811.04418/634
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Secretary of State
The Spanish Ambassador29 came in this morning at his own request. He referred to his talk with Mr. Dunn, Political Adviser on European Affairs, and I replied that I had gone over with Mr. Dunn the memorandum of this conversation30 and found it very interesting. The Ambassador then inquired whether I thought there might be complications with Germany in the event of the passage of the Neutrality Act changing our neutrality policy during the war. I replied that if such a thing were humanly possible, in the way of giving effective and binding notice of what our neutrality policy was intended to be in case of war, that notice had been given from month to month, week to week and day to day to all nations, particularly since the first of last January; that both the President and I had in effect been urging the repeal of the embargo since the latter part of 1935. In the second place, I said that, a nation, especially after giving constant notice for nine months, is not expected nor required to enact its neutrality policy either before a war or on the first day, the first week or the first two weeks of a war; and that this Government has been lacking in anything but diligence in prosecuting its neutrality [Page 676] objectives. I then added that during last summer, when we were urging the repeal of the embargo, no other nation intimated that it expected to inaugurate war and that it would do so on the assurance the embargo would not be repealed; that I doubted if any contention in harmony with this view would now be raised.
The Ambassador then made brief reference to the British blockade situation and referred to his conversation on this subject with Mr. Dunn, which included reference to our sales of cotton to the Spanish Government and the interest this Government would have in the noninterference with these shipments by the British blockade. I was careful to say that we, of course, could not undertake to approach the British Government jointly on the matter.