Office of the Historian

740.00111A.R./937: Telegram

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

Rio de Janeiro, January 17, 1940—2 p.m.
[Received 3 p.m.]

25. The meeting yesterday afternoon of the Neutrality Committee was an organizational one.22 The question was immediately raised as to whether the Committee is to sit in permanent session for the duration of the war or whether it is to work rapidly for a few weeks and [Page 267] then adjourn for a month or two and meet again and sit for a longer period. Our representative and the representatives of Mexico and Costa Rica are in favor of the second alternative.

Aranha tells me that the only matter that the Brazilian Government will suggest at this juncture for the consideration of the Committee is the matter of belligerent interference with neutral mails.

Caffery

  1. The members of the Neutrality Committee at that time were: Argentina, Luis Podestá Costa; Brazil, Afranio de Mello Franco; Chile, Mariano Fontecilla; Costa Rica, Alejandro Aguilar Machado; Mexico, Roberto Córdova; United States, Charles G. Fenwick; Venezuela, Gustavo Herrera.

    See Minutes of the Sessions Held by the Inter-American Neutrality Committee, Appendix A, Law and Treaty Series No. 15.

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