763.72/2485½
The German Ambassador (Bernstorff) to the Secretary of State
My Dear Mr. Secretary: In answer to your letter of 19th inst I beg to say that no member of this Embassy gave any statement to the International News Service concerning the Lusitania incident. The contents of the statement, which I return herewith,18 are so entirely in contradiction with the policy of my Government that the alleged interview can only have been fabricated for some mischievous purpose.
I never give any interview myself and never allow statements to be made by any member of this Embassy except under express instruction from my Government. In the latter case the statements are given out in writing. I have, notwithstanding, to my great surprise, during the last days read in some of the anti-German newspapers of this country, that I had been blamed by officials of the State Department for having published information which should have remained confidential. You know that some of my instructions, regarding the Lusitania question, were given to American correspondents in Berlin before I had received them. This was not my fault, and I had nothing to do with it. As far as I am concerned, I have [Page 535] never given any newspaper men any information which they had not received from other sides before they spoke to me. I do not deny that I have tried to explain to correspondents such information as they already possessed. This I consider perfectly legitimate as long as the system prevails that newspaper men are at liberty to follow diplomats by day and night and attack us whenever they please. At the present time I can see no other reason for such attacks by the above mentioned anti-German newspapers than the desire to discredit my work, because they know that I have done and I am still doing all I possibly can to bring about an amicable settlement of the various questions pending between the United States and Germany.
Believe me [etc.]
- Supra.↩