Office of the Historian

811.203/356: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant)

Washington, January 7, 1944.

181. Foreign Office letter dated November 20 quoted in your 8206, November 24,39 requested amplification of statement in Department’s 6748, October 28,39 that military and naval authorities would make every effort consistent with law and policy to secure compliance by members of armed forces of United States with judgments of United Kingdom courts in civil case to extent permissible under United States military or naval law.

Department is advised as follows by War and Navy Departments:40

By the phrase “every effort consistent with law and policy to secure compliance to the extent permissible in United States military and naval law”, the following meaning is intended:

The Army and Navy will give to judgments of British courts the same effect as that given to judgments of American courts except as to judgments based on subject matter within the purview of the Foreign Claims Act.41

The policy of the Army and Navy in regard to invoking disciplinary action to effect payment of the judgments of American courts is as follows:

Refusal or failure to satisfy judgments found by courts to be due to a plaintiff will be proper ground for disciplinary action when in so refusing or failing to pay such judgment such personnel have violated Army or Navy standards of honor by fraud, deceit, evasion, or other dishonorable conduct or neglect justifying disciplinary action. Mere inability to pay such a judgment would not justify such disciplinary action. There must be a willful refusal or failure to make such payment under circumstances constituting dishonorable indifference, accompanied by ability to pay.

Refusal or failure to pay a judgment based on a claim within the purview of the Foreign Claims Act of January 2, 1942, as amended, would not be a proper basis for such disciplinary action. Claims within the purview of the Foreign Claims Act are subject to the jurisdiction of United States foreign claims commissions whose disposition thereof will be final and no assistance will be rendered by United States Authorities to require personnel to pay judgments of British courts to which claimant has resorted in such cases either originally or as a means of evasion or appeal from United States Claim Commissions.

Hull
  1. Not printed.↩
  2. Not printed.↩
  3. The following statements except the last sentence of the telegram were conveyed in a letter of January 19 (not printed), from the Second Secretary of Embassy in the United Kingdom to Sir Nevile Butler, Counselor in the British Foreign Office.↩
  4. Act approved January 2, 1942; 55 Stat. 880.↩