711.00 Statement July 16, 1937/36: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Argentina (Weddell)
62. Department’s circular telegram of July 22, and Embassy’s telegrams 109 of July 24 and 112 of July 26.47 The Argentine Ambassador called yesterday to see me and communicated to me, in the strictest confidence, a message he had received from his Foreign Minister. The latter had apparently understood from the conversations held with you that the desire of the Secretary of State to obtain the reaction and the support of the Argentine Government in behalf of the principles of international conduct set forth in his statement contained in the Department’s circular telegram, implied that this Government wished to initiate the procedure of consultation provided for in the treaties recently signed at the Buenos Aires Conference. He expressed doubt as to whether this procedure should be adopted when the treaties so far had been ratified by only a very small number of the republics, and requested the Ambassador to advise him of the circumstances attendant upon the instruction sent to you.
[Page 722]I explained the situation fully to the Ambassador, advising him that the circular telegram had been addressed to our diplomatic representatives in every country of the world and that it had no purely inter-American character. I further stated that the Secretary of State had never had the most remote idea of suggesting the initiation of the procedure of consultation. I concluded by stating that the Secretary, at this critical moment in the world, felt that it would be exceedingly helpful to obtain the reaction of the Argentine Government and its support of these principles, all of them, of course, in entire consonance with the treaties, conventions and resolutions adopted at the Conference for the Maintenance of Peace.
In your further conversations with the Argentine Foreign Minister on this subject, you may wish to make these facts entirely plain without, of course, referring to my conversation with the Argentine Ambassador.
- Telegram No. 112 not printed.↩