Office of the Historian

882.01 Foreign Control/415½

The President of the Finance Corporation of America (Wm. P. Belden) to the Under Secretary of State (Castle)

Cleveland, Ohio, October 26, 1932.

Sir: We acknowledge receipt of your letter of October 20th86 regarding the Council of the League adopting the report of the Committee as to the “General Principles” of the Plan of Assistance to Liberia and we note that Mr. Reber was advised of the desire of the Committee that direct negotiations between our company and representatives of Liberia begin as soon as possible.

Before undertaking such negotiations we deem it necessary to send a representative to Liberia to obtain adequate information of conditions on the ground in order that we may be fully and accurately advised before entering upon these negotiations.

It is our purpose to send such representative to Liberia at an early date and to complete our investigations as expeditiously as possible and thereupon designate our representative for the purpose of these negotiations.87

Very truly yours,

Finance Corporation of America
Wm. P. Belden
, President
  1. Not printed.↩
  2. By telegram No. 172, November 10, 5 p.m., the Department advised Mr. Reber that he might “inform the interested parties” of the contents of this letter in such manner as he considered “most appropriate” (882.01 Foreign Control/421a).↩