800.51W89 Czechoslovakia/213
The Czechoslovak Minister ( Veverka ) to the Acting Secretary of State
Excellency: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of Your Excellency’s note of June 9th, and beg to inform you that I am instructed by my Government to reply to this note as follows:
[Page 856]In my last note of December 15th,56 I had the honor to state the position of my government, stressing the fact that the December payment constituted in the utmost self-denial of the Czechoslovak people, their final effort to meet the obligation. It was at that time also the hope of the Czechoslovak Government that a settlement would be reached before the next installment was due.
As the complex and difficult economic and financial situation has not permitted as yet that such a final settlement be arrived at, the Czechoslovak Government in an effort to manifest its utmost willingness to meet existing obligations, has decided upon paying a sum of $180,000.00, a sum expressing the highest limit of payment which could be made at present without impairing the budgetary and monetary equilibrium so laboriously attained and maintained.
This sum which is being paid without any prejudice to the final settlement, and as a payment on account of it, is also destined to confirm and acknowledge the existing obligation until that final settlement is made possible. This, in addition to all observations mentioned in the previous notes and which have not lost their substance and justification, seems to be a sufficient reason to the Czechoslovak Government for renewing the request for negotiations at the earliest possible moment with the view to initiate the final reconsideration and settlement of the whole of the inter-governmental Czechoslovak debt to the United States.
Accept [etc.]