740.00/1066: Telegram
The Minister in Egypt (Fish) to the Secretary of State
[Received 12:15 p.m.]
41. This morning the Egyptian Foreign Office informed me that yesterday the German Chargé d’Affaires made the following inquiry:
“Egypt having been mentioned in the message addressed to the Fuehrer by President Roosevelt, the Government of the Reich would [Page 148] like to receive from His Excellency, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, authentic information (verbally) whether the Egyptian Government authorized President Roosevelt to make this statement or whether Egypt on any occasion might have induced President Roosevelt to make this proposition on the ground that the Egyptian Government felt itself threatened by Germany.”
To which the Foreign Office replies as follows:
“In the present atmosphere charged with anxieties and grave possibilities the Egyptian Government, already bound to Great Britain by a treaty of alliance, has received with satisfaction the gesture of President Roosevelt which, without having been prompted by Egypt, extends the network of agreements for the respect of its independence and in a more general manner tends to strengthen the realm of world peace to which Egypt has always been firmly attached.”
In view of the above information does the Department still desire me to comply with the instructions contained in its telegram 21, April 20, 7 p.m.?26
- The Department replied in telegram No. 22, April 24, 7 p.m.: “In view of the statement made to you by the Egyptian Foreign Office you may disregard the Department’s telegram 21, April 20, 7 p.m.”↩