611.6231/944
Memorandum by the Secretary of State
Dr. Luther called to say goodbye. Nothing new was discussed except a sort of general résumé of economic conditions. The Ambassador did, two or three times, inquire whether I fully realized the earnestness of the desire of the German Government to cooperate in support of an economic program such as ours. His qualification was that we did not have enough conditions attached to our favored-nation policy of equal treatment. My reply was that if we had announced a wide and flexible list of exceptions and qualifications before other important countries had shown a real disposition to move steadily and consistently away from the policy of discriminations and toward the objective of equality of treatment, we would have simply discredited the favored-nation policy.