800.85/9–3044: Telegram
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant) to the Secretary of State
[Received October 1—2:50 a.m.]
8192. For Berle and Land, WSA. The Embassy has received a letter from the Foreign Office regarding the procedure to be followed for governments desiring to adhere to the Allied Shipping Agreement. It reads in part as follows:
“Paragraph 2 of the Annex to the Agreement clearly indicates that participation as contracting governments in the Agreement has been accepted of ‘all other governments whether of the United Nations or of neutral countries’ which desire to participate. There thus seems to be no need to obtain the consent of all parties to each new individual accession.
All that we have to do, I think, is to remedy the failure of the Agreement to lay down the procedure for accession. We would suggest that this procedure should take the form of a communication addressed [Page 707] by each acceding government to His Majesty’s Government as the ‘headquarters’ government, His Majesty’s Government formally notifying all the other governments parties to the Agreement. Would you let me know if your Government would prefer that the acceding governments should also address a note to the United States Government?
We are anxious to lose no time in suggesting to the Governments of Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India that they should accede, but before doing so we shall be grateful to learn if the procedure for accession indicated above is acceptable to the United States Government.”
The Department’s instructions are requested with respect to whether or not a government desiring to accede to the agreement should communicate only with the British Government or also with the United States Government. It is felt here that the United States might wish to suggest names of countries other than those mentioned in the above letter which might wish to accede to the Agreement and that it might be well for a general discussion of this point to take place while the Planning Committee is still in session. The observations of the Department and of WSA would be appreciated.