852.48/1470: Telegram
The Chargé in the United Kingdom (Matthews) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 1—1:10 p.m.]
2316. Department’s 2006, March 31, 9 p.m. The Foreign Office likewise has information that the Portuguese Government would greatly prefer embarkation of the French refugees from a south coast port and not from Lisbon. The Foreign Office states, however, that there must be some misunderstanding on the Department’s part with respect to the attitude of the British Admiralty. I am told that since the latter have to provide escort vessels they are perhaps even more anxious than the Portuguese that the French vessels sent to pick up the refugees should come to a southern Portuguese port as near as possible to North Africa. Unfortunately, the Foreign Office says, both the Portuguese Minister of Marine and the British Naval Attaché [Page 281] at Lisbon have confirmed that Vila Real is impracticable for ships of more than about 14 feet draught and cannot therefore take the French ships to be employed in the evacuation.
The Foreign Office further tells me that while the Portuguese Government have not so far as it is aware raised final objection to Lisbon the British Ambassador there has suggested to Admiral Cunningham, Commander in Chief, Mediterranean, the port of Setubal as a possible alternative. The latter is about 25 miles south of Lisbon where the departure, the Foreign Office believes, could be arranged less ostentatiously than from Lisbon. It has not yet learned the view of Admiral Cunningham on this suggestion. The Foreign Office feels that in view of the urgency of the matter it would be more convenient to leave the arrangements to Admiral Cunningham in consultation with the authorities in North Africa and the British Ambassadors at Lisbon and Madrid; that reference to London at each stage would only complicate matters and cause unnecessary delay. Mack37 asks me to assure the Department, however, that the British authorities concerned are fully aware of the importance attached to the early evacuation of these French refugees as well as the evacuation of “many other refugees of other Allied Nationalities who have been even longer in Spain”.
- W. H. B. Mack, Counsellor in the British Foreign Office.↩