834.00 Revolutions/27: Telegram
The Ambassador in Argentina (Weddell) to the Secretary of State
[Received 10:35 a.m.]
138. From Braden. My 136, August 15, 6 p.m. At best, if only for practical reasons, elections cannot be held for months. Paraguayans of every shade of political opinion have frequently contended that no treaty would be legal in the absence of ratification by constitutional legislature. The new government may insist on that line of reasoning and extend it in an attempt to delay exhaustive territorial negotiations.
I submitted at conference session today that recognition is accorded when a government has established internal order and declared its intention to respect the country’s international obligations; furthermore, the request for recognition is in effect that government’s declaration that it is competent to enter into binding international agreements; that government’s competence is acknowledged by foreign powers when they grant [recognition]; therefore, the government cannot capriciously refuse to negotiate and sign a treaty especially when it is foreseen in existing international commitments, i. e., in Paraguay’s case: the protocols.5 I suggest, therefore, that this situation be met by an adequate phrasing of our recognizing notes. My colleagues felt that to do so would be intervention. But it was agreed that the mediatory delegates recommend to their respective governments [Page 724] that recognition be withheld until the conference has had an opportunity to go into this matter; that recognition when granted be approximately simultaneous and in similar notes.
The Department’s views are requested.
Repeated to Asuncion. [Braden.]
- The protocols of June 12, 1935, and January 21, 1936, signed at Buenos Aires, provided for the solution of the Chaco conflict between Bolivia and Paraguay. See Foreign Relations, 1935, vol. iv, pp. 91 ff., and Ibid., 1936, vol. v, pp. 35 ff.↩