Office of the Historian

818.6363 Am 6/81

Memorandum by Mr. Stewart Johnson, Division of Latin American Affairs, Department of State

[Washington,] February 26, 1921.

Interview with Doctor Beeche, Minister of Costa Rica, on February 26, 1921, regarding the Arbitration Agreement between Costa Rica and Great Britain in relation to the Amory Concession

As the result of an interview with the Under Secretary, at which Mr. Frost was also present, it was decided to draw the attention of the Minister of Costa Rica to a clause in Article III of the Agreement [Page 648] of February 14th, between the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Costa Rica and the British Minister, submitting the Amory Concession and the Royal Bank matter4 to arbitration, as reported in the Legation’s cable No. 18, of February 22, 11 a.m.,5 reading “an agreement made and executed in good faith” (referring to the Amory Concession).

Doctor Beeche’s attention was called to the fact that from the point of view of this Government the Amory Concession; was not entered into in good faith by the Amorys, who are American citizens, insofar as the representations made by the Amorys to the Department, and through the American Legation at San José, with reference to the nationality of the interests seeking the concession, were concerned. I called Doctor Beeche’s attention to the fact that the Amorys misrepresented the nationality of the interests backing them, both to the Department and to the Legation at San José at the time the concession was being sought in May 1918, and that by means of an intercepted letter from Restrepo in London to Uribe in San José6 it became reasonably apparent that the interests supporting the Amory Concession were British and not American. The letter referred to was brought to the attention of the Tinoco Government at the same time that it was brought to the attention of the American Legation and the State Department prior to the date of the approval of the concession by the Costa Rican Congress. I explained to Doctor Beeche that it was the State Department’s desire merely not to acquiesce by silence in the statement appearing in the agreement to which reference is made.

S[tewart] J[ohnson]
  1. Royal Bank of Canada claim; see Foreign Relations, 1920, vol. i, p. 835, footnote 3.↩
  2. Not printed.↩
  3. Letter not printed; see telegram of June 24, 1918, noon, from the Chargé in Costa Rica, Foreign Relations, 1919, vol. i, p. 873.↩