817.00/8468
Statement by the Secretary of State79
Within the past two days, the Department of State has received communications from the Government of Chile and from the Government of Peru with reference to the internal disturbances which are unfortunately taking place in the Republic of Nicaragua, which communications are apparently based upon the erroneous impression that the United States has received a request from the Government of Nicaragua to intervene in that Republic.
The relations between the United States and the Republic of Nicaragua are identical with those between the United States and every other American republic. No suggestion has been received from any source that the Government of the United States intervene in Nicaragua, and in accordance both with its established policy as well as in accordance with the provisions of the Convention on the Rights and Duties of States entered into at the Seventh Inter-American Conference at Montevideo, this Government will not intervene directly or indirectly in the domestic concerns of any American republic.
During the course of the recent internal disturbances in the Republic of Nicaragua, this Government has received suggestions from various sources that it cooperate with the governments of certain other American republics in a tender of good offices to the various political factions in Nicaragua with the hope that such exercise of friendly good offices would result in a peaceful solution of the difficulties which had arisen. The United States Minister in Managua has been consistently instructed from the outset to inform both the Nicaraguan authorities as well as the representatives of the other American governments accredited to the Government of Nicaragua that even the consideration by the Government of the United States of its participation in any joint tender of good offices must depend in the first place upon the willingness of all political factions in Nicaragua to invite the good offices of other friendly American nations; that in the event, and only in the event, that such invitation were unanimously extended, this Government would then be disposed to determine whether it would take part in a joint tender of good offices after [Page 837] consulting with other interested nations of this hemisphere. The United States Minister was further instructed that the Government of the United States would take no initiative in the matter and would under no circumstances even consider whether or not it would exercise its good offices except in association with other American nations.
This Government has been glad to note that in both the communication received from the Government of Chile, as well as in that received from the Government of Peru, these Governments have expressed their certainty that the Government of the United States has had no intention of intervening in Nicaragua.
- Released to the press on June 5.↩