701.0065/32: Telegram

The Chargé at Algiers ( Chapin ) to the Secretary of State

1857. From Murphy. The British Resident Minister45 informs me that the British Embassy in Washington has been instructed to take up with the Department question of treatment of neutral missions in Rome after Allied occupation. My colleague understands that the Foreign Office feels that all neutral missions in Rome should be deprived of cipher and bag facilities throughout period of Military Government46 and that Spanish Embassy should be asked to discontinue its radio transmissions. On the other hand, it does not think it necessary that neutral missions should be withdrawn from Rome because it does not believe security questions will present much difficulty and there are advantages in allowing them to stay. It thinks that decision as to when cipher and bag facilities should be restored would depend on various factors upon which Supreme Allied Commander would eventually have to advise and initiative for proposing restoration of these privileges should be left to him. It thinks that privileges of friendlier neutrals could if necessary be restored before those of the others.

I should be grateful for Department’s comments.

Repeated to Naples for Kirk. [Murphy.]

Chapin
  1. Harold Macmillan.
  2. In telegram 2370, July 12, 1944, Mr. Murphy notified the Secretary of State that Headquarters, Allied Armies in Italy, had requested that pouch and code facilities be withheld from neutral missions in Italy. These missions were not to travel beyond the limit of the Rome Area Command and such restrictions would remain in force until relaxed by Allied Force Headquarters. (701.0065/7–1244)