Office of the Historian

740.00111A Arms Control–Transshipments/3: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Kennedy)70

Washington, September 8, 1939—4 p.m.

862. Shipments of arms from the United States to China are proceeding only via French Indochina and Burma. As shipments destined to either Burma or Indochina are prohibited under the existing [Page 758] embargo,71 shipments to China must cease unless this Government can be assured that shipments in transit will not be interfered with.

Please explain this situation to the appropriate British authorities and request definite assurance from the British Government that shipments from the United States consigned to China will not be detained in British territory.

I am sending a similar telegram to Paris requesting assurances in respect to shipments through French Indochina.

Hull
  1. The same, mutatis mutandis, to the Ambassador in France as No. 830, September 8, 3 p.m.↩
  2. Presidential Proclamation of September 5; 54 Stat. 2635.↩