817.00/5107: Telegram

The Chargé in Nicaragua (Munro) to the Secretary of State

305. Department’s 174, October 29, 6 p.m. I think that control over telegraph lines should be assumed by the guardia within the next 3 or 4 months if the President will agree thereto but that it should be a permanent rather than a temporary control. An adequate communications system is essential to the success of the guardian’s work and this extension of the guardian’s activity would involve little extra expense. A mere temporary control would do little good because the telegraph operators would pay little attention to American officers temporarily placed over them when they knew that the old political management would return after the elections and that any operators discharged for improper conduct would then be restored.

Munro