811.20 Defense (M) Portugal/1444: Telegram
The Minister in Portugal ( Norweb ) to the Secretary of State
[Received March 9—12:54 a.m.]
742. The British Minister and I have separately seen the Secretary General of the Foreign Office in the matter of the request that Portugal refrain from allowing shipments of wolfram to Germany pending the conclusion of an arrangement with Great Britain and the United States. Sampaio avoided giving any definite reply but in both cases attempted to maintain that there was in fact no analogy between the position in Spain and that in Portugal. Needless to say I emphasized that wolfram and the destination were the same in terms of the war situation. It was evident that in view of Campbell’s departure to London for consultation regarding wolfram that the Portuguese Government feels it can delay decisions pending his return.
Sampaio furthermore made much of the fact that the Germans had not received their expected quota under the expired German-Portuguese agreement indicating that they were pressing for some consideration and hinting that some was due them. He seemed to wish to prepare us for developments in this direction.
In view of this somewhat ominous idea I think it would be helpful if you called Bianchi59 to the Department and made clear to him our attitude.
Sent Department, repeated London as 103.
- João Antonio de Bianchi, Portuguese Minister to the United States.↩