740.0011 European War 1939/25109: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant)
5381. You should see Eden81 at the earliest moment and explain to him the British Consul General has approached the American Chargé d’Affaires at Tangier as to securing authorization from their respective governments to assure General Orgaz that “(1) our governments intend to respect the territorial integrity of Spanish Morocco providing Spain maintained a neutral status toward the occupation and (2) that our governments would give most sympathetic consideration to Spanish claims to certain territories in French Morocco”. You will point out to Eden that any such assurance as contained in (2) above is entirely contrary to the purposes of this Government for respecting the integrity of the French Empire and that the American Chargé d’Affaires in Tangier has been instructed today to inform his British colleague confidentially that the American Ambassador in Madrid “fully comprehends the policy of this Government; that the United States understands and appreciates the desire of the Spanish Government and the Spanish people to remain neutral in the present world crisis and that there is nothing in the policy of the United States itself that would necessitate any departure by the Spanish Government from their neutral purposes. Furthermore that the American Ambassador has been instructed to so state in his official conversation in Madrid.”
- Anthony Eden, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.↩