840.811/6–2448: Telegram
The Ambassador in France ( Caffery ) to the Secretary of State
3345. Foreign Office official on being furnished by Embassy with text of our reply to Soviet note of June 12 on Danube Conference, remarked that Soviet note of June 12 addressed to French also contained statement that “Soviet Government considers it necessary to declare that it cannot accept reservations made by French Government in its note of June 4.”
In their note of June 4 the French had stated “finally Ministry of Foreign Affairs wishes to point out again to Embassy of USSR that French Government, while agreeing to measures which will result from exchange of notes between four powers and which shall determine Belgrade Conference, intends to retain all its rights under agreement defining Danube regime up to present, should drafting of new convention not meet with unanimous approval of interested powers.”
Foreign Office official observed that on various occasions in past, State Department had given French Embassy in Washington assurances that US, though not a party to previous Danube convention,1 would nevertheless support French reservation of rights under those conventions should Belgrade Conference fail.
Sent Department 3345; repeated Geneva 88 for McClure.2
- Convention Instituting the Definitive Statute of the Danube, signed at Paris on July 23, 1921; for text, see League of Nations Treaty Series, vol. xxvi, pp. 175–199, or Department of State, Documents and State Papers, vol. i, no. 4 (July 1948), pp. 263–268.↩
- Russell S. McClure, Attaché at the American Consulate at Geneva.↩