740.0011 European War 1939/7608: Telegram
The Ambassador in Turkey (MacMurray) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 14—4:58 p.m.]
10. The Embassy has learned from a most authoritative source that the purpose of the visit of Lieutenant General Cornwall, Deputy Chief of Staff of the British forces in the Near East, and Air Vice Marshal Elmhurst (formerly British Air Attaché in Ankara) who arrived here Monday is to revise in the light of France’s capitulation the plans for military cooperation under the Tripartite Treaty2 which had been drawn up prior to the collapse of France and which have not been modified since that event.
The Embassy is convinced that there is no basis for the report understood to be in circulation to the effect that the object of the visit of this delegation is to induce Turkey to take an active part in the war.
Inform War Department.
- Anglo-French-Turkish Treaty of Mutual Assistance, signed at Ankara, October 19, 1939, League of Nations Treaty Series, vol. cc, p. 167.↩