File No. 715.1715/56a
The Secretary of State to the Chargé in Honduras ( Curtis)1
The Government of the United States would view with the liveliest regret any armed strife or serious dispute which might occur between the Governments of Honduras and Nicaragua. Such a disagreement would appear the more out of place remembering that the Republics of Honduras and Nicaragua and the United States are all bound together as co-belligerents in the great war against the Imperial German Government.
The Department of State therefore offers its good offices to the Government of Honduras to use its influence towards a friendly settlement of the question at issue with Nicaragua in the following manner:
It is suggested that the Government of Honduras send a representative to Washington, or appoint a person now in Washington, to confer with the Department of State, and with representatives of Nicaragua regarding the present dispute. The representative should have the necessary maps and documents to make a clear exposition of the question. Such a conference would be an informal one, and would familiarize the Department with the question at issue in order that it might use its good offices to better purpose in suggesting a [Page 33] friendly solution of the question. The rearbitration of the question is not suggested, but merely a friendly discussion of the whole matter.
The Department requires as a condition precedent to the use of its good offices as outlined above that the Government of Honduras should immediately withdraw all troops and police into the zone occupied by them previous to June 1, 1918. This return to the status quo ante must be scrupulously observed by the Government of Honduras during the period within which the Department shall continue to exert its good offices.
A cable similar in sense to this one has been sent to the Legation at Managua.
- The same, mutatis mutandis, on the same date, to the Minister in Nicaragua.↩