711.53/43: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Minister in Portugal (Norweb)
1537. Your 1605, May 25, 7 p.m. Inasmuch as Salazar apparently has left the wolfram matter open, and as meanwhile wolfram exports presumably continue, the Department considers the possibility of obtaining a temporary embargo without delay should be explored and is requesting London to take this up with the British Government.
The Department regrets the injection of the matter of Santa Maria into Campbell’s conversation with Salazar as irrelevant and possibly damaging. The Department does not agree that our arrangements respecting the additional field bear any relation to the Azores agreement with the British. Our arrangements call for execution of certain works by an American commercial organization at the request of the Portuguese Government. Salazar has recently signified his readiness [Page 121] to go ahead with this enterprise and Panair is on the point of dispatching a survey party to the Azores via Lisbon. The Department believes that this should be kept entirely separate from the Anglo-Portuguese Azores agreement from this point onward.
Inform Payne.96
- Lt. Col. Robert G. Payne, technical representative of U.S. Army in Portugal to assist in the negotiations for military facilities in the Azores.↩