611.3531/152

Memorandum by the Acting Secretary of State

The Argentine Ambassador called upon me this morning and reported to me his conversation with the President yesterday.

(The President had already told me of his conversation with the Ambassador; he had said to Espil that we were ready to sit around a table and explore the possibilities of reaching some sort of a trade agreement with the Argentine; that he had mentioned Paraguayan tea as something that might well be imported into the United States, but that with reference to Patagonian meats he felt that there might be Senatorial difficulties.)

The Ambassador seemed a little doubtful as to how he was to proceed; he suggested that it would be wise for him to send a telegram to his Government which would be on all fours with the telegram which we sent to our Embassy in Buenos Aires; it was necessary, he said, to make sure that his Government understood the conversations to be purely exploratory. I agreed entirely and asked him to draw up the telegram he proposed to send to his Government and I would go over it with him and see that our instructions were along similar lines.

William Phillips