Office of the Historian

724.34119/241: Telegram

The Ambassador in Argentina (Weddell) to the Secretary of State

Buenos Aires, October 18, 1935—10 a.m. [p.m.]
[Received October 19—3:22 a.m.]

248. From Gibson. My 246, October 15, 8 p.m.1

1.
Zubizarreta2 and Rivarola3 today stated … before a number of the neutral delegates including myself that the Conference’s proposal of October 14th [15th?] was so preposterous that they did not intend to submit it to their Government, that they expected to ask for a plenary session shortly in order to reject it on their own responsibility; and that it did not even afford a basis for counter proposals.
2.
The Paraguayans have expressed indignation that the mediators should venture to suggest the line and have insisted that they intend to retain the whole Chaco, abandoning their previously expressed readiness to consider an intermediate boundary line. They [Page 166] thus ignore the facts, (1) that Zubizarreta solicited such suggestions (Dawson’s 214, September 21, 4 p.m.), and, (2) that the line proposed by the Conference is substantially the same as that which he indicated late in August would be acceptable to Paraguay (paragraph No. 2 of Dawson’s 194, September 2, 9 p.m.). While the Conference’s line gives Bolivia a few kilometres more of flooded land on the Paraguay River it runs to a point on the Pilcomayo River higher than any contemplated in the August conversations.
3.
On the other hand, Elío expressed himself to me today more reasonably than at any recent time and said that he proposed to leave next week for La Paz in order to confer with his friends about the proposal. He said that he could only then judge as to the possibilities of acceptance but indicated that he was favorably impressed and stated that he would exhaust every possible effort in favor of agreement. [Gibson.]
Weddell
  1. Not printed.↩
  2. Gerónimo Zubizarreta, chairman of the Paraguayan delegation.↩
  3. Vincent Rivarola, member of the Paraguayan delegation.↩