882.6351 Bethlehem Steel Company/5
Memorandum by Mr. J. Rives Childs of the Division of Near Eastern Affairs
The following brief background is noted in connection with the attached telegram:31
As soon as the Department was made aware of the possibility of the exploitation of Liberian iron ore deposits by American companies it communicated with the American Iron and Steel Institute and asked that that fact be made known to its members. The Department at the same time offered to furnish alike to those members as might be interested all pertinent information available to the Department on the subject.
Following the dissemination of that information by the Institute three of its members communicated on the subject with the Department, namely, the Republic Steel Corporation, the Bethlehem Steel Company and the United States Steel Corporation. The Republic Steel Corporation expressed its lack of interest in the matter, the Bethlehem Steel Company was slow in its evidence of interest, while the United States Steel Corporation manifested at once an active concern.
In a telegram dated July 21, 1938, the Department was informed by our Minister in Liberia that President Barclay had, upon application by telegraph from the United States Steel Corporation, granted it the privilege of making a survey of the iron ore deposits. In a further telegram dated July 26, 1938, the Minister reported that President Barclay had informed him the Liberian Government had granted the Corporation exclusive rights to conduct surveys for six months or more.
Our last information from the Bethlehem Steel Company which, incidentally had to be disabused of the impression that the Department was recommending that it enter the Liberian field, was that it intended to address by mail an inquiry of the Liberian Government for further information as to the iron ore deposits.
Our only concern in the matter from the beginning has been to make equally available to all possibly interested American companies information at the Department’s disposal concerning the opportunity for the exploitation of the iron ore deposits in Liberia. Now that that purpose has been achieved we have no further direct interest in the question inasmuch as the matter is now one for negotiation direct between the companies concerned and the Liberian Government.
- Supra.↩