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  4. Document 209

722.2315/1218: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Argentina (Weddell)

Washington, October 13, 1938—4 p.m.

158. Your telegram 280, October 11, 8 p.m. You may inform the Minister for Foreign Affairs that Dr. Concha informed our Embassy in Peru on September 28 that he had instructed the Peruvian delegation to suspend negotiations in Washington on the grounds that the Ecuadoran proposal of August 20 goes beyond the terms of the Ponce-Castro Protocol of 1924. He recalled that the said Protocol established only a partial arbitration and did not contemplate the formula of integral arbitration which was what Ecuador proposed on August 20. He added that the attitude of the Government of Peru had also been influenced by the fact of having received an invitation from the Government of Ecuador to discuss the boundary controversy in Lima in the event that juridical or other reasons might delay or prevent a friendly understanding in Washington, and that this contingency having now arisen in the opinion of the Government of Peru, the latter acceded to the Ecuadoran suggestion, disposed as always to exhaust every pacific effort to settle juridically its boundary difficulty with the neighboring nation.

Subsequently the Ecuadoran Government has endeavored to establish that its proposal of August 20 was not beyond the scope of the Protocol. The Government of Peru on the contrary has firmly maintained its position as hereinbefore indicated and has pointed out that its action in proposing to continue discussions in Lima was in consonance with the démarche of Ecuador.

With respect to the role of the United States you may state that your Government has acted solely as the host for the delegations of Ecuador and Peru and, in that capacity, it has endeavored in every [Page 233] appropriate way to facilitate the negotiations. Its role has been confined necessarily to that of host since any other action was precluded by the possibility that the President of the United States might be called upon to act as arbitrator under the terms of the Protocol.

For your information the chiefs of mission at Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago, Lima and Montevideo will receive telegraphic instructions today regarding the message from the President of Ecuador.

Hull