838.51/3525: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Minister in Haiti ( Mayer )
5. Department’s mail instruction number 9 of December 30 and your letter to Duggan January 4.16 While Department appreciates your point of view with respect to the desirability that Lescot17 and de la Rue should make representations to the Foreign Bondholders Protective Council, the possible danger that Leger might attempt to throw the blame for the Haitian default in amortization on to this Government seems out-weighed by the desirability that the Council should be approached before actual default occurs on January 15. Accordingly, the Department has decided to approach M. Leger on his arrival in Washington tomorrow or the next day and to suggest to him that in company with Mr. Lancaster of the National City Bank, the local agent for the loan, he should advise the Council of the impending default and lay before the Council a brief memorandum of the factors necessitating this action by the Haitian Government.
In the event that the draft note referred to in Department’s instruction number 9 and including a statement understood to be prepared by Mr. de la Rue of the circumstances leading up to the default, has not yet been forwarded to the Department, the Department desires you to request Mr. de la Rue to prepare as brief a summary as possible which might be cabled to the Department for delivery to M. Leger to form a basis for his more amplified statement to the Council.