860F.4061 Motion Pictures/128: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Minister in Czechoslovakia ( Carr )
33. Legation’s 56, April 6, 6 p.m., 66, April 11, 3 p.m. For Culbertson. The Department agrees that the film agreement should take the form of an exchange of notes, and your procedure appears to be satisfactory. The exchange of notes will be published here but not proclaimed. It is presumed that ratification in Praha will not be necessary.
Since the exchange itself will constitute a unilateral agreement, with no consideration on the part of this Government involved, the Department believes that the notes should refer to the Trade Agreement, somewhat along the following lines:
I have the honor to confirm and make of record the following agreement between the Governments of our respective countries, pursuant to the understanding reached in connection with the negotiation of the Trade Agreement recently concluded by the two Governments, regarding the treatment etc.
Have you sought to have the agreement run for an initial period of 1 year, terminable on 6 months’ notice thereafter? This would seem to be desirable.
It is assumed that you have pointed out to the Czechs that they have already agreed in the trade agreement to give us national treatment with respect to internal taxes on films and all other products and hence that the registration fees on undubbed and dubbed American films should be changed to import charges collected before release of foreign films from customs custody. If there are any other internal fees or charges which are higher on imported American films than on domestic films they should be equalized.
Please submit exact text of opening and closing paragraphs and a digest of the contents of the exchange, which will be released to the press here upon its signature. The exact texts of the notes should be transmitted by mail.
[Page 234]Your 71, April 13, 4 p.m.11 17,500 would appear to be acceptable under the circumstances.
- Not printed; it reported that the outstanding question was the amount of license fee and that the Czechs offered 17,500 crowns (860F.4061 Motion Pictures/129).↩