711.00111 Lic. Hanover Sales Corp./51/45: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in France (Bullitt)
231. Your No. 644, May 19, 5 p.m. As the Bellanca planes were paid for by Sherover with money provided by the Spanish Embassy in Washington and were intended for export to Spain, and in view of [Page 591] the character of Société Française de Transports Aériens as reported in your recent telegrams and the fact that that company has been actively engaged in attempting to transship the Wolf planes to Spain, I would not be fulfilling my obligations under the law if I were to issue a license to Sherover authorizing the shipment of the Bellanca planes to that company. You may, in your discretion, so inform Sherover and suggest to him that an assurance from the French Foreign Office to you that the planes would remain in France would probably constitute the only guarantee which would justify me in issuing a license for their export to France.