817.00/8461
The Assistant Secretary of State (Welles) to the Chilean Ambassador (Trucco)
My Dear Mr. Ambassador: In view of the publication in the press this afternoon of a communiqué issued by the Peruvian Foreign Office quoting the text of the communication made by the Government of Peru to the Government of the United States with reference to the situation in Nicaragua, this Government has felt it necessary to make a statement to the press, which I take pleasure in enclosing for the information of Your Excellency’s Government.77
I want particularly to thank you for your personal letter of June 3d and for its contents. You will appreciate, however, I am sure, that it is a matter of particular regret to this Government in view of the peculiarly close and friendly relations existing between the Government of Chile and the Government of the United States, that before the memorandum formulated by your Government and transmitted to the Governments of the Central American Republics as well as to this Government was thus communicated, your Government should not have first inquired of this Government in order that we might have had the privilege of acquainting the Government of [Page 835] Chile fully with all of the facts at our disposal regarding the policy which this Government had been carrying out from the outset, and in this way, the Government of Chile would readily have ascertained that no request had ever been received by the Government of the United States to intervene in Nicaragua.
Please accept [etc.]