811.20 (D) Regulations/4714: Telegram
The Ambassador in Spain (Weddell) to the Secretary of State
[Received 11:55 p.m.]
857. Department’s 508, September 18, 6 p.m. The Embassy has submitted all the considerations contained in the Department’s telegram to the Spanish Government and will do so again.
The Spanish Government is showing more interest than ever in carrying out an economic program with the United States which of necessity would require contributions on the part of Spain comparable to contributions which the United States may be able to make.
The Embassy’s purpose in suggesting to the Department a plan of cooperation is of course to improve our general position in Spain while taking care to ensure that any contribution we make will not result in making supplies available to Germany; and all aspects of our situation in Spain, many of which as the Department knows are very unfavorable, will receive the Embassy’s attention in the carrying out of such a plan.
The Embassy is now awaiting the submission by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce of a list of materials which Spain would like to obtain from the United States.
Meanwhile, as I pointed out in my telegram No. 819, September 11, 3 [7] p.m.,35 the Ministry of Industry and Commerce has in general offered to make available to the United States in addition to a large number of ships it is willing to place in service between the United States and Spain, those commodities of which Spain has an exportable surplus which the United States may wish to acquire.
It is suggested that the Department furnish the Embassy for submission to the Spanish Government a list of the materials it wishes to acquire in Spain together with a list of commodities it wishes to export to Spain (which I suggest include moving pictures, news print and radios even though the exportation of the latter is subject to control) and also outline the other steps which the Department believes Spain should take vis-à-vis the United States. Such steps would presumably include:
- (1)
- the placing of the Spanish Government’s relations with me personally on a normal basis;
- (2)
- modification of the Government-inspired attitude of hostility against the United States reflected by the public press;
- (3)
- strict compliance by the Spanish Government with the terms of the Treaty of Friendship and General Relations of 1902 between the United States and Spain36 including those provisions exempting the Foreign Service from taxation;
- (4)
- assurances by the Spanish Government that the Foreign Service in Spain will be supplied with the amounts of gasoline and other materials and facilities required for the efficient carrying out of its functions.
- Not printed.↩
- Signed July 3, 1902, Foreign Relations, 1903, p. 721.↩