661.9131/80: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Minister in Persia (Hart)
7. Your despatch No. 1077, March 8, 1932.8 The Department greatly regrets the manner in which you have brought to the attention of the Persian Government by your Aide-Mémoire of February 29 the substance of the Department’s telegraphic instruction No. 1 of February 17.5 p.m.
In informing you in the Department’s above-mentioned telegram that the Pepartment was substantially in accord with the views expressed in the British aide-mémoire of October 28, the Department did not of course expect you to inform the Persian Government that [Page 800] “the American Legation has been directed by its Government to exchange views with the British Legation in Teheran” nor to refer specifically to the British representations on this subject as being the viewpoint of this Government. The Department had intended that you would merely use the British thesis in setting forth the views held by this Government on the subject under reference.
Furthermore, the Department considers it regrettable that you should refer to the practical equivalent suggested by this Government in return for the concessions granted Soviet trade as “an abstract proposition” which would not be insisted upon if found “impracticable” by the Persian Government. And, finally, the Department being wholly unaware until now of the proposed “bank or otherwise acceptable guarantee” in lieu of export certificates, has not and cannot authorize you to state that it concurs in this suggestion until the matter has been given further study.
In view of the above, it is desired that you request permission of the Foreign Minister to withdraw the aide-mémoire in question and to substitute a memorandum modified in the sense indicated above.
- Not printed; for its enclosure, see supra. ↩