Office of the Historian

740.00111 A.R./606

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Brazil (Caffery)

Washington, October 20, 1939—7 p.m.

210. For the Ambassador from the Under Secretary.2 Your 371, October 20, 1 p.m.,3 second paragraph. As you will recall, the general neutrality resolution provides for the election by the Governing Board of the Pan American Union of an inter-American neutrality committee composed of seven members. The Governing Board has designated a subcommittee to recommend to the full Board suggestions as to the manner in which the subcommittee should be selected. The subcommittee is composed of the Argentine and Venezuelan Ambassadors and the Guatemalan Minister. I am informed by the members of this subcommittee that they desire to suggest that the neutrality committee be composed of representatives of the same countries now represented on the committee of jurisconsults which is undertaking a study of the codification of international law. There are now six members on this committee of jurisconsults representing the United States, Mexico, Costa Rica, Chile, Argentina, and Brazil. [Page 46] If this procedure is adopted by the Governing Board, Brazil will consequently obtain a representative on the neutrality committee. The seventh member to be appointed would presumably be a representative of Venezuela in recognition of the fact that Venezuela was the author of the project providing for the appointment of the neutrality committee.

Please tell Nabuco4 that this Government will most decidedly favor and support Brazilian representation on the neutrality committee. [Welles.]

Hull
  1. Sumner Welles.↩
  2. Vol. i, p. 678.↩
  3. Mauricio Nabuco, Secretary General, Brazilian Foreign Office.↩