800.51W89 Rumania/152
Memorandum by the Secretary of State
The Rumanian Minister came to bring up the case of his country in respect to its debt to us. He pointed out that Rumania had no installment coming due in December as it made only one payment a year and consequently was not in default, but neither had it made a December payment; that hitherto, Rumania had not made any request for a readjustment of its debt, but was now anxious to do it and he had been authorized to make the request. I told him that I had no instructions yet as to how to treat that case, but on his request I said I would write and ask Mr. Roosevelt whether an invitation could be extended to them. He told me that he thought Yugoslavia was in the same situation.
The Minister then inquired about the British answer,36 asking whether that would foreclose discussion of the economic questions. I told him I could not speak as to Mr. Roosevelt’s attitude but that if he would read the British reply carefully he would see that the British did not refuse to discuss these questions simultaneously with the debt questions but only refused to make decisions on them until the Economic Conference was held. I pointed out that in such a case it would be quite possible for Mr. Roosevelt to refuse to make a decision as to the debts until he was assured of the results of the Economic Conference on these other questions.