852.75 National Telephone Company/111
Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State (Castle)
The Spanish Ambassador came in to see me to say that he had heard we might make a statement to the press in regard to the Telephone Company that the Spanish Government had recognized that, in bringing a bill for the nullification of the contract, they had acted wrongly. He said that he hoped very much no such statement would be made because it would so seriously irritate the Cortes that the Cortes might take the bit in its mouth and put the bill through whatever happened. I told the Ambassador that we were not planning to make any statement to the press along those lines, that I understood as well as he did that we did not want to stir up bad feeling and that he need not worry about that angle of the matter. The Ambassador was evidently very worried and I think, in fact, is all the time fearful that there may be another revolution. In fact, he said that in inviting the members of the Embassy to come to a Christmas party he had put in the proviso “If we are still here.”