File No. 763.72119/1056
The Minister in the Netherlands ( Garrett) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 24, 2.46 a.m.]
1796. Your 848, December 16, 9 p.m.,1 and 849, December 17, 4 p.m.2 I was not approached in this matter between the dispatch of my 1767, December 15, 7 p.m.,3 and the receipt of your 849, December 17, 4 p.m.
In accordance with your telegrams but without referring to them, I told the neutral, who took it down verbatim—
I have thought this matter over carefully. Before I will accept anything the neutral bringing it must show me his official authority from the German Foreign Office to bring it and the communication itself must be official. I have been asked to receive a statement; not the other way around. These are the only conditions on which I will receive it and they must be clearly and perfectly understood beforehand, also I am acting as an individual and not officially and if anything about it becomes public, I shall be obliged to deny having received it.
The neutral now informs me that yesterday he saw Von der Heydt who having heard from Kühlmann says that under the present circumstances it might be better to drop the matter. The neutral is of opinion that the episode is ended.
So little confidence can be placed in the discretion of the neutral concerned that it is probably best that this matter did not go further through his instrumentality. Endeavor may be renewed through other means. I feel that I should not assume to refuse apparently serious endeavors but I shall continue to avoid commitment of any kind and in the4