740.00116 European War 1939/1136

The Assistant Chief of the Division of European Affairs ( Cumming ) to the Adviser on Political Relations ( Dunn )

Mr. Dunn: At your suggestion, I called Mr. Gore-Booth, Second Secretary of the British Embassy, regarding the proposal made by Queen Wilhelmina for a joint declaration by the United States and United Kingdom warning the Germans as to the results of atrocities against persons and property in the Netherlands.

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I told Mr. Gore-Booth that we had been more or less waiting to receive the redraft which the British Embassy had informed us in its note of August 26 was being prepared by the Foreign Office. He said that he understood that his Government was a little cool to the idea of issuing a declaration applicable only to the Netherlands but that he would telegraph the Foreign Office today to ascertain its present views on the subject and would at the same time ask that any draft of a declaration which might have been prepared in the Foreign Office be sent on to Washington for presentation to the State Department.

I think the matter may now rest until we hear further from the British.22

  1. On October 11, Mr. Gore-Booth informed Mr. Cumming that the Foreign Office hoped to telegraph the redraft shortly. No further communication on this was received, however, in 1943.