859B.01/152
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Secretary of State (Berle)
The Danish Minister called today, at my request.
We discussed the matter of Greenland. The Minister said that he was now in direct communication with Greenland, and left me a copy [Page 361] of the memorandum which he has now received from the two Governors in Greenland.21 Further action was expected from the Greenland councils, which will meet early next week. He asked our attitude in the matter.
I said that we were still considering the matter but that our inclination was to accept the action of Greenland officials as the action of the Danish government, so far as Greenland was concerned, on the theory that it was the surviving remnant of the Danish government. Were the Minister to present authorization from the Greenland authorities to act, we should consider that authority, and not impossibly would recognize authority derived from that source. The Minister observed that the Greenland councils seemed anxious to cooperate and he showed me his proposed telegram to them (copy of which is annexed22). He raised the particular question as to the last two sentences regarding the proposed request from the Greenland councils to the United States to give protection. I pointed out that protection was a word which had acquired an unpleasant meaning; but I said we would of course receive and pass upon any request which the Greenland authorities might make for a statement of our position in the matter, and that I thought that any request they might make for consideration of their special situation would receive sympathetic attention here. The Minister told me that he was telegraphing, accordingly, in the general sense that he will present to the United States government any statement which the Greenland councils care to make, together with any request they may make for a statement of our position, and any request they may make for consideration of their peculiar situation.
The Minister expressed the hope that we might find it possible to send a ship to Greenland, more or less for the purpose of reassuring the population there. He indicated that the Greenland officials apparently were prepared to give him direct authority to act for them in commercial matters, and that they might go so far as to authorize him to take over and administer under his own name, of course pursuant to their instructions, any funds which might be derived from the trade of the Danish monopoly.