365D.1163/5: Telegram
The Minister Resident in Ethiopia (Engert) to the Secretary of State
[Received 10:35 p.m.]
665. I have just learned that the Italian authorities have decided to expropriate the entire Sudan Interior Mission property in Addis Ababa including their leper hospital “for political and sanitary reasons.”
I shall confer with my British colleague as the organization is an Anglo-American one but respectfully suggest that the Department inform the mission’s headquarters of the decision and obtain, if possible, an indication of their policy and intentions.
Confidentially, I believe this is the entering wedge by means of which the Italian authorities desire to get rid of all American missionary effort in this country.