In accordance with the Department’s telegraphic Instruction No. 49,
February 24, 3 P.M.,10 the
Embassy forwarded by air mail on February 25 to the American Ambassador
in Moscow copies of the Department’s Instructions, with enclosures,
mentioned therein, together with a copy of the memorandum of Mr.
Marriner’s conversation with the Afghan Chargé d’Affaires on February
25.
[Enclosure]
Memorandum by the Counselor of Embassy in
France (Marriner)
Paris, February 25, 1936.
The Afghan Chargé d’Affaires called this morning by appointment and I
handed to him the text of the “Agreement between the United States
of America and the Kingdom of Afghanistan in regard to Friendship,
Diplomatic and Consular Representation” in accordance with the
Department’s Instruction No. 1198 of February 13, 1936.
I told him that my Government had given a most serious study to the
questions that the negotiations had thus far raised and had come to
the decision that the sole way of bringing about some form of
agreement, so desirable for the foundation of good relations between
our two countries, seemed to be the omission of all controversial
articles where the mention of most-favored-nation treatment had been
included in the original drafts.
The Chargé d’Affaires was in thorough agreement and read through the
French text as proposed.
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I pointed out to him that there were no textual changes as compared
with the articles on the same subjects in the text which had
previously been discussed. In other words: the text now before him
had been approved, the only changes being in the numbering of the
articles, due to the omission of the articles with reference to
most-favored-nation treatment.
He said that he would immediately bring the matter before his
Government. He said that unfortunately his Minister was on leave in
Afghanistan and would not be back before the month of June.
I replied that I regretted that very much as the Senate of the United
States would probably be on vacation at that time and due to the
activities of the presidential campaign would not in all probability
meet until late in the fall and therefore ratification by it, which
he realized was a necessary procedure, would have to be put off, and
that the matter, which had thus far been of long duration, would be
still further delayed, and that I hoped he would put this up to his
Government. I added that it might be possible for him to obtain full
powers for signature, or if that was impossible, perhaps one of the
Afghan Ministers in Europe could come to Paris for that purpose as
Mr. Straus was already furnished with full powers. I added that in
any case we would like an answer in principle as soon as possible as
to whether this text was acceptable.
As he did not raise the question, I did not mention anything whatever
with regard to the optional article, (No. III in the Department’s
Instruction), but numbered the Articles I to IV in accordance with
the attached text.11
When the Chargé d’Affaires left, he thanked me very much for the
efforts made to attain an agreement and to get around the
difficulties presented by their national point of view, and
expressed every hope of success of obtaining consent to the
signature of the present Agreement.
