814.00/1197
The Secretary of State to the Minister in Guatemala (Hanna)
Sir: Reference is made to your despatches No. 645 of May 11, 1935 and No. 646 of May 14, 1935, concerning your interviews with President Ubico and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Guatemala, during which you read a Spanish translation of a statement, embodied in your despatch No. 645, purporting to set forth the attitude of this Government with respect to the effort being made to alter the Guatemalan constitution and continue President Ubico in office.
The Department does not consider that the statement you prepared accurately transcribes the contents of its telegram No. 11 of April 30, 6 p.m., which you were authorized, in the Department’s telegram No. 10 of April 30, 5 p.m.,31 to show to President Ubico.
In its telegram No. 11, the Department carefully refrained from referring to, or from stating that this Government had any attitude toward, the present movement to continue President Ubico in the Presidency. Without expressing any opinion concerning the legality or illegality of any procedure which might be contemplated, the telegram was intended solely to correct any impression which might already exist that this Government had adopted an attitude toward the reported movement, and that the attitude was one of sympathy.
Until the receipt of the Legation’s despatch No. 607 of April 16, 1935, to which the Department referred in its telegram No. 11, it was not the Department’s intention to address to the Legation any communication on the subject of the reported movement to continue President Ubico in office. However, in your despatch referred to, after reporting that President Ubico was much concerned as to how his action would be received in Washington, you reported having stated to one or two private individuals close to President Ubico that you felt justified in expressing the hope that a way could be found to give legality to President Ubico’s remaining in the Presidency, [Page 631] if that were humanly possible. You also reported that you had made some mention as to the ease with which the question could be submitted to a popular referendum. The Department considered, in view of these reported conversations with persons close to President Ubico, that the latter might be supposed to have gained the impression that the Legation, and presumably the Government of the United States, actively sympathized with the movement to continue him in office.
The Department does not approve of your having informed President Ubico that “the Government of the United States deems it particularly desirable that President Ubico should not misunderstand the attitude of the Government of the United States with respect to the effort now being made to alter the Guatemalan constitution and to continue President Ubico in office”.
The Department, in its telegram No. 11, did not define any attitude of this Government and carefully refrained from making any reference to the present movement to continue President Ubico in office.
Neither does the Department approve of your statement that “the Department nevertheless believes that it should make very clear to President Ubico that the Government of the United States is not in sympathy with any effort to alter the Guatemalan constitution illegally or to continue President Ubico in office contrary to the provisions of that constitution”. The statement just quoted gives the impression that the Government of the United States is opposed to any effort to alter the Guatemalan constitution illegally or to continue President Ubico in office contrary to the provisions of that constitution. The truth is that this Government has no attitude, either of sympathy or lack of sympathy, toward any movement of the nature referred to.
Since both President Ubico and the Minister of Foreign Affairs appear to have gained the impression that this Government is opposed to President Ubico’s continuance in the Presidency, you are instructed to take such informal steps as you may consider appropriate in order to make it clear to those two officials that this Government has no attitude, either of sympathy or lack of sympathy, toward any movement of the character being discussed and neither approves nor disapproves of whatever action may be contemplated, which it considers an internal matter, in which it cannot intervene.
Very truly yours,
- Not printed.↩