Office of the Historian

859A.00/89: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Chargé in Iceland (Warner)

Washington, July 22, 1942—8 p.m.

230. Your despatch no. 137, July 3.13 Please make an occasion to call on the Prime Minister and during your conversation with him say in the most friendly way that your Government has learned with regret that certain factions in Iceland seem to be agitating for a premature abrogation of the Act of Union between Denmark and Iceland; that we feel that a unilateral abrogation of the Act by Iceland in a manner contrary to that provided for by the Treaty14 itself and while our troops are in the country would be seized upon by the Germans to spread pernicious propaganda, at which they are adept, in Denmark and other Scandinavian countries which might react unfavorably on both Icelandic and American interests; and that accordingly, while we have no desire to interfere in purely internal Icelandic matters, we are confident that the Prime Minister will not take it amiss that we suggest that it would be in the best interests of both countries that any active move at this time towards the unilateral abrogation of the Act be quieted.

Fontenay’s15 letter is being transmitted to the Danish Minister who is now out of Washington.

Hull
  1. Not printed.↩
  2. Treaty of Union of November 30, 1918, between Iceland and Denmark; for text, see British and Foreign, State Papers, vol. iii, p. 703.↩
  3. Frank le Sage de Fontenay, Danish Minister in Iceland.↩