711.52/354: Telegram
The Ambassador in Spain (Hayes) to the Secretary of State
[Received February 17—11:50 a.m.]
550. I spent 5 hours with the Foreign Minister yesterday during which I presented Department’s views as set forth in its recent telegrams. We went over a lot of old ground and got nowhere except that the Minister offered to submit the matter of the Italian warships to arbitration. The net result of acceptance of this offer would be to delay the release of the warships many months.
The Minister said he had expected a more understanding reaction from Washington to the friendly suggestions made by him and embodied in my 377, February 3. He recalled that he had told me that acceptance of these suggestions would facilitate the conduct of all negotiations many of which were on the way to prompt and satisfactory solution but that Washington had passed over his suggestions and was maintaining its threat by conditioning shipments of petroleum to a solution of the wolfram problem satisfactory to it.
He maintained again that Spain had done a great service to the Allies by not entering the war and thereby making possible our Mediterranean operations and said that the closer Spain came to us the greater became our demands and he speculated as to whether this was a tactic leading to requests of broader scope. He said that if we maintain our present rigid attitude he does not see how Spain can accede to our requests without openly violating its neutral obligations and without surrendering its sovereignty. He said no counter proposal could be made by Spain while we maintained the new sanction which I had announced, that is, that petroleum shipments would not be resumed until a complete wolfram embargo was established. He [Page 340] reminded me that the temporary embargo on wolfram exports was circumstantial and was not in any manner definitive nor did it constitute a concession in that sense. He maintained that Spain has in principle rejected a complete wolfram embargo from the very beginning.
He asked me to transmit the following to the Department:
“Nothing is gained by coercion; on the contrary, coercion creates a hostile atmosphere in Spain, tying the Government’s hands and preventing a prompt solution of pending matters on reasonable terms which would be accepted by the Spanish Government with the same good faith which it has always shown in its relations with the Allies. The responsibility for the delay in settling these problems and the consequences of the present situation which has been created will not be Spain’s but will belong to those persons who, knowing Spain so little, suppose that Spain will give in to anything, reasonable or not, if coercive measures such as the present are carried out against her. The remedy for all this is in the hands of the Allied countries: Remove those sanctions and do it in a manner which spares Spain’s dignity, and all these matters will find their natural and just and reasonable channels. Otherwise, the decisions of the Spanish Government favorable to the Allies and agreed to in principle will be carried out, but the mistaken procedures referred to will not have the result of gaining those concessions which, because they are not reasonable, will not be agreed to by Spain in any case.”
I promised to convey the Minister’s views to Washington and he said he would convey my views to the Spanish Cabinet. He pointed out that the immediate solution rested neither in his hands nor in mine and he expressed the fervent wish that we might arrive soon at a point where the frank cordiality which for some time has been diminishing can be reesta[blished] [apparent omission] pouch a memorandum of the conversation and a copy and a translation of the Foreign Minister’s memorandum of the conversation with which he furnished me today. I shall await the Department’s further instructions.