838.124/181: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Minister in Haiti (Munro)
48. Your telegram 68, June 23, 11 a.m. Navy Department acquiesces in the broad aspects of the proposal outlined by Dr. Stuart for the Haitianization of the Public Health Service.
The Navy Department concurs in your belief that three Navy doctors and six other Americans will be sufficient personnel to administer the sanitation work of Port au Prince and Cape Haitien provided the necessary funds are made available to them.
With respect to the medical care and hospitalization of American civilians connected with the treaty services, the Navy Department points out that there is no authority in law for the admission of nonnaval personnel into the field hospital of the First Brigade of Marines at Port au Prince. However that Department proposes that, in view of the separate hospital facilities maintained in Port au Prince by private subscription and operated in conjunction with the field hospital under the supervision of naval medical personnel for the care of naval families, no objection would be perceived to the extension of these [Page 491] separate hospital facilities to Americans connected with the treaty services, provided that the treaty personnel concerned will undertake to bear its proper share of the expense involved and provided further that naval funds or supplies are not used for the expansion, maintenance or operation of these facilities. Any necessary enlargement of the laboratory facilities at the Port au Prince field hospital can be accomplished without difficulty.
The Navy Department confirms your viewpoint that it is essential to include in the proposed arrangement a provision whereby the treaty officials could resume control in the case of epidemic or other grave emergency. It assumes that the term “all sanitary work” used in your telegram under reference is intended to cover all public health work. That Department likewise suggests the necessity in the proposed arrangement for a provision that in case complete control should be resumed in an emergency by the treaty officials the Haitian Government will make available to them such funds as may be needed.
You are authorized to discuss the plan outlined by Dr. Stuart with the appropriate officials of the Haitian Government as a part of the general Haitianization agreement, upon which specific telegraphic instructions (No. 47)34 are being sent to you simultaneously with this telegram, making such modifications as may be necessary in accordance with the observations of the Navy Department above quoted.
- Dated July 3, 2 p.m., supra.↩