811.73/488
The Acting Secretary of State to the Secretary of the Navy (Daniels)
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letters of December 11 and December 16, 1920,2 relative to 205 nautical miles of cable belonging to the Western Union Telegraph Company, which were reported to be on board the cable ship Stephan.
I take pleasure in informing you that information has now been received that the cable ship Stephan will not now carry the cable in question.
With reference to the last paragraph of this Department’s letter of December 11, 1920, I have the honor to state that the President on December 11, 1920, signed a permit authorizing the Cuban-American Telephone and Telegraph Company to lay, land, maintain and operate three telegraph-telephone-submarine cables at Key West Florida, connecting Key West with Habana, Cuba. As it is expected that the cable ship Stephan will lay this cable it is suggested that you may consider it desirable to bring this information [Page 699] to the attention of the Naval Officer in charge of operations at Key West so that this cable can be laid without any interference.
I have [etc.]
- Letter of Dec. 16 not printed.↩