837.00/3624: Telegram
The Ambassador in Cuba (Welles) to the Secretary of State
[Received 8:20 p.m.]
139. As the result of the intensified propaganda of President Machado yesterday evening and throughout this morning it is possible that a resolution will be adopted by the Cuban House of Representatives tonight attacking my course here. I have been handed by a member of the House a copy of a draft prepared by a violent supporter of the administration which contains among others the following declarations:
“That the activities of His Excellency the Ambassador of the United States to Cuba interfering in the interior problems of the Government have caused a deep perturbation of public order and the threat embodied in his insinuations of possible intervention in our country are a violation upon our rights as a free and independent people and an aggression upon the sovereignty of small nationalities.”
Inasmuch as the proposal handed by me to President Machado was headed “proposal of the mediator for a just and fair solution of the Cuban political problem” and the proposal contained exactly the points enumerated in my telegram 129, August 7, noon, to the Department and inasmuch as I have never discussed the possibility of intervention with any political leader or with anyone other than President Machado and in that, case in the precise terms communicated to the Department in my cable above referred to it is obvious that the proposed [Page 347] resolution is solely predicated upon the continued allegations by President Machado that I was acting without the authority of my Government and had attempted to force the acceptance of a solution without authorization.
Referring to my personal telegram to the President of last night32 and to my conversation by telephone with the Under Secretary this morning, if President Machado is permitted to believe as he apparently does that the United States will under no conditions and under no circumstances comply with its treaty obligations, I have every reason to believe that he will not give in until the very last possible moment. If on the other hand it is emphatically made clear to him that while the whole object of my mission has been to avoid intervention and that the United States will only consider intervention if it is forced to do so by the clear requirements of its treaty obligations as contained in article 3 of the permanent treaty it is much more probable that he will finally agree to the solution proposed, I can not help but feel that it is an infinitely wiser policy on our part to state very clearly at this juncture that we will not evade our treaty obligations if we are obliged to comply with them, rather than to evade the issue and let matters slide into a state of affairs where we will have to take the only action which we desire to avoid. The President himself and those around him are confident that because of the prejudice to our own interests the United States Government will not intervene now under any conditions whatsoever. If they can be dissuaded from that belief a peaceful solution will be far more probable.