814.00/1223
The Minister in Guatemala ( Hanna ) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 10.]
Sir: I have the honor to report that I have complied with the Department’s strictly confidential instruction No. 199 of May 24, 1935.
I made an appropriate oral statement to the Minister for Foreign Affairs on May 31 and a practically identical statement to President Ubico today. I concluded my statement to both of them by saying that “the Government of the United States has no attitude, either of sympathy or lack of sympathy, toward any movement such as the present movement to continue President Ubico in power and neither approves nor disapproves of whatever action may be contemplated, which it considers an internal matter in which it cannot intervene.[”]
The Minister for Foreign Affairs expressed pleasure when I had concluded. He said that Guatemala’s situation would be most difficult if it could not count on the friendship of the United States, and that the assurance I had just given him, which could be looked upon as being in the nature of a declaration of neutrality, was most gratifying. He added that he was confident that the final outcome of the present movement would represent the will of the Guatemalan people and would furnish the only possible solution for the difficult problems confronting Guatemala in the immediate future.
President Ubico appeared to be pleased although he indicated his pleasure only indirectly by a reference to the importance that the friendship of the United States has for Guatemala. He followed this by saying that he would not continue in the Presidency if the opinion of the Guatemalan people when collected on the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th days of this month should reveal that they do not wish him to remain in the office.
With both the President and the Minister for Foreign Affairs the conversation on this topic was terminated by my introducing the subject of the trade agreement as presented in the Department’s instruction No. 198, of May 21, 1935,32 on which a separate report is being submitted.
I regret that the former statement I made to President Ubico and to the Minister for Foreign Affairs in this connection did not accurately transcribe the thought the Department wished to convey to me in its telegram No. 11, of April 30, but the statement, of course, expressed my understanding of that telegram.
If it were at all probable that such an error could be made, I would be compelled to think that the telegram was not correctly transmitted [Page 633] to me. In no other way can I reconcile the assertion in the instruction under reply that
“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”,
and the further assertion that
“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”,
with the Department’s instruction in that same telegram No. 11 that I should take whatever steps I might deem necessary
“to assure that the impression if it exists that this Government sympathizes with any plan to amend the Guatemalan Constitution illegally or to continue President Ubico in power contrary to its provisions be not allowed to remain uncorrected”,
and with the further statement in that telegram that it was believed to be
“particularly desirable that no mistaken interpretation as to the attitude of this Government be permitted to arise”.
I repeat that I regret exceedingly that my statement to the President and the Minister for Foreign Affairs did not express the exact shade of meaning the Department wished to convey, but I may point out that the telegrams exchanged in this connection between the Department and the Legation subsequent to the Department’s telegram No. 11, of April 30, had an important influence on the wording of the statement.
In my telegram of May 2 I confirmed the Department’s confident expression made in its telegram No. 11 that, in my conversations here, I had not given the impression that the Government of the United States was “sympathetic with any effort which may be contemplated to alter the Guatemalan Constitution illegally or to continue President Ubico in office contrary to the provisions of that Constitution”, and I added that, moreover, I had no valid reason to think that such impression existed here; and in my subsequent telegram of May 5 I emphasized my belief that President Ubico had not the slightest justification for thinking that the Government of the United States could possibly sympathize with the movement under consideration. Nevertheless, the Department’s telegram of May 7, in response to my telegrams just mentioned, stated that it believed that it should not “run the slightest risk of allowing a misunderstanding of its position to exist in the mind of President Ubico”, and that it therefore desired me either to show telegram No. 11 to President Ubico or to explain the Department’s position as set out in that telegram. The Department [Page 634] added, for my information only, certain observations concerning the effect President Ubico’s action in this situation might be expected to have on the political developments in Central America, and of course I took these observations into consideration when I framed my statement.
In view of these antecedents which indicated the Department’s anxiety to eliminate all possibility of misunderstanding in this matter, I had not the slightest doubt but what I was carrying out the Department’s desire when I told President Ubico and the Minister for Foreign Affairs 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”, because this seemed to me to be the natural and positive way to comply with the Department’s instruction in its telegram No. 11 “to assure that the impression if it exists that this Government sympathizes with any plan to amend the Guatemalan Constitution illegally or to continue President Ubico in power contrary to its provisions be not allowed to remain uncorrected”. My conception of the proper way to correct an impression that the Government of the United States did sympathize with any plan was to say that it did not sympathize with it.
This small incident, however, has been of positive benefit in the end, because the clear and concise statement of the position of the Government of the United States as set forth in the last paragraph of the instruction under reply, is a precise definition of our attitude and is in complete harmony with the “good neighbor” policy.
Respectfully yours,