724.3415/5016: Telegram
The Ambassador in Argentina (Weddell) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 26—1:30 a.m.]
103. From Gibson. At Saturday evening’s meeting reported in my 99, June 22, midnight, the Chilean Minister for Foreign Affairs stated that he had been giving thought to how to deal with the problems of the Peace Conference and had elaborated a plan, the salient features of which he indicated, adding that he would be glad if an informal meeting could be called for Monday afternoon at which he could explain it to his colleagues. The Argentine Minister for Foreign Affairs was unwilling to give the plan a hearing and the matter was dropped.
This afternoon I had a talk with the Chilean Minister for Foreign Affairs who went over his plan with me in detail. His essential idea is that if the Conference goes to work without a plan it will make little progress. He therefore proposes that the first act of the Peace Conference shall be to secure the signature of a treaty affirming perpetual peace and amity between Bolivia and Paraguay. The treaty would set up an international mixed commission composed of five [Page 89] members of Congress, two to be appointed by each of the belligerents, in each one national and one non-national of another American country, with a fifth member to act as president designated by President of the Argentine Republic; this body to endeavor to draw up a full settlement of all pending questions, territorial, economic and transit, and submit this solution for the approval of the two parties. If this solution were accepted by them they should promptly embody it in a final treaty. If they should not accept it they would be given a fixed period within which to agree upon an arbitral compromise, failing which this document would be drawn by the International Mixed Commission, the parties agreeing in advance to accept it; in either event the arbitral compromise to be submitted to the Court of International Justice in accordance with the terms of the Protocol. Further provisions would insure the maintenance of the territorial status quo pending final settlement.
The Chilean Minister for Foreign Affairs asserts that there is nothing in his plan that conflicts with the Protocol and that on the contrary it is merely an attempt to provide machinery for carrying out the manifest intentions of that document and specifically to ensure that an arbitral compromise will be drawn up thus filling a serious gap in the Protocol. I see no reason to disagree with him. He was clearly disappointed at the unwillingness of the Argentine Minister for Foreign Affairs to afford him a hearing but proposes to try again. In the meantime he has with the authority of the Argentine Minister for Foreign Affairs sounded Bolivians who, while not committing themselves prior to study of his plan, have not adopted a discouraging attitude. He will not approach the plan until after the Bolivians have given him reason to feel there is no insuperable obstacle on that side. [Gibson.]