852.3300 Motomar/21
The Secretary of State to the Chargé in Mexico (Boal)
The Secretary of State refers to the Embassy’s confidential despatch No. 5097 of July 23, 1937,70 in which are quoted parts of a letter of July 22 from, the American Consul at Veracruz, in regard to the Spanish vessel Motomar. Particular attention is invited to the reference in the concluding paragraph of the quotation from the Consul’s letter to a list which the Consul prepared at the Embassy during [Page 597] the first days of June. Though the Department is in possession of the Spanish Ambassador’s list, enclosed with the Embassy’s despatch No. 4551 of April 11, 1937, and with the list supplied the Embassy by an official of the Pan American Aviation Corporation, enclosed with the Embassy’s despatch No. 4917 of June 19, 1937,71 it has not been able to identify the list referred to in the Consul’s letter. It would be appreciated if a copy of this list could be supplied the Department.
The reports which are being made by the Embassy and the Consulate at Veracruz, in regard to the preparations which are apparently being made to load aircraft of American origin aboard the Motomar, are of the greatest interest to the Department. Though the extreme difficulty of obtaining information definitely identifying the American aircraft which are now at Veracruz is fully realized, yet the accurate identification of any aircraft which may in the future actually be exported to Spain on board the Motomar will, of course, be of the highest importance to the Department and to the Attorney General in efforts which would then presumably be made to prosecute the individuals responsible for the violation of law which would result from this transshipment. It is hoped, of course, that the Mexican Government will, in accordance with its oftrepeated assurances, prevent the departure of these airplanes and spare this Government the necessity of instituting criminal proceedings which would be embarrassing to all concerned. In this connection, it is interesting to note that some of the airplanes now at Veracruz were apparently exported from this country after the enactment of the Joint Resolution approved January 8, 1937, which definitely prohibited the export of airplanes to a neutral country for transshipment to Spain.