882.20/434
Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State (Welles) to the Chief of the Division of Near Eastern Affairs (Murray)
[Washington,] March 22,
1939.
The President shares the views which you and I hold in this matter. This Government cannot consider discussing the establishment of naval or air bases in Liberia. We should inform the American Minister in Monrovia to say to the Liberian Government that this Government sees no objection to the Liberian Government discussing with the authorities in the French and British colonies adjoining Liberia the formulation of plans and measures of a purely defensive character.