890b.6363 Gulf Oil
Corporation/167
The Ambassador in Great Britain (Mellon) to the Secretary of State
No. 558
London, December 15, 1932.
[Received
December 23.]
Sir: I have the honor to refer to my
despatch No. 483 of November 12, 1932, and subsequent
correspondence, with regard to the matter of American interests
seeking an oil concession in Koweit, and to state that on December
13 I called upon the Foreign Office and orally presented the
considerations set forth in the enclosed memorandum of conversation,
based on Sir Robert
Vansittart’s note of November 11, which went forward
to the Department with the despatch above referred to. Sir Robert expressed some surprise
at this delay and promised to look into the matter and inform the
Embassy as soon as he is able to get the data from the Colonial
Office. I told Sir Robert
that it was my intention to sail for America very shortly
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and asked him to communicate
with Mr. Atherton in my
absence, who would cable me the Foreign Office reply, since I
desired to discuss the matter with the Department during my short
visit to Washington.
On leaving, I reminded Sir
Robert that if Mr. Atherton did not hear from him within the next week
or so he would, under my instructions, again be reminding Sir Robert of my desire for an
early reply to his promise to expedite the matter.
Respectfully yours,
(For the Ambassador)
Ray
Atherton
Counselor of Embassy
[Enclosure]
Memorandum by the Embassy in Great
Britain
On November 11 of this year Sir
Robert Vansittart wrote the Ambassador that the
comparative examination of the draft concessions for oil
exploitation in Koweit submitted to the Sheikh by the Eastern
and General Syndicate and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company,
respectively, had been completed and that the document embodying
the result of this examination was already on its way to the
British authority in the Persian Gulf. The Ambassador informed
the American interests concerned of the receipt of this
information from the British Government. However, he has been
informed by the American interests concerned on December 10 that
the British Political Resident in the Persian Gulf had stated
that week that he had no knowledge of the receipt of this
document, and that consequently it had not presumably been
presented to the Sheikh.
In view of Sir Robert
Vansittart’s note of November 11 and the fact
that the November bi-weekly air mail only took some six days
from London to the Persian Gulf, the Ambassador hesitated to
regard this information as accurate, and would be grateful if
Sir Robert would
inform him as to whether in fact the document had been received
by the British authority in the Persian Gulf and had been
delivered to the Sheikh.
London,
December
13, 1932.
