611.59A31/51
Memorandum of Conversation, by Mr. Hugh S. Gumming, Jr., of the Division of European Affairs
On instructions from Assistant Secretary Berle, I got in touch with Mr. Wyndham White, First Secretary of the British Embassy, late this afternoon and told him that in connection with our efforts to extend economic and financial assistance to Iceland, particularly to meet their immediate needs for some two million dollars with which to pay for urgently needed purchases in the United States, we had reached the conclusion that dollars could best be supplied in the form of a stabilization fund loan. The draft of a stabilization agreement had been prepared but after the Icelandic Delegation had examined [Page 766] the draft they had informed us that the terms of an agreement concluded last spring between the British Government and the Icelandic Government would make it impossible for Iceland to sign the proposed stabilization agreement with the United States.
I told Mr. Wyndham White that Assistant Secretary Berle’s observations to Sir Ronald Campbell12 last week during which Mr. Berle expressed the hope that the British Government would release Iceland from its obligation to refund to Britain the first dollars which might come into Iceland’s possession, included, of course, the expectation of the United States that any and all other agreements between Britain and Iceland which might impede or bar the conclusion of economic and financial agreements between Iceland and the United States would be waived by the British Government.
Mr. White said that he would dispatch a telegram to London immediately, since he felt sure that, since the Anglo-Icelandic agreements of last spring were negotiated and concluded without the possibility in mind that the United States might enter into the picture, his Government would release Iceland from the obligations which I had mentioned.
I told Mr. White that the matter was rather urgent and thanked him for undertaking to dispatch a telegram at once.
- British Minister.↩