724.34119/111: Telegram
The Ambassador in Argentina (Weddell) to the Secretary of State
[Received 4:55 a.m.]
175. From Gibson. I think it advisable to make clear the situation in regard to proposals for the exchange and repatriation of prisoners of war which has been misinterpreted in some quarters.
Last week the Prisoners of War Committee drew up a number of tentative drafts which were submitted to one or the other party for comment in an endeavor to elicit the exact positions of each and the maximum of concessions we could hope for. As a result the group on August 10th prepared a draft reported in my 168, August 11, 9 p.m., which was accepted by both delegations as offering a basis for submission to their Governments. After this acceptance in principle the August 10th draft became the one and only proposal which has been made by the Committee to them and as to this there is no possible misunderstanding on the part of either of the parties.
The Department will recall reference in paragraph 5 of my 164, August 3, midnight, to a first draft entrusted to Saavedra Lamas for his use in informal sounding of the Paraguayans. As reported in paragraph 2 of my 169, August 11, 11 p.m., this was rejected by the Paraguayans. Only later did its existence become known to the Bolivians [Page 123] through a slip by Saavedra Lamas who referred to it as a “Gibson proposal”.
During the course of the negotiations Elío has several times expressed a desire to reach agreement on the basis of this document or selected portions of it particularly fitting the Bolivian thesis, referring to it on each occasion as the “Gibson proposal”. (In this connection he has concentrated on the expression in its article 1 of the principle that all prisoners of war held in either country should be repatriated, overlooking the fact that no time limit for the operation was stipulated and that article 2 included a joker to the effect that repatriation would be under the supervision of the Neutral Military Commission in agreement with the high commands.) On each occasion I explained to him in the presence of the group that the document was nothing more than a preliminary draft which was not under consideration, had never been submitted to him and had been rejected by the Paraguayans in toto before he ever heard of it.
In spite of this there seems to be a determined Bolivian effort to capitalize this first draft as an American proposal supporting the Bolivian thesis as distinct from the Committee’s proposal of August 10th conciliating the two opposing points of view (see for example telegram No. 50, August 13, 5 p.m. from the Legation at La Paz to the Department).
On August 11th La Prensa of Buenos Aires carried an article obviously inspired by the Bolivian delegation to the effect that, despite an emphatic denial of the report made on behalf of the Prisoners Committee, it was reliably informed that I had presented a proposal providing for the immediate return of all prisoners which was acceptable to the Bolivians but that another proposal had been made providing for only partial exchange.
The chairman [of the?] Conference today received a telegram from the chairman of the Neutral Military Commission reporting a request from the President of Bolivia asking that the Commission endeavor to secure the acceptance of the “Gibson proposal”. General Martinez Pita added that he recognized that consideration of this was not in the province of the Commission and that he therefore limited himself to transmitting the information. At my request the President of the Conference is sending a reply drafted with me giving the essential facts. I propose to have a clear understanding with Elío tomorrow in an endeavor to put a stop to such maneuvers which in addition to being completely unjustified by the facts merely inject unnecessary complications into the situation.
Substance of this telegram repeated to the Legation at La Paz for use in its discretion with the Government. [Gibson.]