825.00/287: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Chile ( Collier )
43. Department appreciates desirability of avoiding any steps which might have an unfavorable reaction on the local situation. However, the attitude of the Government of the United States so far as the recognition of the new regime is concerned must be guided not simply by the sincerity and objectives of those in control but [Page 360] also by those general principles which must govern our policy in extending recognition to any administration which may come into power in another nation by extra-constitutional means. At the present time it does not seem clear that the Government of the United States would be justified in assuming that the new regime was sufficiently established to warrant formal relations. For the present you will maintain frank, friendly, but informal relations, and you may make it clear that the United States is only pursuing that course which it invariably takes in like cases in other parts of the world.