File No. 654.119/102

The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain ( Page )3

[Telegram]

6298. Referring further to Department’s 6258, January 15, 8 p.m., you are instructed after showing this cable to Sheldon to make formal representations to Foreign Office to the following effect:

[Page 1597]

The action taken at inter-Allied conference was to the clear effect that the Allies guaranteed 30,000 tons bread grains per month to Switzerland for eight months. This guarantee could be fulfilled either by the delivery in France by Wheat Executive or by allocation of tonnage, and in no other way. We are unable to regard the suggested British interpretation of Paris action as merely guaranteeing Switzerland the right to buy abroad 30,000 tons per month as anything else than an indefensible misconstruction of the clear meaning of Paris action. We made suggestion that 60,000 tons be turned over by Wheat Executive and tonnage sent to Argentine for balance. If fulfillment is deserted by Allies and left to us on the ground that this is purely an agreement between United States and Switzerland, we will be compelled to withdraw this grain from our allocations to Allies and take ships out of Allied service into Swiss-grain trade. Since undertaking must be carried out if Switzerland is not to be driven into arms of Germany, it is important to have Allies fulfill undertaking rather than to have United States fulfill it independently, since Switzerland will regard England and France as having turned back on them and passed responsibility to United States.

Polk
  1. Repeated by telegram No. 1366 on the same date, to the Chargé in Switzerland, for his information, with added sentence: “Substance of this telegram has been communicated to the Swiss Minister here.”