Office of the Historian

881.00/6–2045

No. 653
The British Embassy to the Department of State

Ref: 1351/ /45

Aide-Mémoire

The United States Embassy in London have informed the Foreign Office that the State Department consider that the Soviet Government should now be informed that conversations are about to take place with the French on the subject of Tangier, and that an assurance should be given to the Soviet Government that they will be kept informed of progress made. It has always been the intention of His Majesty’s Government that the Soviet Government should be informed at the appropriate moment. His Majesty’s Government agree that the moment has now arrived, particularly in view of the attention which Tangier has recently received in the [Page 985] press. In the view of His Majesty’s Government, however, the French Government should be associated with any such communication to the Soviet Government, and His Majesty’s Government would propose if the State Department agree that the British and United States Embassies in Paris should approach the Ministry for Foreign Affairs accordingly. The attached draft telegram sets out the lines on which His Majesty’s Government suggest that the communication to the Soviet Government should be made.

Washington , June 20, 1945.
[Attachment]

Text of Telegram From the Foreign Office to Lord Halifax, Dated June 18, 1945

His Majesty’s Government, the United States Government and the French Government are of the opinion now the war in Europe is over that the Spanish Government should be called upon as soon as possible to withdraw their troops and administration from the international zone of Tangier and make way for the reestablishment of an international regime. The Spanish Government have moreover intimated that they themselves are now ready to agree to the reestablishment of such a regime. His Majesty’s Government, the United States Government and the French Government are accordingly preparing to hold conversations in the near future over wording an approach to [the] Spanish Government and determining details of the provisional regime which would replace the present Spanish administration pending the conclusion of a new Tangier Convention.