852.79662/12–2044: Telegram

The Ambassador in Spain (Hayes) to the Secretary of State

4084. I appreciate receiving the information contained in the Department’s 3256, December 16, 8 p.m.88 and I hope that when the replies of the theater commander are received the matter will be reviewed by the Combined Chiefs. Perhaps it would for the moment [Page 455] be ideally preferable to effect stoppage of the Lufthansa Line between Spain and Germany without agreeing to the initiation of an Iberia Line between Switzerland and Spain with a control stop in France. But unless the appropriate theater commander is prepared to arrange for night fighters to shoot down the Lufthansa planes and thus effectively put an end to that service, the question is not whether it is undesirable to have either line operating but whether it is not much more desirable to have a controlled Spanish line than an uncontrolled German line.

Repeated to London as 1038 and to Bern.

Hayes
  1. Not printed.