Office of the Historian

710.G Peace/4: Telegram

The Chairman of the American Delegation (Hull) to the Acting Secretary of State

Montevideo, December 10, 1933—11 a.m.
[Received December 11—2:55 a.m.]

44. On Saturday morning upon receipt of your telegram giving me authority to offer suitable economic proposal I decided at once to seek out one or more leading delegates in key positions to present a resolution on peace and proposing to implement it by bringing out all unsigned peace agencies and strengthening them by an insistent request that all Governments not having signed should proceed to sign now. These included the Gondra,20 the Conciliation,21 the Lamas or Argentine,22 the Arbitration,23 and the Kellogg Treaties.24 I decided to confer with Saavedra Lamas whose Government was most delinquent in the signing of these treaties, and presented plan in detail and urged him to undertake this righteous and vitally important service while I presented the economic proposal. I suggested that to get all these treaties signed, which would include our signing the Argentine Pact with reservations, would have a splendid effect on peace and especially in South America where the Leticia and Chaco controversies still pend. This afternoon Lamas came to see me with his peace resolution prepared strongly urging each Government to sign each of these treaties which it had not signed and in other respects setting forth the detailed plan as I had laid it before him on Saturday. He is most enthusiastic and it now looks as if we may get both the economic and the peace proposals through the Conference which will constitute I think really substantial accomplishments.

We are giving every attention to the Chaco trouble and may make some progress during the session. We hope to conclude by the 23d but cannot be certain until later.

The peace and economic proposals are confidential until they are presented which we now think will be on Tuesday.25

Hull
  1. Foreign Relations, 1923, vol. i, p. 308.↩
  2. Ibid., 1929, vol. i, p. 653.↩
  3. Post, p. 234.↩
  4. Foreign Relations, 1929, vol. i, p. 659.↩
  5. Ibid., 1928, vol. i, p. 153.↩
  6. For a fuller account of the above conversations, see memorandum by Mr. J. Butler Wright, p. 178.↩