837.24/12–3046

The Secretary of State to the Cuban Ambassador (Belt)14

Excellency: I have the honor to refer to Your Excellency’s conversation of May 1715 with an officer of the Department concerning the balance due this Government for four million pounds of peanut seed, which were delivered to the Cuban Government in accordance with a contract of April 17, 1943, between the Commodity Credit Corporation of the United States and the Cuban Ministry of Agriculture.16

The balance now due the Commodity Credit Corporation on this account is $103,488.94. As Your Excellency will recall, the debt as originally specified in the contract would have amounted to $330,000.00, and the present lower figure has been arrived at not only as the result of certain payments made by the Cuban Government but also as the [Page 771] result of certain very substantial reductions which have been allowed by the Government of the United States. This Government would therefore appreciate settlement in the amount of the indebtedness. Payment should be made in the form of a check payable to the “Treasurer of the Commodity Credit Corporation”. This check should be forwarded to the Department of State for transmittal to the Commodity Credit Corporation.

Accept [etc.]

For the Secretary of State:
Spruille Braden
  1. Handed to Ambassador Belt by Assistant Secretary Braden on December 30, 1946.
  2. See memorandum by the Director of the Office of American Republic Affairs, May 20, p, 767.
  3. For documentation on this subject, see Foreign Relations, 1943, vol. vi, pp. 223 ff.