Office of the Historian

817.00/4496a

The Secretary of State to the Secretary of the Navy (Wilbur)

Washington, January 27, 1927.

Sir: I have the honor to request that the attached message be despatched immediately to Admiral Latimer, provided you see no objection.

I have [etc.]

Frank B. Kellogg
[Enclosure]

Message for Admiral Latimer from the Secretary of State

Unless you perceive objection based upon some change in the situation which has not yet come to my attention, I should like to have you or some officer acting under your instructions take the earliest opportunity for an interview with Sacasa or Espinosa, and preferably [Page 305] with both of them together, for the purpose of emphasizing orally the position of this Government in the following respects:

1.
There is not the slightest possibility of the United States extending recognition to any Government in Nicaragua, headed either by Sacasa or by anybody else, which is based upon armed force or insurrection. Consequently, even if the insurrection now headed by Sacasa were successful and established control over the whole country, the United States could not, and would not, extend recognition to any Government so created.
2.
The only Government which the United States can and will recognize until new elections are duly and regularly held under the Constitution is the Government which has been recognized. Consequently, the support naturally flowing from recognition will be accorded to the Diaz Government, under existing circumstances, until some duly constituted government succeeds it legally as the result of the elections scheduled to take place in 1928.

You are requested to make these points perfectly plain so that they shall admit of no misunderstanding.

For your confidential information I have been led to believe that Sacasa and Espinosa have not heretofore understood our policy in the above respects, and have been encouraged to indulge the hope that in some way the United States could be induced to alter its previously announced policy and eventually, either withdraw recognition from Diaz, or in case the Sacasa party could hang on long enough and win, to accord recognition to any government which that party might establish by forcible and insurrectionary methods. It seems to us important that this false impression, if it exists, should be immediately eliminated.

You may communicate the foregoing to Mr. Eberhardt for his strictly confidential information and not to be communicated by him to the Diaz Government or anybody else.