724.3415/4340: Telegram
The Chargé in Brazil (Gordon) to the Secretary of State
[Received 5:02 p.m.]
320. My 318, November 16, 6 p.m. Brazilian reply to League is expected to be delivered today.
The following telegram was sent last night to the Brazilian Minister to Switzerland to be delivered to Butler:
“I request you to remind Avenol of the disadvantage of taking drastic measures against Paraguay and Bolivia without the League having first tried to obtain peace in the Chaco by the temporary suspension of the activities of the Committee in order to permit the League to invite the United States and Brazil to take such initiative as they may judge opportune for the reestablishment of peace, the League taking this occasion to announce that it will give its entire support to the action of the United States and Brazil.”
The Brazilian Minister to Switzerland was requested, in case Butler should not be in Geneva, to have the International Labor Bureau forward the telegram to him on the understanding that it is a strictly personal confidential communication.
Unfortunately this telegram was sent without first ascertaining whether Butler is in Geneva and if not where he is at the present moment. The Foreign Office hopes however that the Brazilian Minister in Switzerland can arrange for its repetition to Butler without a leak.
Replying to my renewed expressions of doubt the Secretary-General today, in amplifying the motives for the decision of the Minister for Foreign Affairs to take this step, said that if sentiment in Geneva was as the Minister thought it to be he felt that a suggestion of this kind might be acceptable as enabling the League to put the matter back into channels capable of more active mediation efforts and thus avoiding what might in effect be a flat declaration of incapacity on the part of the League to bring about any solution. As explained yesterday, the Minister also felt that if such a suggestion found any favor it would [Page 109] avoid matters dragging on indefinitely in Geneva and bring them to a head more quickly.
The Minister informed me that the Argentine Ambassador here has now received authorization to be present with the American and Brazilian representatives at direct conversations between the Paraguayan and Bolivian Ministers here if and when they may eventually take place. Part of the Minister’s thought in his suggestion to Butler was that if the suggestions were acted upon in any form a channel for the immediate resumption of mediation efforts would thus be at hand in the shape of such direct conversations.