, that these messages will be received and transmitted by this Government in accordance with the regulations issued by the Navy Department under the Executive order of September 5 last, copies of which I understand have been communicated to your Embassy.2
I am [etc.]
- Note and messages not printed.↩
- Foreign Relations, 1914, Supplement, p. 678.↩