882.01 Foreign Control/425
Memorandum by the Chief of the Division of Western European Affairs (Moffat)
The British Ambassador came to talk about the Liberian situation. He said that as he understood it, the Liberian Committee in Geneva had adopted a plan which had been accepted by the Liberians and approved by us, but was still dependent upon certain financial details which must be worked out directly with the Firestone interests. I told him that this was substantially correct and that the Firestones, although not entirely satisfied with the plan, were nevertheless prepared to explore the possibilities it offered for a rewriting of their contracts. He replied that it was quite evident that the Firestones were “shy”.
His Government had directed him to find out when the Firestone representatives would be ready to negotiate. I said that this was a point of considerable difficulty, that they had at first hoped to negotiate [Page 777] some time in November, but that more recently they felt that before they could envisage financial changes in their contractual rights, they would have to send some people to study the situation in Liberia, which might delay it further. I added that we had not yet forwarded this information on to Geneva, but would probably have to do so in the course of the next day or two, if there were no change, as the Council wished to make an interim report of progress on or about November 14th.
Sir Ronald Lindsay gave the impression that he hoped we would put pressure on the Firestones to hurry their negotiations. I answered that we felt we could hardly do this as, with the amount of money that they had legitimately put into their project, the matter of whether or not they were satisfied that the plan would protect them in advancing more money and rewriting the contracts they now had, was a matter which they alone could decide. I told him that the Secretary had looked into the whole question himself last September and had sent a personal message to Cecil pointing out the complete financial independence of the company, which would make it impossible for us to bring pressure on them.