852.00/8068
The French Embassy to the Department of State
[Translation]
Washington, May 9, 1938.
Aide-Mémoire
The question of the evacuation of foreign combatants from Spain presents itself for the French Government as follows:
- 1.
- The Non-Intervention Committee of London adopted, on November 4, 1937, unanimously (including the Government of the U. S. S. R.), a resolution for the evacuation from Spain of foreign combatants.
- 2.
- The evacuation assumes the preliminary enumeration of the foreign combatants by international commissions which will likewise be charged with directing, later, the withdrawal of the combatants.
- 3.
- The operations of enumeration and withdrawal of the volunteers cannot begin effectively except after reestablishment of the international control on the Spanish land and sea boundaries.
- 4.
- As soon as the international commissions shall have informed
the Non-Intervention Committee that they are ready to commence
effectively the operations of enumeration, the three following
measures will be taken simultaneously:
- a)
- the control will be reestablished on the Franco-Spanish boundary of the Pyrenees;
- b)
- the control of the British observers will be restored at the boundary between Portugal and Spain;
- c)
- the maritime control will be reinforced particularly by the extension of the surveillance of the Spanish ports.
- 5.
- The international control would be suspended automatically if at the expiration of a period of thirty days (with a possible supplementary margin of ten days), dated from the commencement of the operation of enumeration the withdrawal of foreign elements from Spain should not be effectively commenced.