811.34544/703a: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant)
712. For President’s Base Lease Commission. Yesterday an officer of the British Embassy telephoned an officer of the Department that a telegram had been received in the Embassy which had crossed on the wires the Embassy’s telegram of March 1 transmitting the substance of our reply to their memorandum of February 26 (the complete text of both memoranda was sent you in our 683 of March 189), [Page 76] requesting the Embassy to get in touch informally with us in regard to certain questions in connection with the base lease negotiations. We inquired what specific questions they had in mind and learned that they were questions of jurisdiction, customs, and light dues. We replied that we found it difficult to understand their desire to discuss these questions in Washington; that all of our views had been communicated to our delegation in London and that the members of our delegation were prepared to deal fully and comprehensively with all of these questions; that on the earnest insistence of the British Government the President had sent a delegation to London to handle these negotiations and that obviously it would be impossible to negotiate simultaneously in two places on the same subjects without considerable confusion. We therefore inquired whether it is the wish of the British Government that the negotiations be transferred to Washington; we stated that if such is their wish we would have to take up the matter with the President. The British replied at once that they were confident that it was not the wish of the British Government to transfer the negotiations to Washington. We therefore stated that any discussions which the British authorities in London wished to initiate with you on any of the subjects would find you ready to deal with them.
It seems obvious to us that the British feel that they would gain from the confusion resulting from trying to carry on negotiations in two places simultaneously. Likewise, they probably feel that Halifax might be able to persuade us to weaken in some of our positions. We hope that we have made it abundantly clear that you are our accredited representatives in these negotiations and that they cannot negotiate with us behind your backs, or otherwise undermine your position.
- Telegram No. 683 not printed.↩