815.00/3077a supp.: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Commissioner in the Dominican Republic (Welles)
1. Supplementing the Department’s cable of April 8, 6 p.m., the following is sent for your information:
In the elections in Honduras last October none of the three candidates, Carias, Arias and Bonilla, received a majority and the Congress also failed to select a President, because of obstructive maneuvers by the various factions. When the President’s term expired on February 1 Lopez Gutierrez established a dictatorship as a provisional measure. This Government proposed that changes in the cabinet should be made to make possible the holding of new elections which would be free and fair. Lopez Gutierrez agreed to this but failed to make satisfactory changes, and Carias refused to accept the Department’s proposal and started a revolution. The United States therefore announced that it did not recognize any government in Honduras and would continue to conduct necessary business informally.
Recently the generals controlling the several revolutionary armies, the most important of whom are Tosta, Ferrera and Carias, agreed to proclaim Fausto Davila as provisional President. This group now controls the entire north coast and the greater part of the Republic and has been besieging Tegucigalpa for four weeks without success. Lopez Gutierrez died of illness on March 10 and the Council of Ministers, headed by Zuniga Huete, succeeded to his authority in Tegucigalpa. Very recently Dionisio Gutierrez is reported to have started another revolutionary movement on behalf of Bonilla in southern Honduras. The President made unlawful the shipment of arms and munitions of war to Honduras by a proclamation dated March 22.2
Since the end of February Guatemala, Salvador and Nicaragua have been making efforts to agree on a plan for joint mediation, but these efforts have failed apparently because of inability to agree upon a place for holding the conference. The Department expressed its sympathy with the plan, and upon being invited to send a representative indicated that it would do so if invited by all three participants. The Department has little hope that the three countries can agree between themselves upon any plan for joint action. The President of Salvador has stated that he has abandoned the plan, and Nicaragua has asked the United States to take independent action.
[Page 302]The American Minister at Tegucigalpa is being informed of your approaching arrival and is being instructed, unless he deems it inadvisable or impracticable, to inform the leaders of all factions that a representative of this Government is being sent with special instructions to offer the friendly assistance of the United States in finding a solution which will bring about the establishment of peace in Honduras, and to propose an armistice for ten days.
The Department is endeavoring to arrange for transportation by airplane from the north coast of Honduras to Tegucigalpa. If such arrangements can not be made you will be informed by wireless and the ship will be diverted to Panama.