740.00112A EW/6–1244

The Foreign Economic Administrator (Crowley) to the Secretary of State

Dear Mr. Secretary: In May of this year, statements were released by the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom which warned that there is no basis for the assumption that the Proclaimed and Statutory Lists and the sanctions which are based upon them will terminate with the cessation of hostilities in Europe and that the lists cannot, in fact, be withdrawn immediately upon the termination of armed conflict.61 We are informed that these statements have already had a salutary effect on Proclaimed List enforcement in the European neutral area.

Discussions are now under way to decide in advance what Proclaimed List policy the United Nations will actually adopt during the armistice period. The Hon. Dingle M. Foot, Parliamentary Under Secretary for Economic Warfare, stated on May [June] 2 that in his view the present time would be appropriate for the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom to reach a definitive agreement at a high level. We agree.

It is our view that a final decision should be reached at the earliest possible moment because the formulation of specific arrangements to continue the lists during the armistice period would be immediately helpful to current economic warfare activities. The inducement to neutral firms to conform to United Nations’ interests would be compelling.

We favor a program of maintaining Proclaimed List sanctions in Europe and Argentina during the armistice period. In the case of those South American nations which have joined with us in the defense of this hemisphere, there may be other methods of liquidating unfriendly interests which would be effective substitutes for a continued Proclaimed List.

We do not believe that friends and enemies within the neutral countries should be treated alike upon the cessation of hostilities. [Page 177] There are those neutral firms which have undertaken extreme sacrifices during the darkest days of this war in the interests of the United Nations. There are other neutral firms which, under no enemy compulsion, have grown rich by taking advantage of the sacrifices of the first group. Should we propose to treat these two groups equally, it might well prove an indictment of our own loyalty to our own principles. It would certainly prove a serious handicap to any future effort to enroll friends among neutral business communities.

We are all of us today charged with the responsibility of avoiding the mistakes we made after the last war. We have been repeatedly informed that a great handicap to the effectiveness of the Proclaimed List in this war has been the early liquidation of these Lists after the last war. The neutral business communities well remember this. Feeling assured that, despite all threats to the contrary, we will do likewise this time, many firms have felt safe in defying our interests.

No doubt one of the chief purposes of the forthcoming peace will be to prove once and for all that aggression is unprofitable. Unwarranted and exceptional economic assistance to aggressors should likewise be proved unprofitable. Continuation of Proclaimed List sanctions during the armistice period will effectively serve this purpose.

Respectfully yours,

Leo T. Crowley
  1. For the U. S. statement which was one paragraph, the penultimate, of the speech of May 4, 1944, by Francis H. Russell, see Department of State Bulletin, May 6, 1944, pp. 410–411.

    The British statement was contained in a speech devoted entirely to the subject of blacklisting and delivered over the British Broadcasting Corporation on April 6 by Dingle Foot, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Economic Warfare. In the final paragraph of this address Mr. Foot strongly re-emphasized what he had stated in the House of Commons on November 9, 1943: “Firms and traders in European countries should not too hastily assume that, after the Armistice in Europe is signed, we will at once forget those who have elected to assist our enemies. We are not a nation of long memories. But, believe me, our memory is not so short as all that.” The statement of November 9, 1943, is printed in Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, 5th series, vol. 393, col. 1115.