852.48/316
The French Embassy to the Department of State 60
During the sessions of the last Assembly of the League of Nations. M. Negrín presented a request of the Spanish Government for technical assistance to study the question of providing food for the civilian refugees in Spanish Government territory.
The attention of the French Government has been drawn by the British Government to the report which Sir Denys Bray and M. Lawrence Webster, who have been in charge of this investigation, have submitted following their mission to Spain last October. According [Page 383] to this report, there are actually in Spanish Government territory about three million refugees for whom the situation with respect to food is extremely serious. It is therefore urgent to take collective action in their behalf.
The French Government, like the British Government, desires to have the support of the Government of the United States in this humanitarian undertaking. It is disposed to study, in agreement with the Governments at London and Washington, the means of providing relief for the Spanish populations so investigated. Moreover, in the event that a project of assistance shall be established, the French Government would gladly welcome the nomination of a Commissioner of Belief of American nationality who would be charged with control of the distribution of provisions to the Spanish refugees in the Government zone.
- This aide-mémoire was handed to the Under Secretary of State by the French Ambassador on December 15, 1938. In reply, an aide-mémoire, dated December 15, 1938, was sent to the French Ambassador similar to the aide-mémoire of December 9, 1938, to the British Embassy, supra. ↩
- Translation supplied by the editors.↩