Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1939, The American Republics, Volume V

811.0141SW2/190

President Roosevelt to the Under Secretary of State (Welles)

Washington, September 11, 1939.

Memorandum

In relation to your letter of September eighth regarding disputed sovereignty over the Swan Islands off the coast of Honduras, I approve seeking to settle the matter by negotiation and if such cannot be done, then by submission to arbitration.

At the same time it seems to me that this dispute is in effect making a mountain out of a mole hill. The Islands have practically no commercial value whatsoever, are to all intents and purposes uninhabited, and, as I understand it, are used only occasionally by Honduran fishing boats. I cannot see, therefore, that there is any reason for the raising of a nebulous ultimate sovereignty question.

On the other side of the picture, a lighthouse is maintained by an American company without expense to either the United States Government or the Honduran Government.

From the point of view, therefore, of peaceful uses, the problem of sovereignty ought not to raise it.

In the event of a war affecting the Caribbean area, these Islands may have some possible value—not to Honduras but to the United States Navy in their task of maintaining continental defenses. There is little or no contribution which Honduras could make to this defense for the very good reason that the use of the Islands would, in all probability, be confined to aircraft scouting and patrolling. In such a case the patrol would be based not on the Islands themselves but on a ship which would use the Islands as a lee. It is my belief that in the event of any such war Honduras should receive such protection from American Navy as the Islands would afford—in other words, an offshore patrol which Honduras itself is not able to undertake because of the size and cost of the equipment.

For all these reasons, and for the additional reason that Honduras does not seem to have much of a case for sovereignty, it might be suggested that Honduras relinquish her claim to sovereignty with the understanding that she does so in the interest of navigation in time of peace and continental defense in the event of war.

F[ranklin] D. R[oosevelt]