345.1163/96
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Secretary of State
The British Ambassador57 called at his request. I called attention to the discriminatory attitude taken either by the Indian Office or the Government of India against American citizens who are Lutherans in the matter of the refusal of passport visas to India. I most earnestly urged that this policy of thus excluding missionaries of one of our important churches was impossible to explain here. I presented a number of facts and arguments in opposition to this sort of discrimination against an outstanding church composed of such fine people. The Ambassador said he would give the matter attention. I stated that Sir Ronald Campbell on last evening had promised to telegraph his Foreign Office about the matter and my later information is that he had done so.
- Viscount Halifax.↩