763.72119/3121: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Commission to Negotiate Peace
42. Following from American Ambassador, Buenos Aires, December 20.
“The Minister for Foreign Affairs informed me last night that the Argentine Government had determined to send today a telegram to the Government of the United States presumably through the Argentine Chargé d’Affaires in Washington informing it of the desire of Argentina to become a member of the League of Nations as proposed by President Wilson and requesting for that reason and for its favorable attitude towards the Allies during the war, a place at the approaching Peace Conference. The Minister stated further that in the event of there being two Conferences one to arrive at a solution of the problems arising from the present war and one to treat of the proposed League of Nations, the Argentine Government would ask to be represented only at the latter.
From his further conversation I gained the impression that this decision of the Argentine Government has been induced or at any rate accelerated by the news of the voyage [sic] of Count Romanones4 to confer with President Wilson.”
The Argentine maintained a strictly neutral position during the War, and did nothing which entitled it, in the opinion of this Department to a place at the Conference, which will discuss the solution of the problems arising from the present war (this objection would not apply, of course, to the request of the Argentine to be present at a Conference which should discuss a league of nations). Would [Page 230] it not be appropriate that those South American countries which declared war on Germany, or otherwise materially aided the allied cause, should be represented at the Conference which will solve the problems arising from the present war, since these Nations might feel that they had gained nothing from their cooperation with the United States should the neutral nations of South America be represented as well.
- Spanish President of the Council of Ministers and Minister for Foreign Affairs.↩