740.00111A.R.–N.C./94: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Brazil (Caffery)
Washington, May 10, 1940—2
p.m.
121. Your 194, May 4, 11 a.m. For Fenwick. The following considerations are believed to render inadvisable the proposal that neutral governments guarantee that special mail bags contain no contraband and insist upon their complete inviolability:
- (1)
- As stated in my 107, April 18, 6 p.m., such a procedure would amount to a censoring of mail by neutral countries. Moreover, we are informed that this could not be done under existing law in the United States for the reason, among others, that the postal authorities are not permitted to break the seals of letters even for the purpose of apprehending criminals; that the only authority for opening sealed correspondence is for the purpose of removing non-mailable material, such as salacious or fraudulent matter.
- (2)
- We admitted during the World War, and now admit, that parcels post packages are subject to the same belligerent right of search and seizure as is applicable to merchandise shipped in any other manner, and that mail containing stocks, bonds, coupons and similar securities is to be regarded as merchandise and subject to the exercise of belligerent rights; also that money orders, checks, drafts, notes and other negotiable instruments which might pass as the equivalent of money are likewise to be classified as merchandise. Therefore, in order to be able to certify that ordinary letter mail does not contain any of these articles, it would be necessary to open every envelope or container. Consequently, if Congress should enact legislation to carry out an undertaking of this kind, a tremendous burden would be placed upon this Government. It would be necessary to establish a central agency for the examination of all outgoing mail. The Division of International Postal Service of the Post Office Department tells us that such an arrangement would be inadvisable and difficult to carry out.
- (3)
- It is very questionable whether belligerent governments would be willing to accept the guarantee of neutrals and grant immunity to mail thus segregated, since one of the primary purposes of censorship is to obtain information of possible military value as well as contraband.
- (4)
- Any arrangement of this sort would, however carefully safe-fuarded, constitute an implied admission of the legality of censorship by the belligerents of all classes of mail and place the neutral countries in the position of cooperating with the belligerents. The principle of censorship contended for by the belligerents and contested in certain classes of cases by the neutrals would be admitted and strengthened and Article I of the Eleventh Hague Convention of 1907, declaring the inviolability of correspondence on the high seas, would virtually be set at naught.
Hull