852.01/525: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in France (Bullitt)
153. Your 429, March 8, 10 p.m., and 448, March 10, noon. Inasmuch as Quinones de Leon appears to have been laboring under a misconception as to the purpose of our questions, please see him at your early convenience and inform him that you have been requested by your Government to make it very clear to him that no question of “conditional recognition” was involved in the inquiries you made of him by instruction of your Government. The inquiry made with reference to the persons and properties of American citizens in Spain [Page 765] had to do with a question which involves basic principles in the relations between nations of the world, and the inquiry made with regard to humanitarian considerations was responsive to the deep interest taken in this question by the overwhelming body of American public opinion.
I believe that it may be expedient at this juncture to limit yourself to this statement and merely to make the request that such statement be communicated by him to his Government.