714.44A15/104½

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)

The British Ambassador2 called to see me this morning at my request.

The Ambassador started the conversation by saying that he had been gratified by his reception in Chicago which he thought had been peculiarly cordial, and he was particularly struck by the fact that Colonel Robert McCormick of the Chicago Tribune had called upon him and had also spent some time in talking with him.

I told the Ambassador that I wanted to ask him whether he had received any reply from his Government as yet in connection with the British-Guatemalan dispute over the boundary between Guatemala and British Honduras. The Ambassador said that immediately after our last conversation on this subject, he had telegraphed his Government urging a prompt communication with the Guatemalan Government and that in response to this telegram he had received from his Foreign Office a draft of the arbitral submission which the British Government proposed to submit to Guatemala. The Ambassador said that he had made certain changes in the text of this draft in accordance with the last conversation he had had with me on this subject and had then returned it to his Government again urging a prompt communication with Guatemala. The Ambassador further said that he had urged his Government at the same time to inform the Guatemalan Government without delay that Great Britain was going to agree to arbitration and that the President of the United States had agreed to designate the umpire on the arbitral tribunal and to permit the decision as to the exact text of the arbitral submission to be a matter to be taken up subsequently, as soon as the British Foreign Office had reached a decision on that point.

I told the Ambassador that I was decidedly disquieted with regard to this continued delay inasmuch as, I reminded him, he and I had discussed [Page 417] the matter in August of 1939 and up to the present moment the Government of Guatemala had never received any official communication on the subject from the British Government, and I was very much afraid, I said, that some hasty and intemperate declaration on the subject might be made by some official of the Guatemalan Government which would only complicate the situation and render a friendly and judicial settlement more difficult. I further said that rumors were coming to me that malcontents in Mexico and in Guatemala intended to utilize this issue as a means of stirring up trouble in Central America, and that it seemed to me that since the British Government had now positively agreed upon arbitration as the solution, it would be the better part of wisdom for the Government of Great Britain to advise the Guatemalan Government accordingly and prevent any unnecessary trouble from arising. The Ambassador replied that he agreed heartily with this point of view and would telegraph immediately to his Government insisting upon a prompt solution.

S[umner] W[elles]
  1. The Marquess of Lothian.