validated

Winston Churchill to Franklin D. Roosevelt (November 23, 1940)

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
1219970Winston Churchill to Franklin D. Roosevelt (November 23, 1940)1940Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill

REGRADED
UNCLASSIFIED

Message for President Roosevelt from Mr. Winston Churchill, received in Washington on November 23rd, 1940.




Personal and Secret

Our accounts show that the situation in Spain is deteriorating and that the Peninsula is not far from the starvation point. An offer by you to dole out food month by month so long as they keep out of the war might be decisive. Small things do not count now and this is a time for very plain talk to them. The occupation by Germany of both sides of the Straits would be a grievous addition to our naval strain, already severe. The Germans would soon have batteries working by radio direction finding which would close the Straits both by night and day. With a major campaign developing in the Eastern Mediterranean and need of reinforcement and supply of our armies there all round the Cape we could not contemplate any military action on the mainland at or near the Straits. The Rock of Gibraltar will stand a long siege but what is the good of that if we cannot use the harbour or pass the Straits? Once in Morocco the Germans will work South, and U-boats and aircraft will soon be operating from Casablanca and Dakar. I need not, Mr. President, enlarge upon the trouble this will cause to us or approach of trouble to the Western Hemisphere. We must gain as much time as possible.

This work is licensed under the United Kingdom Open Government Licence v1.0.

You are free to:
  • copy, publish, distribute and transmit the Information;
  • adapt the Information;
  • exploit the Information commercially for example, by combining it with other Information, or by including it in your own product or application.
You must, where you do any of the above:
  • acknowledge the source of the Information by including any attribution statement specified by the Information Provider(s) and, where possible, provide a link to this licence;
  • ensure that you do not use the Information in a way that suggests any official status or that the Information Provider endorses you or your use of the Information;
  • ensure that you do not mislead others or misrepresent the Information or its source;
  • ensure that your use of the Information does not breach the Data Protection Act 1998 or the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003.

Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse