839.51A/255

The Chargé in the Dominican Republic ( Brown ) to the Acting Secretary of State

No. 1036

Sir: I have the honor to inform the Department that Mr. Oliver Peck Newman, who is to succeed Mr. William E. Dunn as Special Emergency Agent, and probably also as Financial Adviser, of the Dominican Government, arrived in Santo Domingo on June 20, 1933, accompanied by Mrs. Newman. I understand that Mr. Newman brought with him a letter from President Roosevelt to President Trujillo, in which the former expressed his best wishes to the latter.

In the evening of June 17, the Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lcdo. Logroño, informed me during an informal conversation of the coming arrival of Mr. Newman to take over Mr. Dunn’s position. Lcdo. Logroño said that Mr. Dunn’s contract will expire on June 30, 1933, and will not be renewed. He mentioned that Mr. Newman is a personal friend of President Roosevelt, has visited him at the White House, was at one time Commissioner of the District of Columbia and was recommended in a letter signed by the Secretary of State, and that he believed Mr. Newman could not be more highly recommended.

Lcdo. Logroño told me that this information is the information that President Trujillo hoped to be able to give Minister Schoenfeld before the latter’s departure on vacation on June 6 (See second paragraph of Minister Schoenfeld’s despatch No. 1010 of June 3, 1933), but that the President did not receive it until after Minister Schoenfeld’s departure. I have reason to believe that President Trujillo received the information by steamer mail which arrived in Santo Domingo on the morning of June 12. The remarks made by Lcdo. Logroño on June 17 served to confirm fairly conclusive rumors received by the Legation a few days previously in regard to the coming arrival and appointment of Mr. Newman.

Early in the morning of June 21 Mr. Newman called at the Legation. During a conversation on general topics, Mr. Newman said that while serving on the Board of Commissioners of the District of Columbia during the administration of President Wilson it had fallen to his lot to supervise taxation and financial matters. Such experience will, of course, be of advantage to him in his duties here. He said that he. does not know Mr. Dunn, but that he believed Mr. Dunn had had conversations with Mr. Joseph E. Davies, legal counsel to the Dominican Legation at Washington. Mr. Newman added that he has known [Page 639] Señor Ulises F. Espaillat36 and the other diplomatic officers of the Dominican Legation at Washington since February of this year.

A contract between the Dominican Government and Mr. Newman, similar to the contract between the Dominican Government and Mr. Dunn, is being drawn up.

Mr. Newman plans to go back to Washington, leaving here June 27, and to return to Santo Domingo in about a month.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Respectfully yours,

James E. Brown, Jr.
  1. Counselor of the Dominican Legation at Washington.