837.00/3557: Telegram
The Ambassador in Cuba (Welles) to the Acting Secretary of State
[Received 9:05 p.m.]
91. My telegram No. 90, June 21, 5 p.m. I had this morning my first interview with the President in, 2 weeks. General Machado has been seriously ill and is still unable to transact official business.
I advised the President in detailed fashion of the conversations I had had with representatives of the opposition factions and of my opinion that within a few days all of the important elements in the opposition with the possible exception of the Menocal group would have accepted my tender of good offices. The President elaborated at great length upon his desire to meet the opposition half way although he consistently maintained that no confidence whatever was to be placed in any promises which might be forthcoming from General Menocal and that the student organizations would undoubtedly promote disturbances during the time that conversations were continuing here.
The President informed me that he would select immediately three delegates to represent the Government in the mediation negotiations. I expressed my earnest hope that the individuals to be selected by him would be of conciliatory character and it; is my present impression that the delegates whom the President will select will be Barreras, the [Page 314] President of the Senate; Averhoff, the Secretary of the Treasury; and Herrera, the Acting Secretary of State.
The President informed me that he himself has dictated the outlines of the editorial appearing yesterday in the Heraldo de Cuba, the Government paper, which was entitled “The Good Offices of Ambassador Welles”. This editorial called attention to the fact that the President himself Had taken the initiative in the conciliation policy and that the Government of General Machado strongly supported the utilization of my good offices “because the Ambassador does not prejudice our Sovereignty; does not affect in the slightest degree our rights as an independent people; and because he is carrying out the points of the good neighbor of President Roosevelt.” The editorial continues by declaring that the utilization of my good offices will make it possible for the Cuban people “to reach an agreement through serene, reasonable and thoughtful discussion, the only manner in which law, justice and respect for individual rights can prevail, even in the most bloody conflicts, and through which men who do not permit themselves to be blinded by the dictates of hate nor the savage impulse of barbarism can make themselves heard”.
The editorial concludes with the statement that the “tender of the good offices of the Ambassador is the offer of a loyal friend in a destructive and tragic family quarrel, extended with the hope that it may be solved through the channels of civic action and of civilization. No good Cuban should therefore withhold from him his sympathy, create difficulties in his task, nor close his heart beforehand to the sentiments of gratitude which so lofty a policy should necessarily make grow in every worthy soul, whether this effort meets with success or not”.
The President desires me to express to the Department that this editorial is the expression of his own attitude with regard to the utilization of the good offices which I extended.