800.51 W 89Rumania/79: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Chargé in Rumania (Riggs)
45. Your 67, July 27, 11 a.m. For Culbertson. The Department does not regard the oral statement communicated to Mr. Riggs by Rumanian Minister for Foreign Affairs as satisfactory reply to its several communications to the Government of Rumania on the subject of that Government’s indebtedness to the United States, and the Department would be glad to have you remain a few days in Bucharest if you think your influence informally exerted would be effective in eliciting more satisfactory statement from Government of Rumania.
You will appreciate that Department desires to have written reply to its notes that gives definite information on date of departure of the debt mission and contains assurances that mission will have sufficient authority to negotiate and agree upon suitable arrangement of debt funding with the World War Foreign Debt Commission. Department feels no useful purpose would be served by sending mission composed exclusively of technical experts without authority to negotiate an agreement; this information may be informally communicated to Rumanian Government.
Mr. Winston, Acting Secretary of the Treasury, informed Rumanian Chargé, in reply to latter’s inquiry, that we would be prepared to receive the Rumanian debt mission in September, if it were duly empowered to act, and that burden of showing incapacity to pay in accordance with terms of British settlement is responsibility of the debtor. The showing should be such as will be persuasive upon American Congress, since any settlement must be approved by that body.