724.3415/3863: Telegram
The Ambassador in Italy (Long) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 22—2:35 p.m.]
130. Department’s 42, June 16, 3 p.m. In the course of a conversation with Suvich97 today I mentioned incidentally the embargo on arms and ammunition shipments from the United States to Bolivia and Paraguay which the President had been authorized to place and with a view to ascertaining the views of the Italian Government on the arms embargo proposal before the League of Nations, asked if the Italian Government had any policy which would make it difficult to place such an embargo.
Suvich replied that his Government had no such policy; that it had no desire to oppose such embargoes particularly in the Americas; and that it was not opposed to the general idea of arms under existing treaty. He then volunteered the statement that the Italians had withheld consent to the proposal at Geneva (1st) because they felt at the moment that Paraguay had defeated Bolivia and that to impose the embargo at that time would confirm that defeat and, (2d) that they did not believe that embargoes could be efficacious unless they were universally accepted and applied and they had no assurances that both Japan and Russia would consent. He added that the Italian representative on the Committee at Geneva had on his own initiative injected a novel condition which was intended to support the program of the [Page 271] League in that it proposed to force acceptance of a League program by placing an embargo on shipments to the state which failed to accept. That, he considered, would confront the recalcitrant state with the alternative of acceptance or facing a certain military defeat.
In conversations with officers of the War Ministry the Military Attaché to the Embassy was told that no restrictions had been imposed on the shipment from Italian factories of arms and ammunition to Paraguay and Bolivia; that for purpose of reaching an accord on the matter of this arms embargo [conversations?] were being conducted with other governments (France, England and Japan were specifically mentioned) and that until such an accord could be reached no action was being taken with reference to an embargo. It was also stated that there were no dealings in Italian aircraft or aircraft armament with either Bolivia or Paraguay but there were no assurances that no negotiations were under way or that contracts might not be concluded at a later date.
- Italian Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.↩