711.684/15
The Minister in Greece (Skinner) to the Secretary of State
[Received March 15.]
Sir: I have the honor to refer to the Department’s telegram No. 14 of February 23, 6 p.m., inquiring whether the Hellenic Government [Page 29] is prepared to negotiate a naturalization treaty, and to my reply, No. 14, dated February 25, 11 a.m., indicating unwillingness on the part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to do so at the present time. Since thus telegraphing to the Department, I have had another conversation with Mr. Michalakopoulos, and have pointed out to him at some length that failure to regulate the status of Greeks now residing in the United States is operating in a manner highly disadvantageous to the Greek nation, besides creating innumerable personal complaints not calculated, certainly, to improve international relations.
Mr. Michalakopoulos took some pains to explain the hard and fast, and rather foolish, attitude of the military authorities towards this question, and struck me, personally, as really desirous of meeting our wishes. At all events, when I told him that we had already a naturalization treaty with Bulgaria48 and similar treaties with a great many other countries, he asked me to give him a memorandum mentioning the principal treaties in existence and traversing somewhat the whole subject. This I am doing today.
While I am not yet certain by any means that this professed interest of Mr. Michalakopoulos will lead to practical results, nevertheless I think it would be well if the Department would let me have immediately draft proposals for a treaty to be dealt with at the first favorable opportunity.
I have [etc.]
- Signed Nov. 23, 1923; Foreign Relations, 1923, vol.i, p. 464.↩