462.00R296/4021: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Germany ( Sackett )

[Paraphrase]

87. Reference is made to my telegram No. 86 of June 21, 2 p.m., and your telegram No. 90 of June 22, 11 a.m. With regard to the Hindenburg letter the following is a chronology of events:

The Department expected to receive Hindenburg’s message prior to the issuing of a statement here by the President. However, on Saturday night a leak to the press through some of the persons consulted on the subject by the President forced the President’s hand. It was the intention of President Hoover to give out his statement on Sunday for publication the following day. When the Hindenburg letter did come and with it the request by the German Government that it be withheld from publication unless published in connection with the President’s statement, we decided that the letter should not be published now in view of the advance in the President’s plans forced upon him by the leak. However, no sooner had we decided not to publish the letter than word was received from Berlin that information had leaked out there that a letter had been written. According to our information there was no leak here regarding the letter. Because of the situation created by the leak in Berlin I released the following statement to the press:41

“Since the financial situation in Germany has been under consideration, the President has been making every effort to gather information in regard to it, which should be accurate and authentic and he recently made a request for such information from the German Government, requesting that it be of the highest authority. He has received a response in the form of a letter to him from President von Hindenburg and considers its contents as confidential to himself. The information thus obtained corresponds to that obtained from other official and private reports and which is publicly current.”

The situation now is that we are holding the letter in strict confidence and advance notice will be given to the German Government [Page 39] if we find it advisable to publish it at some later date.42 The above is sent for your own information.

Any further rumors or leakage would only have the tendency to cause speculation here and so to add a disquieting element to the German situation, which we are all trying to stabilize. Consequently I think that you should not at this time reopen the matter with the German Government.

Stimson
  1. Text of statement not paraphrased.
  2. The Hindenburg letter was published as an enclosure to a letter dated December 16, 1931, from the Secretary of State to James W. Collier, Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representatives. See Department of State, Press Releases, December 19, 1931, p. 583.