740.00116 EW/10–644: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Spain (Hayes)
3146. We appreciate the efforts you have made and the progress you have achieved toward securing satisfactory assurances on the question of asylum for Axis war criminals. We are not, yet however, satisfied that the Spanish Government will in practice not shelter such persons and fear that Spain may be either the permanent or temporary destination of many German war criminals who take to flight. We would regard as completely satisfactory only the adoption and implementation by Spain, in the exercise of its sovereign rights, of a national policy which would deny legal admission to any Axis war criminal and provide for the deportation of any such person who might succeed in entering the country illegally. Sweden has adopted such a policy and Turkey is refusing admission to all Axis nationals.
We leave to your discretion the best means of obtaining or approximating this objective with respect to Spain.
Similar instructions are being sent to Lisbon, Bern and Dublin.78
- Telegrams 3077, December 1, 8 p.m., 3942, November 20, 11 p.m., and 231, December 1, 8 p.m., respectively; none printed.↩