815.248/25: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Minister in Honduras (Lay)
Washington, June 5, 1931—2
p.m.
48. Legation’s 113, June 3, 3 p.m.
- 1.
- Please endeavor to ascertain and report by telegraph through what agency … was approached in the United States; what arrangements if any were made here with respect to his enlistment and military service in Honduras; and from what point did he depart with his airplane from the territory of the United States.
- 2.
- Your attention is invited to Section 5282 of the Revised Statutes, the substance of which you may, unless you deem it inadvisable, communicate to … You may likewise say to him that the obvious intent of the neutrality laws of the United States is to discountenance the enlistment of American citizens in foreign armed forces.
- 3.
- [Paraphrase.] You may orally inform the President of the substance of paragraph 2 of this telegram and add that the Government of the United States would much prefer that no citizen of the United States should be employed on active military service in Honduras. You may tell him that in addition to the objections to such action as they may concern the relations of a citizen of the United States to his Government is the further objection of the possibility of serious injury to unoffending civilians and to foreign as well as Honduran property which might result from aerial bombardment by an untrained civilian aviator. [End paraphrase.]
Stimson