724.3415/1947½
The Paraguayan Delegate (Soler) to the Assistant Secretary of State (White)
My Dear Mr. White: I acknowledge receipt of your kind letter of the 28th ult. in reply to my note of the 27th. From it I see that you are entering into details which I wanted to avoid, precisely for the sake of brevity. But I shall follow your initiative with much pleasure, hoping that it will be useful in bringing to light the meaning of many acts and proceedings in the current negotiations.
You know very well, because we have always spoken with the most noble frankness, that I am not in agreement with some of your ideas and reservations. But this difference in opinion has not prevented and will not prevent us from being cordial co-workers in this joint work for the peace of America. The best way to know each other and to respect each other is by making our thoughts known with all correctness, without annoyance or insults toward anybody, as we have always done in our conversations.
Within this mutual respect it is impossible to lay claim to a monopoly [Page 53] of truth. If even in written communications, a difference in interpretation is not a matter for surprise, it must even less surprise us in a series of verbal and informal conferences. Therefore, I shall not be precipitate in telling you that my statement “is strictly in accordance with the truth,” because that would wound your veracity, which I respect. I have limited myself and do limit myself to informing you that the delegation of Paraguay can not accept the authorship of the draft, without obvious injustice.
For the better understanding of the matter, I will make a brief review, subject to amplification, if this should be necessary. The meaning which I attach to the acts which preceded and followed the draft of May 6, is not always in accordance with the views which you express, but it is the reflection, both of my “Diary” of the conferences and of the official documents to which I refer.
On April 22 last we began this second stage of the conferences, putting into practice the suggestion you made in the meeting of the 15th to undertake at once the study of a pact of non-aggression in verbal and informal conversations. This second stage lasted until May 6, the date of final revision and delivery of the draft to both delegations.
In our first conference with the delegation of Bolivia we talked about three points: non-aggression, the reestablishment of diplomatic relations, and arbitration. We did not proceed to study any other point, because the atmosphere began to warm up a little when the status quo of 1907 was touched upon, which is the sore point in the dispute and it was at that time, that we decided to entrust to you the drafting of three articles on these three points which we had discussed. We sought in this way to have you, as a disinterested party in the drafting, do us the favor of saving us a discussion which was becoming disagreeable. In those days the press had given an account of the opinion expressed by the American Ambassador to Chile on the Treaty of 1904, and Mr. Finot, as you will recall, appeared much excited.
We also agreed at that time, as a procedure for avoiding unnecessary incidents, that you should consult separately with each delegation on the text of the articles, and as soon as you had obtained the agreement of both, you would be good enough to call us to a joint meeting to continue the study which we had begun.
We arrived at your office on April 27, and the exhibition which you made to us of the draft was an agreeable surprise for us. It represented a great effort and high-minded interest. I remarked to you that it was a complete draft, even with an appendix, and you were good enough to tell me by way of explanation that you had entrusted the Departmental Legal Advisers with the work.
[Page 54]Both at that meeting and at the following meetings you desired to deliver us the draft so that we might study it. We had to refuse, and the reason was, as I informed you, “because the draft, in its present form, is absolutely unacceptable to us.” It was on that occasion that I used the phrase to which my note of the 27th refers.
It was then, too, that we asked for an individual copy for the sole purpose of sending it to the Government for study. You told us in reply that you had the copies for both delegations prepared, and that if you delivered one to us you would have to deliver the other one to the delegation of Bolivia. We did not raise any question, and therefore, there was no reason for you making any declaration to us as to the footing of equality upon which you wanted to place both delegations.
Naturally, we have never claimed more favorable treatment in our negotiations before the Neutrals, because this would amount to creating an inequality to which we have no right. Our own sense of propriety would have prevented us from making such stipulation. Our purpose was to avoid acceptance, officially, of the draft, and if we agreed to the simultaneous delivery of the copies, even if they were private, we exposed ourselves to the very danger which we wished to prevent.
The draft was absolutely unacceptable to us, not because it contained points other than those which we had discussed and agreed upon beforehand, but because it did not take into consideration any of our just demands. It not only did not mention the withdrawal from the fortínes nor from the Hayes zone,47 but it did not even reserve our rights to the status quo of 1907.
For that reason we preferred, before giving it course, to limit ourselves to reading the draft and taking notes. And here begins the work of changing and improving the draft, which work is not yet completed.
It is possible that the delegation of Paraguay employed more time and work in taking notes than that of Bolivia. The draft covered the Bolivian demands more fully than it did ours, which circumstance made a greater effort necessary. To this circumstance, and not to an inequality which we did not desire, must be attributed the greater abundance of notes and of text which we had to prepare, as compared with the lack of interest, which is explicable on the part of our colleagues at the conference.
These modifications centered chiefly about Articles II, III and IV.
With respect to the renewal of diplomatic relations we called attention to the fact in the first place that we had no instructions. We [Page 55] talked over the matter of Argentine mediation with you and even admitted the possibility of a separate protocol. You proposed to us two different texts of the said Article II, and we preferred the simplest one, but without stating any reason. We again modified the said text in the final revision of May 6.
With respect to Article III, the tendency of our changes was to make the arbitration complete, that is, to have it include all the points of the controversy.
It was, doubtless, the tendency of the text which you proposed to us, but we desired and do desire, that in this juridical arbitration there shall be settled both the fundamental question and the various questions as to possession and as to interpretations of treaties which have arisen in the course of diplomatic exchanges on the difference. One of these questions would be the status quo.
In your first draft it was said that the parties agreed to submit to arbitration the disagreement on possessions and dominion. But, of course, as a result of the opposition of the Bolivian delegates, it was not possible to keep the matter of the arbitration in that concrete form as was proper. We proposed various changes, but not all were successful, and then we reserved the right to insist upon those omitted in the conferences following the official delivery of the draft.
With regard to Article IV, you proposed to us at the meeting on May 3 two different texts in place of the original one. I took note of all these formulae, some of which I copied word for word, and at the time suggested some changes. Dr. Vasconsellos suggested others, all of them tending to reserve the status quo of 1907 and as you told us that it was absolutely impossible to secure the acceptance of our modifications by the delegation of Bolivia, we asked you to state what you had already obtained to that effect, as we reserved to ourselves the task of continuing our effort in the conversations to be conducted after the presentation of the draft.
Not only Article V but Articles VI, VII, VIII, IX and X were the subject of modifications suggested by one or the other delegation, but to make modifications in a draft, that is, to modify it, is not the same as drafting it. In a body made up of representatives, any project is at times the subject of profuse revision, and in such a case, it is not customary to call the author of an amendment the author or editor of the draft. This would require another substitute draft. Even more so on this occasion, as two-thirds of the amendment related to a subject not discussed nor agreed upon previously in the meeting of April 22.
I do not mention this lack of previous agreement, as a charge, because your effort deserves all my respect and my gratitude, but in order to corroborate my assertion that the delegation of Paraguay [Page 56] did not draw up a project but worked upon a draft which was already prepared.
The fact that we, up to the present, did not consider ourselves as authors or editors of the draft is proved by our communications with the Chancellery. In our cablegram 21 we informed the Ministry textually: “Mr. White prepared a draft pact of non-aggression. We are not transmitting the text because we refused to receive it as we considered it unacceptable. We worked upon modification of it, and for this purpose visited Mr. White almost daily, obtaining modification of some articles.” In cablegram 22, in giving a summary of the draft, we said textually: [“]Mr. White’s draft contains ten articles. The five articles of the regulation referred to in Article VI appear as an annex to the treaty.” In cablegram No. 24 we stated: “As was agreed upon in conference this afternoon, we are sending by air mail the text proposed by Mr. White.” And in the note of May 7, 1932, we repeated: “We have the honor to send Your Excellency the text of Mr. White’s draft, the general lines of which we communicated in our cablegram 22.”
The Government of Paraguay did not understand it otherwise. This is proved by its cablegrams and notes to this delegation and its communications to the Neutrals. In the memorandum delivered June 1 to the Minister of the United States at Asunción, it is called the White draft. I do not officially know this document, but I make the statement on the authority of Dr. Vasconsellos, who told me that he had in his possession, for his private information, a copy with which you had been good enough to provide him.
The Government of Bolivia understood it in the same way. The communications of her Chancellery likewise refer to the White draft.
Finally, the newspapers of the world, in giving an account of the submission of the draft, did not say that it was the work of the delegations. It published the account, assigning to it an author. And from that time, until July 26, when for the first time the authorship of the draft is attributed to both delegations, no one corrected the newspaper account. Hence the surprise which it gave me and the surprise it will cause tomorrow, when it is learned that this worthy brain child, deserving of all praise for what it is worth as a capable effort and an expression of an honorable purpose, is of doubtful paternity.
I accept your suggestion to call in the future the draft with which we are dealing, the draft of May 6, and believe me, my dear Mr. White, that in the midst of these differences of opinion, which never separate men of conviction but only draw them closer, there is always a strong current of admiration and esteem for you.
Yours cordially,
- Zone awarded by President Hayes in boundary dispute between Argentina and Paraguay; see Foreign Relations, 1878, p. 711.↩