852.00/3949: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Consul at Seville (Bay)
The following message has been received from our Legation at Lisbon:
“Note just received from Amoedo, insurgent representative in Lisbon, contains warning that, beginning today and until the 15th of December, in the zone between Cape San Antonio, Province of Alicante, and the town Marbella, Province of Malaga, frequent aerial attacks against presumed enemy vessels will take place, and that offensive mines will be placed at the entrance of the ports of this zone.”
Please request General Queipo de Llano to inform General Franco, as Commander-in-Chief of the insurgent land and sea forces, as well as the insurgent naval headquarters at Cadiz that during the period mentioned in Amoedo’s note it is highly probable that American merchant and naval vessels will be passing through waters adjacent to and possibly within the zone declared liable to “frequent aerial attacks against presumed enemy vessels”, and that we cannot admit the right of insurgent airplanes to attack American vessels within or outside the zone.
It is presumed that the insurgent naval authorities already know which of our naval vessels are at present stationed at Gibraltar or at [Page 781] French ports for emergency assistance to our Consuls in the evacuation of our nationals from Spain, but in your discretion you may take this opportunity to inform General Queipo de Llano that these vessels are the United States cruiser Raleigh, the destroyers Kane and Hatfield and the gunboat Erie.