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  4. Document 747

740.00112 European War 1939/8590: Telegram

The Ambassador in the United Kingdom ( Winant ) to the Secretary of State

London , May 31, 1943—midnight.
[Received May 31—8:30 p.m.]

3714. Department’s 3372, May 27, 9 p.m., and Embassy’s 3659, May 28, 5 p.m.30

1.
If agreeable to Department and BEW, Embassy and MEW would prefer to leave substance of representations to be made to Swiss respecting German use of Swiss railways in general form presented in Embassy’s 3576 of May 24. The wording therein used was worked out by MEW in collaboration with Embassy after lengthy consideration of the possible advantage to be gained by requesting an overall limitation on movements of Axis transit traffic to average recent level and also for statistics of traffic movement.
2.
The strategy behind the present text is to ask the Swiss for nothing that is not within what may be requested of a neutral. It does not give the Swiss an opening consequently for requesting a quid pro quo or for claiming favors as a result of compliance with our demands. The Swiss may argue that this is not strictly true with respect to oil (which is not usually classified among military supplies) but we feel that we may be able to prevail on this point. Should we ask the Swiss for traffic statistics or to place an overall limit on transit of nonmilitary supplies through Switzerland, they might assume that by granting this favor they could escape in some measure our current pressure on them to reduce exports of undesirable items to Germany. If the reduction in the exports of these items is not satisfactory to us, we will then be free to make these requests with respect to transit traffic.
3.
It is the present opinion here that it might not be to our current interest in any event to press for the above limitation on transit of nonmilitary traffic to Italy. If this limitation were obtained, its chief effect would probably be to reduce the current rate of coal deliveries to Italy as a portion of the coal now moving is not destined for current consumption in Italy but is rather to build up reserve stocks for next winter. If we expect the status of Italy to change by next winter, the existence of these coal stocks in Italy may prove a decided asset to the United Nations.
4.
A decision with respect to this matter is expected from the War Cabinet today.
Winant
  1. Latter not printed.↩