861.48/1818a: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the High Commissioner at Constantinople (Bristol)
3. The Department concurs in your orders from Navy of January 12 concerning cooperation with American Relief Administration in the Black Sea. Department, with concurrence of Navy, desires to emphasize the importance of keeping at the minimum consistent with effective relief operations the appearance of naval vessels in Soviet ports and contact of naval officers with Soviet authorities. Haskell, representing American Relief Administration at Moscow, is being instructed by Mr. Hoover to inform the highest Soviet authorities that any assistance rendered by American naval vessels in the Black Sea is in the interest of expeditious handling of relief shipments only and is in no sense a gesture by the American Government. The Soviet authorities are to notify their chief Black Sea ports of the possibility of the arrival of American destroyers in the near future and to explain the circumstances under which they come. Haskell is to say that if, after such notification, the Soviet press misinterprets the purely humanitarian assistance which these vessels aim to give the relief shipments, the Navy will immediately withdraw the vessels and relief operations will be handicapped accordingly. Relief Administration is suggesting to its officials, moreover, that merchant ships be used for transporting personnel from Constantinople to Black Sea ports whenever possible, destroyers to be kept in reserve for cases of emergency.