834.01/27: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Argentina (Weddell)
32. For Braden. Your 61, March 12, 3 p.m. The Department has given very serious consideration to your own suggestions as well as to the views of the other mediatory nations represented in the Chaco Peace Conference. This Government, however, cannot acquiesce in the suggestion that extension of recognition by the Government of the [Page 887] United States to the government of another American republic be undertaken through a joint note of the character proposed. From every point of view it seems better to follow the established precedent that recognition be accorded by each of the governments involved as an independent act of individual sovereignty.
I cannot see how any of the advantages referred to in A of the second paragraph of your telegram under reference would be lost through the according of recognition by means of identic notes presented simultaneously. Consequently, you are instructed to state to the Argentine Minister for Foreign Affairs and to the other delegates that this Government favors alternative B, paragraph 3 of your telegram and will act accordingly.
In so far as the text of the identic notes is concerned, in view of the conditions which now obtain, this Government cannot include in its note of recognition clause 3 of the text telegraphed to you in the Department’s 30, March 11, 6 p.m. For your confidential information, the press in this country has given an unusual amount of prominence to the Decree No. 152 of March 10 issued by the Paraguayan Government and that Decree is generally construed as an indication that the Paraguayan Government intends to establish a Government amounting in fact to a Fascist dictatorship. For this Government to term such a regime as a government pledged “to respect the democratic principles which prevail in America” would be ludicrous. Furthermore, it might well be taken as an indication that this Government viewed with favor the possibility that other governments on the American continent might follow the same course. Finally, in my opinion, the original views expressed by the Chilean Minister for Foreign Affairs are well founded and it does not seem desirable to refer in the note of recognition to matters which relate strictly to the internal affairs of Paraguay.
Consequently, in the note of recognition which the American Minister in Asunción will be instructed to deliver to the Paraguayan Government, the text telegraphed to you in the Department’s 30, March 11, 6 p.m., will be adhered to except that numbered paragraph 3 will be omitted. If the Brazilian delegate raises any objection to the omission by this Government in its note of recognition of numbered paragraph 3 above referred to, you may call his attention to the fact that in the final numbered clause of the American note of recognition reference is made to “other public declarations formulated by the same Government” and that this all embracing clause is sufficiently ample in the opinion of this Government to refer to any public declarations made by the Paraguayan Government regarded as generally satisfactory by the mediatory powers.
[Page 888]Telegraph the Department as soon as a time for the presentation of the identic notes has been set, and telegraph the American Legation at Asunción directly accordingly.