Office of the Historian

824.00/153 supp.: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Argentina (Stimson)3

[Paraphrase]
Washington, January 31, 1921—5 p.m.

13. Department’s telegrams of September 27, 1920, 6 p.m. and December 9, 1920, 2 p.m.4

The Department desires you to inform the Minister of Foreign Affairs that the Government of the United States, in view of the fact that the election of Dr. Bautista Saavedra to the Presidency of Bolivia was conducted in conformity with the provisions of the Bolivian Constitution as amended by the Constitutional Convention elected in November 1920, has now determined to extend recognition to the existing Government of Bolivia, not as the de facto Government, but as the Constitutional Government of that Republic. This Government will delay the formal act of recognition for a few days until assured that the stability of the present Bolivian Government will not be menaced by any outbreak of disorders. The Government of Argentina will receive notification of the date on which the United States will extend recognition.

You should inquire also whether the Government of Argentina finds itself in agreement with the decision of the United States, and [Page 283] whether it will be disposed to proceed simultaneously with the United States in extending formal recognition to the Government of Bolivia. You may say to the Minister of Foreign Affairs that it is the belief of the Department that the Governments of Argentina, Brazil, and the United States have contributed to the peaceful and orderly development of Constitutional Government in this hemisphere, and have also given significant evidence of the similarity in the ideals of the three Republics, by their action in postponing recognition of the new Bolivian Government until that Government had definitely shown that it represented the will of the great majority of the Bolivian people, and until it had been established in accordance with the provisions of the Bolivian Constitution.

Colby
  1. The same, mutatis mutandis, to the Ambassador in Brazil (no. 16).↩
  2. Foreign Relations, 1920, vol. i, pp. 381 and 385, respectively.↩