883.00/234

The Agent and Consul General at Cairo (Gary) to the Secretary of State

No. 655

Sir: Referring to my telegram No. 567 of August 31 [30], 11 p.m., and the Department’s telegraphic reply thereto of September 4, 9 a.m., I have the honor to enclose for the Department’s full information and as a matter of record, copies of translations of editorial comments appearing in the more important Cairo Arabic newspapers,5 relative to the action of this Agency in officially denying the accuracy of Saad Zaghloul Pasha’s telegram announcing the recognition of Egyptian independence by the Committee for Foreign Affairs of the United States Senate.

It will be recalled that upon receipt of the Department’s cable instructions referred to above, which authorized this Agency to deny the accuracy of the statement contained in the Zaghloul telegram, I delivered to the local press on September 6th a communiqué which appeared the next day in the following form:

“We are officially informed by the American Diplomatic Agency that the statement to the effect that the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the American Senate has decided that Egypt politically is neither under Turkish authority nor Great Britain but is self-governed, is erroneous.”

Although, as will be seen from the enclosures to this despatch,5 it was subjected to sharp criticism in the native press on the score of its inadequacy, and its failure to indicate the nature of the error committed, (an inevitable omission, since I could not allow it to embody more than the substance of the Department’s own Instruction), it was of striking utility in calming down the local situation and exerted a most sobering influence upon the native population, buoyed up by false hopes of American support. The promptness with which this démenti was issued, and its decided tone, served, I am convinced, in great measure to discourage any further attempts at misrepresentation of the attitude of the United States by Nationalist agents in Paris and London with a view to exciting Egyptian public opinion.

I regret that I am obliged to transmit this material at so late a date, when the question at issue has been superseded in the public mind by others of greater moment, and no longer can be regarded as possessing any distinct bearing upon the existing situation.

I am confident, however, that the Department fully realizes under how great a handicap the work of this office is being conducted, [Page 207] where two career officers are obliged to discharge the duties of the four officers which, in the past, were the usual complement of this post.

Under the circumstances, the Department will appreciate that I was under the necessity of making the verification of the enclosed translations wait upon the performance of more urgent and pressing, if less significant, routine duties.

I have [etc.]

Hampson Gary
  1. Enclosures not printed.
  2. Enclosures not printed.