825.51/1083: Telegram
The Ambassador in Chile ( Armour ) to the Secretary of State
[Received 8:40 p.m.]
73. Department’s telegram No. 64, April 25, 1 [6] p.m. After a talk with the Under Secretary of Foreign Affairs for Commerce in which I brought the substance of the Department’s telegram No. 64 to his attention we agreed that it would be advisable for me to have another talk with the Minister of Finance and to extend to him an invitation to go to Washington for the purpose mentioned in the Department’s telegram. I found the Minister of Finance in a much more optimistic mood following the successful passage of his reconstruction bill. He expressed appreciation of the invitation and assured me that it is his intention to prepare more specific plans to place before us and probably to have one or more officials proceed to Washington when these are completed. He hopes this will be not later than the middle of May. He thinks it would not be advisable to proceed himself for the present, first, because his presence will be required here and also as his visit might create comment. He might, however, follow later after the preliminaries had been concluded.
At the same time he has asked me to assure the Department, as did the Under Secretary for Commerce, that while the authorization to use the funds set aside for the debt service remains in the law just passed the Government has no intention of availing itself of this power. He intimates that the clause once reinserted could not, for political reasons, be deleted.