825.516/223: Telegram
The Ambassador in Chile (Culbertson) to the Secretary of State
[Received 3:55 p.m.]
178. Referring to paragraph No. 3, Department’s telegram No. 62, August 12, 5 p.m., I received today the following reply from the Minister for Foreign Affairs:
“I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of August 1st49 referring to the bank deposits of American citizens made in foreign currency in banks in Chile.
I do not believe it possible at this time to anticipate anything with respect to the application in all its aspects of law No. 5107, but I can assure Your Excellency that in case any deposit of an American citizen in foreign currency should be expropriated in whole or in part under any law or regulation, the corresponding effective and adequate compensation will be made in accordance with the guarantees which the political constitution and the laws grant to the inhabitants of the Republic.”
Please advise me whether you consider reply satisfactory. The reply uses the phrase “adequate and effective compensation” which I used in my letter of June 9th to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. If you desire I can reply to the Minister’s letter and reiterate our interpretation of “effective compensation” but under the circumstances this would seem to be unnecessary.
In accordance with the Department’s telegram No. 62, August 12, 5 p.m., I prepared a memorandum of my various conversations with Dávila and the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Last Wednesday I discussed the memorandum with Dávila and with the Minister for Foreign Affairs and with certain minor changes they accepted it and it now [Page 481] has been filed in the Foreign Office. It summarized the several conversations already reported and I therefore will not telegraph it unless you so instruct. A copy of it was transmitted in the air mail which left here Thursday.
Political situation continues obscure. In the pouch which left here Thursday I transmitted a despatch reviewing the situation.
- Not printed.↩