856B.01/11
The Department of State to the British Embassy
Aide-Mémoire
In a note dated May 10, 1940 the British Ambassador, acting under instructions from his Government, informed Mr. Hull that His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands Government had agreed that a small British force should be placed at the disposal of the Netherlands authorities in Aruba and Curaçao for the purpose of insuring the security of those islands and of the oil refineries located there.
Note has been taken of the military dispositions as communicated by Lord Lothian, and the Government of the United States reserves until a later date its comments on the bearing which such dispositions have upon certain long-standing and well-known views and policies of the United States Government.