852.00/9096

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)
[Extract]

The Spanish Ambassador called to see me this afternoon.…

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Ambassador asked most earnestly whether this Government would not permit American warships in the Mediterranean to take to some French port refugees from Loyalist territory who were trying to flee from Spain in order to save their lives. I told the Ambassador that I would be very glad to take the matter up again, but that as he knew, we had felt it necessary to adhere to a rigid policy of not permitting our warships to be used as a place of refuge by other than American nationals and the nationals of some of the other American republics.

S[umner] W[elles]