852.75 National Telephone Company/7–2944: Telegram
The Chargé in Spain ( Butterworth ) to the Secretary of State
[Received 9:45 p.m.]
2639. In the course of my interview with the Foreign Minister yesterday I represented the necessity of action being taken on IT and T’s claims and complaints and asked Jordana to intervene personally in this matter. He at first took the position that since the CTNE was a Spanish company, as Foreign Minister he had no local standings in the matter and, by implication the United States Government as well. However, after I reviewed the genesis of the company54 citing that the Spanish State had given definite guarantees as a prior condition to the investment of American capital, that certain Spanish governmental agencies were attempting to nullify the guarantees given, that the overwhelming majority of common stock was still American owned, and that it was the United States Government’s right to intercede through diplomatic channels with the Foreign Minister of a [Page 428] friendly state to the end that its citizens’ interest receive equitable treatment, he receded from his previous position and agreed to act.
I have so notified the IT and T.
The Embassy has never lost sight of the desirability of obtaining action on IT and T’s claims and complaints referred to in the Department’s 2080, July 24.55 However, as the Department is aware, IT and T’s own efforts to obtain consideration of its contentions as well as its desire that pressure be exerted by the Embassy on its behalf have ebbed and flowed with the time of its sale negotiations which in my opinion have been conducted thus far in a singularly opportunistic fashion.
- For correspondence on the granting of this telephone concession, see Foreign Relations, 1924, vol. ii, pp. 692 ff.↩
- Not printed.↩