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TO BE KEPT UNDER LOOK & KEY,

It is requested that special pare may be taken to ensure the secrecy of this document.

се

433

(THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT)

SECRET.

C.O.S.(41)95.

13TH FEBRUARY, 1941.

This document was considered at Co.5.(vi) 58

COPY NO.

33

WAR CABINET.

CHIEFS OF STAFF COMMITTEE.

Meeting.

FRENCH CABLE BETWEEN DAKAR AND PERNAMBUCO.

Memorandum by the Chief of Naval Staff.

At the 258th Meeting of the Chiefs of Staff on 9th August, 1940, it was recommended (Conclusion 3(a)) that the French cable between Dakar and Pernambuco should be cut.

At the 269th Meeting on 17th August, the previous recommendation was cancelled (item 6 of Conclusions), it being stated that it was "most undesirable" at that time to cut the cable.

In the light of recent information that enemy traffic is passing via this cable as far as Fernando Noronha and thence by Italian cable to South America, and since the Foreign Office have particularly asked that the Italian cable should not be interfered with, on account of Brazilian susceptibilities, it is proposed that the original intention of cutting the French cable,

" shall now be at a point outside the "security zone carried out.

(Signed) DUDLEY POUND.

Admiralty,

{

13TH FEBRUARY, 1941.

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