701.5666A/7
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Acting Secretary of State
The Minister of the Netherlands36 called to see me this morning at: his request.
I told the Minister that I had a matter of great urgency which I wished to take up with him. I explained to the Minister the background of the situation which had arisen as a result of the decision: reached by the Vatican to accept a diplomatic mission from Japan., I stated that the President had asked me to let the Netherlands Government know that he hoped both the Netherlands and Chinese as well as the Australian Governments would agree to enter into diplomatic relations with the Vatican immediately so that the acceptance by the Vatican of the Japanese diplomatic mission would be counterbalanced’ by the diplomatic representation of the United Nations mentioned. Furthermore, the President believed that it was highly probable that if this were done promptly, the Japanese in disgust would abandon the idea of sending a diplomatic mission to the Vatican. I added that in my judgment there was great urgency in the matter since I had [Page 788] reason to believe that the Japanese, were preparing immediately to nominate one of their diplomats now in Europe as ambassador to the Vatican.
The Minister said that he himself favored the proposal and would transmit it urgently by cable to his Foreign Minister. He reminded me that in 1934 the Colijn Government in the Netherlands had been thrown out by the Netherlands Parliament on this very issue, namely, the Dutch people had refused to approve the idea of appointing a diplomatic mission to the Vatican. He said that up to the present moment the Netherlands Government had taken the position that it could not create new diplomatic missions since this step legitimately required the approval of the Netherlands Parliament.
I told the Minister that in my judgment the war situation necessarily changed considerations of this character. I said that in this country until three months ago there had been no representation of the United States at the Vatican since 1868.37 I doubted if two years ago the Congress would have been willing to appropriate the amounts necessary for the expenses of a diplomatic mission to the Vatican. But I was equally sure that if the question were now put before the Congress the feeling in this country would be quite different. I expressed my earnest hope that the Netherlands Government would find it possible to adopt the suggestion made.
- Alexander Loudon.↩
- For correspondence regarding the discontinuance of the American Legation in the Papal States, see Foreign Relations, 1867, pt. i, pp. 703–708.↩