339.115 General Motors Export Co./33
The Minister in the Dominican Republic ( Schoenfeld ) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 29.]
Sir: Referring to my despatch No. 2399 of April 18, 1935,6 I have the honor to enclose for the Department’s strictly confidential information copy of a memorandum6 of a conversation I had with the Italian Minister on April 22 in further relation to the imprisonment in Santo Domingo of Mr. Amadeo Barletta, Italian Consul.
The Department will note from this memorandum that no solution of this problem satisfactory to the Italian Government has yet been found and that in all probability the forms of a judicial trial of Barletta will be gone through. In that event, the Italian Minister told me he expected to attend the trial and to follow it closely, having a stenographic record thereof kept for the information of his Government.
The Italian Minister in several conversations with me has hinted rather plainly that he and his Government felt that the lawless and arbitrary procedure of the Government vig-à-vis the Italian Government in the Barletta case should be made the subject of conversations on behalf of the Italian Government directly with our Government, on the ground that in their opinion the American Government is “responsible” for the state of affairs in this Republic. I have not pursued this line of thought in talking with the Italian Minister but report its existence in anticipation of a possible démarche by the Italian Ambassador at Washington in this relation. I gather that the alleged responsibility imputed to us is vaguely connected with an Italian interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine and with the belief that more direct measures should be taken by the American Government to control the action of the Dominican Government affecting foreign nationals and interests.