711.00111 Unlawful Shipment/Fritz Bieler, et al./6: Telegram
The Chargé in Mexico (Boal) to the Acting Secretary of State
[Received January 1, 1937—2:50 a.m.]
233. Your 230, December 31, 3 p.m. As the Foreign Office was closed this afternoon and no official likely to have immediate access to the President was available, I called on him and set forth the matter in accordance with your telegram. The President immediately said that he would be glad to cooperate with the Department in the matter and would at once take steps to prevent any airplanes or other war material of American origin from being sent to Spain. He said that he had known for some time that American airplanes were being sent into Mexico with a probability of their being destined to Spain; that as he had supposed our Government was aware of this likelihood when authorizing them to leave the United States he had not thought it necessary to interfere with these private transactions but repeated that in view of the circumstances as now set forth to him, he asked me to assure the Department that no export of such airplanes or other war material for Spanish combatants would now be permitted by his Government. He assured me that he had consistently refused to sanction the sales by the Government of Mexican war material of American make to Spain and would of course continue to do so.
I expressed to him the Department’s thanks for his cordial cooperartion in this matter.