852.48/814: Telegram
The Ambassador in Spain (Weddell) to the Secretary of State
[Received 9:15 p.m.]
718. Personal for the Secretary and Under Secretary. The Department’s telegrams 338, December 10, 1 p.m.50 and 339, December 10, 7 p.m., are causing me deep concern.
If am correct in interpreting these as a growing reluctance or a present unwillingness to give relief to Spain, relief which would at once achieve a humanitarian work and be in harmony with our avowed intention to assist Great Britain and thus aid the general cause, it becomes clear that the efforts of this Mission over past months to bring about an arrangement which it had believed was desired by the Department have gone for naught.
Furthermore, the Department’s telegram 243, October 4, 6 p.m., penultimate paragraph, and 313 of November 20, 7 p.m., made this a personal matter between Franco and the President himself. It was so presented to the Foreign Office and to the Caudillo and the latter’s assurances were given to me on this direct personal basis. See my 542, October 8, 7 p.m., second paragraph, and my 550, October 14, 9 p.m., first paragraph.
The personality of our President is thus seen to be involved.
- Telegram No. 338 not printed.↩