740.0011 European War 1939/13225
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Secretary of State (Long)
The Egyptian Minister59 came in this afternoon at his own request. He handed me the attached response which he had written60 to an article which appeared in PM and which he described as being very detrimental to the good reputation of Egypt, its Royal Family and its Government. He asked me for advice because the article had not been published.
I replied that I was sorry to say that the Department could not be of any particular help to him and that each newspaper had printed what it saw fit. The Department had no control over the newspapers or of any article they might publish. I told him that the same newspaper had been very critical of officers of the Department of State, referring to several articles, and told him that I thought that he had done all that he could first, by consulting officers of the Department, [Page 320] second, by writing the article in response to the critical matter, and third, when the newspaper failed to publish his reply, to be able to state to his Government that he had again approached the Department of State on the subject, but that the Department was unable to be of assistance.