815.00 Revolutions/80: Telegram
The Minister in Honduras (Lay) to the Secretary of State
[Received 8:14 p.m.]
91. Department’s telegram No. 37, May 7, 7 p.m. Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs, on behalf of the President, informally and orally enquired of the Legation how the following from the Associated Press as published in the local papers should be construed.
“The Department of State has emphatically stated that the situation which confronts the American authorities in Honduras—a genuine political revolution—is different from that in Nicaragua where outlaws are operating. Secretary Stimson has described the case of Nicaragua as a campaign of pillage and assassination which demands protective measures, but in Honduras American forces will maintain strict neutrality.”
The Undersecretary stated that the President was particularly anxious to know the significance of the description “genuine political revolution”.
I then read in translation to the Undersecretary appropriate extracts from the memorandum of the press conference of April 20th laying stress on the Secretary’s explanation that the statement given [Page 571] to the press on April 19 had nothing to do with recognition of belligerency.
El Sol in a long editorial believes that Secretary Stimson will change his opinion that the Honduran movement is essentially political; that this description has no importance and in any event interprets the renewed assurances as enunciation of a new policy of non-interference in internal politics in Honduras, which it applauds.
In the only unfavorable editorial La Opinion argues that the Secretary’s qualification of the Honduran movement as essentially political is equivalent to a tacit recognition of the belligerency of the revolution which receives with it a great moral force within and without Honduras. Copies of all editorials were sent the Department by the pouch today.
Repeated to San Salvador.