Office of the Historian

800.51W89/876a: Circular telegram

The Secretary of State to the Minister in Czechoslovakia (Wright)

Washington, June 12, 1934—2 p.m.

For your information and for informal and oral communication to Foreign Office.

The British Government in a note23 which has been given wide publicity stated its assumption that unless payment were made in full of the unpaid parts of debt payments due June 15, 1933 and December 15, 1933, as well as the payment due June 15, 1934, the United Kingdom would fall within the effects of the Johnson Act of April 13, 1934, prohibiting the purchase and sale of obligations of governments in default to the United States. This assumption is erroneous. The Attorney General has rendered an opinion that governments in the same category with Great Britain, namely, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Latvia, and Lithuania, would not fall within the prohibitions of the Act of April 13, 1934, should they pay the full amount of the instalment next due on their indebtedness.

Repeat to Rome, Riga, Kaunas.

Hull
  1. Department of State, Press Releases, June 9, 1934, p. 355.↩