490G.11 Crouse, Raymond B./9–2344

The Minister in Iraq ( Henderson ) to the Secretary of State

No. 449

Sir: I have the honor to refer to the Department’s instruction No. 105 dated November 16, 1943, and to the Legation’s Airgram No. A–25 of May 12, 1943 and previous despatches concerning claims for damages suffered by American nationals during the Baghdad riots in 1941.

As the result of oral representations made to the Iraqi Ministry for Foreign Affairs along the lines suggested by the Department in the last paragraph of the instruction under reference, the Ministry has sent the Legation a check to the amount of Iraq Dinars 661.610 ($2,650.00 approximately), “as a grant to those American nationals who sustained losses during the May and June, 1941, incidents”. A translation of the Ministry’s conveying note is enclosed (enclosure No. l).4

This sum satisfies in full the claims of the three American individuals who suffered losses during the riots. It is not, however, intended to cover the losses sustained by American commercial firms. The Legation, in its note No. 142 of September 19, 1944, (copy enclosed as enclosure No. 24) reminded the Foreign Office of these claims and stated that it assumed the Government of Iraq intends [Page 503] to take appropriate measures for compensating the two American firms in question. The Department will be informed of developments in this connection.5

[Here follows section relating to the payments made to the three individual claimants.]

Respectfully yours,

Loy W. Henderson
  1. Not printed.
  2. Not printed.
  3. No record of further action on losses to commercial firms has been found in Department files.