File No. 763.72112/3983
The Acting Secretary of State to the Consul General at Rio de Janeiro ( Gottschalk)
Your July 9, 5 p.m. You will explain to the British Consul that Department’s instructions to cooperate with consular officers of the Governments opposed to Germany did not contemplate more than an exchange of information and that therefore until the attitude of this Government with reference to trading with enemy nationals in neutral countries shall have been fully formulated and you shall have received full instructions you cannot take formal part with representatives of Governments opposed to Germany in measures of a commercial nature aimed at German subjects in neutral countries or influence the American Chambers of Commerce to do so. Meanwhile you should keep yourself informally in touch with committees and transmit such information as you may gather about their plans as well as about enemy activity.
[For a statement by the Ambassador in Great Britain that “Williams, commercial attaché, is working admirably with the Ministry of Blockade on all questions that fall to that department,” see his telegram 6761, July 18, 1917, Volume I, page 604.]