724.3415/4047: Telegram
The Minister in Paraguay (Nicholson) to the Secretary of State
[Received 10:26 p.m.]
39. Following is a summary of my despatch 105 which was sent air mail August 23.23 Buenos Aires has a copy and the Ambassador suggested that I cable this summary.
On his own initiative I saw the President at his house August 17th. He made clear for the first time that instead of the reluctant yielding of a port on the Paraguay River he was quite anxious to make arrangements for a Bolivian port. He observed that Bolivia owns many millions of acres of oil lands which are not involved in the Chaco dispute. Pipe lines to a river port would be of advantage to Paraguay, calling for the building of refineries, increasing population and assuring cheaper gasoline for Paraguay. He explained that Argentina was not [now?] interested in some arrangements to pipe the oil from the Bolivian fields south to connect with Argentine oil fields and refineries. It would be, he said, more advantageous for Bolivia to connect with a Paraguayan port than to throw this traffic to Argentina. The piping would be easier, and the product could be exported more economically.
I got from all this that President Ayala does not view Argentina’s interest in promoting peace as unselfish and as purely a gesture of good neighborliness; that Argentine participation in mediation or arbitration could scarcely be disassociated from her desire to link her territory effectively to Bolivia.
The President did not seem disturbed about the Chilean incident and expressed satisfaction at the departure of the Chilean Minister. Comment from other reliable sources is to the effect that much of the difficulty in reestablishing cordial relations between Paraguay and Chile is due to bad feeling between the Foreign Ministers of Argentina and Chile.
- Not printed.↩