811.34544/614: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant)
777. For President’s Base Lease Commission. Immediately upon receipt of your 706, February 24,90 in which you stated that in your opinion certain aspects of the negotiations were being unnecessarily delayed and that it would be an opportune time for us to indicate forcibly to the British that the agreement should be concluded without delay, we submitted to the President a draft telegram to the Prime Minister along these lines.
Last night we received a memorandum from the President reading in part as follows: “I held up this proposed dispatch to Churchill [Page 77] because I wanted first to talk with Halifax. I explained to Halifax that it is of the utmost importance to us because of the Congressional situation that the matter of the bases be settled quickly. He is telegraphing his Government to that effect.”
The President discussed with Halifax various topics of the draft agreement, including light and harbor dues, navigational facilities, the restricted use of the waters adjacent to the bases by British vessels (including fishing vessels), jurisdiction and the exemption from customs and other duties of articles shipped to the leased areas. You will be interested to know that the President fully and forcefully supported the position of [on] all of these subjects which you have taken in the negotiations.
As regards customs duties, after indicating full support for the position which you have taken, the President stated “There should be a solemn undertaking on our part, however, that the resale of any article thus brought to the reservation, and later taken across the line for use anywhere off the reservation, would be severely punished and put an end to.”
As regards the use of the waters by British ships, the President stated: “Because these eight bases are definitely military areas, British ships should be excluded from these areas except when authorized to enter them by the United States representative. This applies to local fishing boats, to whom revocable licenses might be given by the American representative, and actually would be given in normal times.”
We hope that this will prove helpful to you in obtaining the British agreement to our proposals.
We know that you are doing everything within your power to bring these negotiations to a satisfactory termination as soon as possible.
- Not printed.↩