710. Consultation 4/4–146: Telegram

The Chargé in Brazil (Daniels) to the Secretary of State

restricted
u.s. urgent

609. Memorandum dated April 1 handed me late this afternoon by Foreign Minister in reply to our memoranda on Argentine situation. Full text in translation follows:

  • “1. By memorandum of March 11th last,24 the Government of the United States of America manifested the desire to know the opinion of the Brazilian Government on the American memorandum delivered to the Brazilian Embassy in Washington on February 11th last,25 and on the possibility of concluding a pact of mutual assistance with an Argentine Government controlled by elements mentioned in the ‘Blue Book’.
  • “2. The Brazilian Government has studied with most careful attention all the declarations of the ‘Blue Book’ and is sincerely convinced of the just importance which the American Government attributes because of their political significance, to the documents published. Likewise Brazil, which participated in the war and was for so many years under the menace of a Nazi-Fascist victory, shares the same preoccupation which determined in this case the attitude of the Department of State. The Brazilian Government, however, cannot avoid the thought that with the consummation of the military victory of the United Nations against the totalitarian Axis the revelations of the aforesaid report—all concerning activities carried on by the enemy or by other governments of an attitude then undefined—lose in part their frightening character, and it does not appear to it that they require of the American nations a different, more accentuated course of action beyond a constant yet prudent vigilance. The Brazilian Government therefore is not inclined to believe that Nazi-Fascist doctrines crushed at their centers of irradiation can encounter in the Western Hemisphere a propitious climate for new and dangerous adventures, above all since the United States hold the secret of the manufacture of the most deadly weapon of war until today known. At the same time the Brazilian Government is sincerely convinced that if in spite of the painful experience which humanity has just undergone the American Continent should find itself once more threatened the nations of the hemisphere would find in the provisions of the charter of San Francisco, especially in Chapter 7, the formula necessary for the preservation of their peace and their security.
  • “3. With reference to the second question of the American memorandum the Brazilian Government reaffirms its desire that there be signed as soon as possible in the present circumstances a pact of mutual assistance between the nations of the hemisphere. Evidently the aforesaid instrument will have effective value in the task of the consolidation of peace only if it is signed by all of the American nations as an expression of continental unity which was always the idea of all of the [Page 9] advocates of Pan-Americanism simply as a result of the very designation of the system.
  • “Therefore to exclude any of the American Republics from participation in that act, decisive for the destiny of the Americas, would have the effect of nullifying in great part its political and military significance. The Brazilian Government, which the United States has always found at its side in so many decades of uninterrupted friendship, would not desire then to contribute to the exclusion of the Argentine Republic from the celebration and signature of the pact.
  • “4. The Brazilian Government does not feel at liberty to enter into an analysis of the elements which are going to comprise the new Argentine Government, since publicly all the parties which participated in the last election, the final results of which are not yet definitely known, proudly declared that the public pronouncement was free and clean. With the government which may emerge from the electoral count the Brazilian Government will continue therefore the usual diplomatic relations without this implying the least disagreement with the Government of the United States of America or weakening to the slightest degree the political solidarity of Brazil with the great nation, of which it was an ally in the war and at whose side it desires to cooperate in the task of reconstructing the world. The invariable dedication of the Brazilian Government to the cause of continental unity leads it to assure the American Government that it is disposed to exert all its efforts in the sense of finding a formula capable of conciliating the superior interests of hemispheric defense and best adapted to the support of continental concord and solidarity.”

Foreign Minister said text of memorandum would be released to Rio de Janeiro press Thursday afternoon, April 4, for afternoon papers. He requested that no release of memorandum be made in Washington prior to that time.

Daniels
  1. See circular telegram from the Secretary of State, March 9, 1946, p. 6.
  2. The “Blue Book”.