File No. 763.72/9644
The Secretary of State to the Alien Property Custodian ( Palmer)
Sir: The Department has received your letter of June 13,1 enclosing a copy of a letter dated April 15,1 in which you refer to a deposit of approximately $73,800 said to be standing in the name of the Kingdom of Roumania with the Guaranty Trust Company of New York, and inquiring whether Roumania is to be treated as an ally of Germany or as a neutral power so far as concerns the Trading with the Enemy Act.
In reply you are informed that the Department is advised that the greater part of the territory of Roumania has been occupied by German troops for the past eighteen months; that the remaining [Page 781] part, Moldavia, is not occupied by such forces, and that the Roumanian Government is located in and functioning from Jassy, which is in unoccupied Moldavia. It appears also that the Roumanian Government has concluded a treaty of peace, not of alliance, with the Central Powers. It would seem, therefore, that the funds alleged to belong to the King of Roumania on deposit with the Guaranty Trust Company of New York should not, so far as the Department is at present informed, be regarded as belonging to an enemy as that term is defined in the Trading with the Enemy Act.
I am [etc.]