724.34119/807: Telegram
The Minister in Paraguay (Howard) to the Secretary of State
[Received 5:21 p.m.]
76. Please refer to Braden’s 294, December 6, 8 p.m. At the usual Foreign Office reception this morning the Minister for Foreign Affairs volunteered the information that negotiations for the return of prisoners of war were proceeding very satisfactorily and that they depended upon the matter of security for Paraguay through an agreement backed by the moral guarantee of the Peace Conference to respect the existing line of separation as fixed by the Neutral Military Commission until a final treaty of peace should be signed. He stated that such an agreement must be approved by the Congress of both countries as under the Bolivian constitution it would otherwise have no legal effect. He further remarked that once this matter was [Page 188] disposed of payments for the maintenance and repatriation of prisoners of war would be secondary and that a matter of a million or so Argentine pesos one way or the other was of little importance.
Repeated to Buenos Aires.