Personal and Confidential
My dear Welles,
You will rencr.ber that I told
-^3?      you the other day that I had been asked "by
the Iceland Government through the British
Minister in Reykjavik to sec the Iceland
consul General and explain the situation to
him.
You nay be interested to know that
when I saw the Consul General this morning
he told rae that he had been expecting some
such development for some time past and that
he felt that this was the best arrangement,
lie added that relations between the Icelanders
and the British troops load been very cordial
and that he had no doubt that they would be
equally/
The Honourable
Sumner ..elles,
Acting Secretary of State of the
United states,
Washington, D. C.
2-
equally cordial with the .American troops.
I of course emphasised the importance of
the necessity for secrecy to the Iceland
Consul General.
I have been looking through the
texts of the two messages to be published
anil, apart from the deletion of the word
"perhaps" in the first paragraph of the
Iceland Prime Minister's message and in
the first and third-f rom- the-end paragraphs
of the President's message, I have noticed
two other minor verbal points in the
President'8 reply to which I hope you will
not mind my calling your attention.
After the first paragraph of the
President's reply the various "considerations"
set out in the Iceland message are rehearsed.
These considerations are repeated in exactly
the same language as that used in the Iceland
message./
-3-
message.   It might, however, "be clearer
if for the words "this country" in the
third consideration the words "that country"
were substituted, and if for the word "here"
at the end of the second sentence of the
fourth consideration the word '•there" were
substituted.
tarn) HALIFAX