711.12/1467: Telegram
The Chargé in Mexico ( Boal ) to the Secretary of State
[Received 3:30 p.m.]
177. With reference to my telephone conversation yesterday with Mr. Duggan,91 yesterday President Cárdenas asked me to call and [Page 135] gave me a letter for Ambassador Daniels which I am transmitting to him by pouch. This letter states that the President expected to discuss with me recent newspaper publicity in the United States regarding Mexico. This he did, and I took the occasion to show him clippings from Mexican newspapers attacking the United States, circulating inexact stories regarding the United States and indicating in particular an effort evidenced in several magazines and newspapers to capitalize New York Times and United Press articles with the possible object of causing them difficulties with the Mexican Government.
I said that the American Government is anxious that such local efforts here should not be successful in causing any difficulties between Mexican Government and American newspapers.
We discussed at some length the various methods of dealing with unfavorable stories in the press and the President seemed to concur in my personal view that to take means to present the Mexican Government’s own stories in the American press is more effective than measures which might be interpreted as in the nature of censorship or coercion towards correspondents of American newspapers. …
He then asked me to convey to the American Government his most definite assurance emanating from his personal feeling and his feeling for Mexico that his Government would not permit any activities in Mexico inimical to the United States or designed to create trouble between Mexico and the United States. He added that it was a primary object of his last months in office to maintain and improve the good relations of Mexico with the United States. I assured him that this message would be transmitted immediately.
- Laurence Duggan, Chief of the Division of the American Republics.↩