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{
    "localId": "470155829",
    "label": "Central Intelligence Agency Report M-6, Note on the Boundary Between Italian Somaliland and Ethiopia",
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    "id": "470155829",
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    "contentType": "document",
    "title": "Central Intelligence Agency Report M-6, Note on the Boundary Between Italian Somaliland and Ethiopia",
    "citationUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/470155829",
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        "President's Secretary's Files (Truman Administration)",
        "Intelligence Files"
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    "productionDates": [
        {
            "logicalDate": "1948-07-01",
            "month": 7,
            "year": 1948
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{
    "seq": 5,
    "pageIndex": 0,
    "type": "photo",
    "url": "https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/presidential-libraries/truman/hst-psf/602196/875456/875456-02-005.tif",
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    "ocrText": "IDENT TAL\nmain the intention of the article seems to be to confirm the Menelik\nline.\nItalian cartography is inconsistent in the treatment of this line.\nSeveral maps published by Italian government agencies before 1925\nshowed a line northeast of the Uebi Scebeli from near Belet Uen to the\npoint 8°N., 48°E., e.g., an approximation of the Menelik line as de-\nscribed above. The line was generally shown as indefinite, however, and\nwas marked as undelimited or undemarcated. After 1925 Italian maps\nusually omitted the boundary entirely.\nAt the time the Ualual (Wal Wal) incident was before the League\nof Nations in 1935, the Italian government insisted that the question\nof the location of the boundary was not under discussion. Consequently\nthe arbitration commission dealing with the incident was not empowered\nto deal with the boundary question. The Ethiopian government, in\nasserting its claim to sovereignty over Ualual at this time, made con-\ntradictory statements regarding the location of the boundary, probably\nbecause of a lack of first-hand knowledge.\nThe Department of State does not seem to have had any occasion\nto take a position regarding the boundary in the past, and until re-\ncently, at least, the British government does not seem to have done so\neither.\n2. The Problem.\nThe basic documents to be examined in any attempt to determine\nthis boundary are the so-called agreement between the Emperor Menelik II\nand the Italian representative Nerazzini of about June 1897, and the\nItalo-Ethiopian Convention of May 16, 1908 which was supposed in part\nto amend and in part to confirm the 1897 understanding. Neither of\nthese instruments is satisfactory as a basis for delimitation: the first,\nbecause of its informal and incomplete nature; and the second, because\nits description did not conform to geographic reality in many cases.\nThe discrepancies between the text of the Convention of 1908 and the\nactual location of tribes, water courses, etc. is discussed at some\nlength in Department of State, OIR Report No. 4288, \"Undemarcated Bound-\naries of the Italian Colonies and their Cartographic Presentation\". It\nis evident that a new agreement will have to be drawn up before there\ncan be any demarcation of the boundary on the ground.\nThe present report is concerned primarily with that section of\nthe boundary from the River Uebi Scebeli northeastward to its point of\njuncture with the boundary of British Somaliland, because certain\nAmerican interests in eastern Ogaden may be affected by the location of\nthe boundary. An attempt will be made to determine the intent of the\nunderstanding of 1897, on the assumption that this understanding may\nform the basis for any future agreement.\n- 2 -\nCONF"
}