852.6363/1080: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Spain (Hayes)
2310. Department has received your despatch no. 1373 of September 2561 and your telegram no. 2732 of September 24,62 and notes the addition at the end of Article Nine of the memorandum63 setting forth the conditions to the aviation gasoline program of the sentence “The Government of the United States will furnish the gasoline required by this line.”
If a sentence along this line is included it must be clearly of record that we shall in fact be willing to make available for the proposed Swiss-Spanish line only such quantities of aviation gasoline as we shall from time to time consider necessary for operations which are of benefit to the United States or the United Kingdom. Before any commitments as to quantities or grades are made, we shall, of course, want to know full particulars as to the proposed operation and control of such a line.
It should, of course, be understood that the United States Government will not actually furnish any gasoline. The most that the Government can undertake to do is to make available for purchase such quantities as shall be approved in the light of the foregoing paragraph.
We leave it to you whether it would be better to amend the sentence in the light of the foregoing, or to set forth an interpretation of the sentence and specify the conditions in an attachment.