714.1515/950: Telegram
The Minister in Guatemala (Geissler) to the Secretary of State
[Received October 21–12:20 p.m.]
128. Referring to Legation’s telegram of October 18, 3 p.m. I had a long talk yesterday with Minister for Foreign Affairs Aguirre Velasquez. He is deeply disappointed because the Government of the United States did not, as suggested in his note of September 24th, insist that Honduras accept the State Department’s proposal of June, 1928. He told me that on the 18th the President and the Cabinet instructed him to ask the Council of State, the Faculty of Lawyers and the Boundary Commission for their respective opinions on the Honduran proposal.
At this moment submission to those bodies of any concession to Honduras without the previous approval of the Executive would be fatal.
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I urged the Minister for Foreign Affairs to postpone carrying out that instruction. He assented very reluctantly even though I had pointed out that our conversations are wholly unofficial and that the Honduran proposal, although I had informed him of it unofficially and confidentially, has not been put before the Guatemalan Government and hence cannot be submitted by it.
Afterwards I called on President Chacon who said that he will instruct the Minister for Foreign Affairs to suspend action and that they will talk with me again before taking any action. Then I conferred with Carlos Salazar whose opinion in boundary matters Guatemalans regard highly.
Unfortunately press despatches from Honduras and the United States instead of indicating that the Government of the United States is willing to present to Guatemala a proposal if made by Honduras that an American judge be arbitrator, have conveyed the impression that the Government of the United States made the proposal to Honduras. For example, an Associated Press despatch [Page 962] from Tegucigalpa said: “Assembly notables on behalf of the President Mejia Colindres approved Hoover’s proposal appoint new arbiter de jure pro settlement Honduras-Guatemala boundary dispute.”
Guatemalans comment with astonishment that such proposal was not simultaneously submitted to Guatemala. I have informed a number of people of the true facts, but at least with others a false impression lingers.
Furthermore, Guatemalan public men recall that certain Hondurans in past years were said to have asserted in effect that United States authorities are only seeking to find a method of securing confirmation of the title Honduras claims to the region in which the Cuyamel operates north of the Merendon. See in that connection despatch 1892.36 There is much fear among public men that the State Department may in due course support the entire Honduras formula of October 11th.
Salazar recalled to me how hard we had to work last year to obtain popular acquiescence in arbitration proposed by the United States and legislative approval of the tribunal and of the formula then proposed by the State Department and that in that connection faith in the proposal and its proponent was slowly but effectively built up and that Guatemala took pride in finally accepting without reservation. He said that Honduras … injected and even now adds an “impossible” reservation before availing itself of a suggestion that the Department would be willing to present a proposal if made by Honduras that a Hague Court judge be arbitrator. He expressed the opinion that the Assembly, partly for reasons of internal politics, would probably reject any proposal submitted at this time that a Hague judge be arbitrator even if the formula of June 1928 were accepted, and that the effect on the tenure of the Government would probably be disastrous.
President Chacon today expressed himself to me similarly as had Mr. Salazar.
Repeated to Honduras.
- Dated April 24, 1928; not printed.↩