File No. 817.00/1759.
The American Minister to Salvador to the Secretary of State.
San Salvador, January 12, 1912.
Sir: Referring to the telegram addressed to the Department by Chargé Gunther, dated Managua, January 4, which he repeated to me on the 6th instant under instruction of the Department, with its request that I carefully investigate and report, transmitting the documents mentioned in that telegram, consisting of some intercepted correspondence which, [according to what] the President of Salvador telegraphed to President Díaz of Nicaragua, clearly established Estrada Cabrera’s complicity in the support of a movement against Nicaragua, with the assistance of Doctor José Dolores Gámez in Costa Rica through General Nicasio Vásquez, who comes and goes at the Presidential Mansion at will, etc., I have the honor to transmit, herewith, a copy and translation of the correspondence in question.1
During an informal call which I made upon President Araujo on Sunday, the 7th instant, he stated to me that he was in possession of copies of some intercepted correspondence of the character before [Page 1017] described; and after he had explained to me the manner in which he had obtained them I asked if he had any objection to allow me to make copies of the same. He replied that he had no objection whatsoever, whereupon I brought them to the Legation and caused them to be copied and translated, notwithstanding the fact that after reading them I failed to see in what manner they implicated Estrada Cabrera. The papers consist only of a cipher key, a letter relative to projects of a revolutionary character against Nicaragua, written by Doctor José Dolores Gámez to President Estrada Cabrera, and several other letters written by Doctor Gámez and Mrs. M. Antonia Zaldívar. Of these documents, only the cipher key and the first letter written by Doctor Gámez appear to refer to revolutionary plans against Nicaragua.
I think that the Department will agree with me in that these letters do not attach to Estrada Cabrera any complicity in a movement against Nicaragua; and when I asked Doctor Castro Ramírez, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, if either he or President Araujo had any other documents bearing on this matter, he replied that they had no other documents bearing thereon. It is therefore upon these papers alone that President Araujo based his telegram to President Díaz of Nicaragua, saying that he was in possession of data showing that Estrada Cabrera is supporting a movement against Nicaragua, etc., as telegraphed to the Department by Chargé Gunther.
I have [etc.]
- Not printed.↩