362.115 St 21/125: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in France (Wallace)
529. For Wallace and Rathbone. Your 684, March 11, R–108 [sic].75
According to alleged special news cable from Paris, March 8, printed in Washington Post, French Government has lodged vigorous protest with Reparations Commission against further detention in England of tankers and “demands that the Reparations Commission request a reply from Washington whether the United States will forego her objections within 15 days, in default of which the Reparations Commission will be asked to turn these ships over to France as a part of the French reparations for losses of French tonnage during the war.”
For Wallace:
Department is not informed whether above was from inspired sources or, if so, whether it was issued without knowledge of proposal contained in Department’s 438. Should the matter come up for discussion before Council of Ambassadors, and a claim for tankers be made by France or other Government, you may call attention to the fact that aside from the voting stock, the attempted sale of which to German interests was held void by the American Alien Property Custodian in 1918, the Standard Oil Company, in addition, has a financial interest in the German Company amounting to over seven-eighths of the value of its total assets. You may also call attention to this Government’s proposal in its 438, and particularly to paragraph (f) and state that in view of practically complete American interests in tankers, this proposal represents the utmost concession that the United States is prepared to make. You may add that this Government can not consent that legal or equitable interests of its citizens can be used to indemnify another power, or its citizens, for losses inflicted by Germany.
- Not printed.↩