Office of the Historian

474.00 R 29/122

The Ambassador in France (Herrick) to the Secretary of State

Paris, June 28, 1928.
[Received July 7.]

Reparation

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the Department’s letter, dated June 12, 1928 (EA 474.00 R 29/116),5a transmitting for my information a translation of a note, dated May 21, 1928, from the Greek Minister at Washington requesting that the Powers signatory to the Agreement of January 14, 1925, agree to a new division of Bulgarian Reparation payments, together with a copy of the Department’s reply of June 12th.

The Department states that it will probably not desire to sign any agreement which may eventually be reached for the distribution of Bulgarian payments, and invites my comments in the matter.

[Page 1037]

As pointed out in the Department’s letter under reference, it is clear that when we signed the Agreement of January 14, 1925, we undertook no commitment as to the obligations of other Governments, since commitments between the Allied Governments are specifically so described in the Agreement, and wherever we are concerned specific reference in the text of the Agreement is made to the United States. Further, as I pointed out in my letter of April 20, 1928,6 regarding the official notification to me by the Reparation Commission of its action in regard to the 10th Bulgarian Reparation payment, we are, in fact, not interested in the Bulgarian Reparation payments: we were not at war with Bulgaria, and any claim we might have had under the Wadsworth Agreement7 upon payments made by Bulgaria was waived under the January 14, 1925, Agreement.

In view of the foregoing, I am in entire accord with the Department’s opinion that it is not desirable for us to sign any Agreement which may be reached for the distribution of Bulgarian payments.

I note that the Greek Government in its communication of May 21, 1928, reserves the right to request that the share of Greece, set by the Spa Agreement at 12.7%, be increased in view of certain considerations set forth in the note. The Greek share referred to seems clearly intended to mean that in non-German Reparations, and not the 0.4% share in German Reparations, fixed in paragraph A, Article 7, of the January 14, 1925, Agreement.

The Department will recall that in a letter, dated January 26, 1925, addressed to the Secretariat General of the Conference of Finance Ministers8 which resulted in the signature of the Agreement of January 14, 1925, by the representatives of the Belgian, French, British, Italian and Japanese Governments on the Conference’s Committee of Experts (Annex 2280 bis, page 35), it was stated, as regards Article 7 of the Agreement, that the Reparation percentages attributed to Greece and Roumania on non-German Reparations would also apply, in conformity with Article 2 of the Spa Agreement, to any sums received on account of the so-called Liberation Bonds. It would seem clear, however, that any Agreement reached by the other Powers altering the Greek share in non-German Reparations could not have any effect upon our rights as concerns the Liberation Bonds.

I have [etc.]

For the Ambassador:
Edwin C. Wilson
  1. Not printed.↩
  2. Not printed.↩
  3. The Army Costs Agreement of May 25, 1923; Foreign Relations, 1923, vol. ii, p. 180.↩
  4. Not printed.↩