841.34553B/38: Telegram
The Minister in Portugal (Norweb) to the Secretary of State
[Received 10:17 p.m.]
3118. For the Secretary, the Under Secretary and Matthews. Salazar is now in Lisbon and I may be able to see him on New Year’s [Page 580] Eve, if not, at the beginning of the week. At that, my first interview with him, I propose to confine the discussion to the matter of generalizing under the formula set forth in your 2343 of December 23, midnight, the use of existing British facilities and to the obtaining of permission for a survey by American engineers of the Santa Maria site and other possible island sites. I will indicate that, no doubt, a couple of British engineers likewise participate and that we will welcome the guidance and participation of any Portuguese officers he may assign to accompany the group. It seems to me the course of wisdom to finalize these two immediate and practical desiderata before embarking on the more involved and tortuous problem of an alternate airfield. Furthermore, after this interview, the British Ambassador will have an opportunity to see Salazar and make known his Government’s concurrence with the proposed arrangements.
At termination of that interview I propose to ask him to receive me again in a few days when I will then be in a position to discuss with him question of the U. S. building airfield, probably at Santa Maria. I hope by that time I shall have received from you information re Salazar’s inquiry as to Portugal’s participation in liberation of Timor. I understand from my British colleague that he has received a repeat of an instruction from London to British Embassy in Washington suggesting that balance of advantage lies in our calling upon Portuguese to go to war against Japan forthwith and that preliminary reaction of State Department was favorable. Since main purpose of another large air base in Azores is to facilitate prosecution of war in Far East, it would obviously be helpful to connect these two matters.
Incidentally I take it that the last sentence of the first paragraph of your 2372, December 29, 10 p.m., is for my information and use at the appropriate moment and was not inserted with the intention that I deal with this longer range aspect of the problem at this initial stage.