701.0010/420b: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Minister in Switzerland (Harrison)
1672. Exchange negotiations—Germany. Your No. 2883, June 22,4 and Department’s No. 1571, June 17. The Department is in receipt of a memorandum of June 29 from the Swiss Legation at Washington4 giving a translation of a note received by the Swiss Government from the German Government. This note offers to give safe conduct for one voyage of the Drottningholm from New York to Lisbon provided the ship sails within one week after its arrival at New York but insists that the return voyage and all future voyages have a port on the Gulf of Mexico as the North American terminus.
To this note, the Department has replied in part as follows:
“The Department notes that the German Government, by unilateral action, has violated the agreement entered into between this Government and the German Government for the exchange of their [Page 372] nationals in that it has withdrawn the safe conduct previously given for the several round-trip voyages of the Drottningholm between New York and Lisbon. As the assurance of this safe conduct was an essential part of the Exchange Agreement between the two Governments, this Government must consider the agreement as terminated by the act of the German Government.”
Please inform the Swiss Foreign Office and request that the German, Italian, Hungarian, Rumanian, and Bulgarian Governments be informed.