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Memorandum by the Chief of the Financial Division (Livesey) to the Special Assistant to the Secretary of State (Finletter)
Mr. Finletter: Every day for the past month or so the Brazilian Minister of Finance has telephoned the American Embassy at Rio and asked when someone will come down to negotiate the bond settlement he has proposed, which contemplates, I believe, cash payment of about $70,000,000, and annual payments of some $33,000,000 thereafter.
[Page 768]Today we have a telegram9 reporting that the Finance Minister yesterday told the Embassy he would appreciate some information before his meeting with President Vargas tomorrow, Wednesday, August 11.
Every day for several days past I have telephoned Dana Munro of the Foreign Bondholders Protective Council at Princeton, with whom the matter was taken up in very urgent terms by Feis10 about July 20. Last Friday he gave me the name of Robert McCormick, of Alexander and Green, as the man on whose acceptance the Council is waiting.
I told Mr. Feis, who asked me to handle the matter in his absence. This morning Munro, having telephoned Traphagen11 in New York, tells me that the obstacle is that McCormick has a commitment to the Department of State which may conflict, and names Messrs. Labouisse,12 Finletter, and Feis as the men who know about it. Labouisse and Feis are away.
Could I speak with you about this so that the Finance Minister may have some kind of an answer to report to the President of Brazil when he talks with him tomorrow?
Munro did not actually say that he was sure McCormick would go if he got a release from, or clearance in respect of, his other commitment to the Department, but if I had a clear “Yes” from you, I could at least telephone Munro, who could telephone Traphagen, who could telephone McCormick, if this is the way the thing would have to be routed. Then possibly I might really have something to say to the Embassy, the Minister of Finance, and the President of Brazil.