711.00111 Armament Control/984: Telegram

The Acting Secretary of State to the Chargé in Italy (Kirk)

105. Your 310, August 4, 10 a.m. If the requests for assistance involve transactions which in the judgment of the officers, to whom such requests are addressed, may be considered to be in the course of normal trade with Italy or initiated and established before the period referred to but continued into or throughout it, diplomatic and consular officers in Italy are authorized to grant assistance customarily afforded.

The Department’s telegram No. 20070 had reference primarily to trade promotion activities during the period prior to the revocation of the President’s proclamations of October 5, 1935, and February 29, 1936. Inasmuch as the specific conditions which caused the President to issue these proclamations have ceased to exist it is no longer believed necessary to withhold customary protection, unless it is clearly apparent that a request for assistance is made in connection with a transaction made in violation of the spirit of the proclamations and subsequent statements of the President and the Secretary, which called for the limitation of trade to its normal proportions. In such cases or in cases where the transaction was solely intended to take advantage of the abnormal conditions then prevailing, the Department considers that assistance should be refused on the ground that such trade was undertaken entirely at the risk of the shipper. Cases involving doubt should be referred to the Department for its decision.

Repeat to Consuls.

Phillips