837.00/3775: Telegram

The Mexican Minister for Foreign Affairs ( Puig ) to the Secretary of State

[Translation]

As information supplementary to the verbal communication that our Chargé d’Affaires, Mr. Padilla-Nervo must have made this afternoon to Assistant Secretary Mr. Caffery, I take the liberty of advising Your Excellency that we have accurate data concerning personality at least four persons who are serving as members of the Executive Commission of the new government of Cuba, data indicating that they are not Communists, but persons of undoubted preparation, intellectual capacity and social responsibility. Mr. Guillermo Portela, who is Commissioner of Foreign Relations in the new government, is professor of criminal law, a scientist of standing, with ample financial resources, of high social position, and who, as soon as the [Page 395] university problem arose, distinguished himself as an opponent of President Machado. Dr. Ramón Grau San Martín, Commissioner of Public Instruction and Health, was Dean of the Medical Faculty, with non-Communistic ideas, (was) also distinguished in the university opposition to President Machado, and until recently an exile in your country. Porfirio Franca, Commissioner of Finance, may be considered as one of the best prepared men in Cuba for that position, with the highest connections in the best banks, a man of means, of no communistic views or antecedents. Mr. Carbo, Commissioner of Gobernación, Commerce and War, was some years ago Consul of his country; he has been and is manager of the periodical, La Semana. There could be no basis for the supposition of his communist affiliations due solely to the fact of (his) having visited in Moscow and then written a book on Russia that is strictly literary. He was leader of the revolutionary movement against President Machado in 1931. In the interest of the solidarity of the American continent and with the lofty purpose of bringing about rapprochement in every way we deem it our duty to submit these facts which we know to the consideration of the Department of State particularly in view of the cordial attitude of that Department in transmitting to the Government of Mexico, through Mr. Caffery, explanations of the situation in Cuba and proposals of your Government to continue its observation, assuring us that the sending of ships does not mean intervention in Cuba.

Accept [etc.]

J. M. Puig Casaurano