856A.20/52: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Minister to the Netherlands Government in Exile ( Biddle ), at London
Netherlands Series No. 35. Your Netherlands Series 30, October 17, 8 p.m. By direction of the President you are requested to seek an immediate audience with Her Majesty The Queen and present on an urgent basis the following views of the United States Government:
You may state that this Government accepted the formula set forth in your 2113 as the official statement of the Netherlands Government and accordingly informed President Vargas in confidence of the Netherlands’ suggestion that a Brazilian Mission be invited to participate in the contemplated joint action in Surinam. President Vargas has replied through Ambassador Caffery that he agrees in principle to the Dutch suggestion and that he is awaiting the Netherlands Government’s invitation.
[Page 824]The present decision of the Netherlands Government, if acceded to, coming after the exchange of communications by the President of the United States and the President of Brazil referred to in earlier telegrams and after the receipt by this Government of assurances of Brazilian approval and cooperation, places both this Government and the Netherlands Government under the invidious obligation of withdrawing a proposal which the Brazilian Government is entitled to consider as having been made in good faith by both the United States and the Netherlands.
The proposal of the Netherlands Government reported in your 30 amounts in effect to a suggestion that the Brazilian Government take action within its own territories which in fact it is at full liberty to do on its own initiative. This would not only be unsatisfactory and perhaps even offensive to Brazil; it would cast doubt upon the good faith of this Government in matters of possibly even greater importance to Hemisphere defense which may from time to time arise.
Furthermore, the framework of the inter-American agreements and understandings reached during the past years, and specifically the agreements reached at the Second Consultative Meeting of American Foreign Ministers held in Habana in July 1940,14 provides for inter-American cooperation in all questions which relate to the defense of the Western Hemisphere. It is obvious that the brunt of the defense of the Western Hemisphere must be taken by the United States. It is, nevertheless, the considered policy of this Government, in all questions relating to the defense of the American continent, and in particular in all measures involving the prevention of acts of aggression against the colonies within the Western Hemisphere of European powers, to undertake measures of defense in cooperation with our neighbors in the New World. Were the United States now to disregard prior understandings of this character and change the policy it has consistently followed, it would give rise to very serious misunderstandings and to charges by German propaganda that the United States was embarking upon such defense measures purely in its own interest and for ulterior purposes.
The Government of the United States lays great stress upon the vital importance both to the United States and to the Netherlands Governments’ position vis-à-vis their South American neighbors of going through with the arrangements in substantially the form originally proposed by the Netherlands Government and subsequently agreed to by the United States and Brazil.
In pressing this matter you are instructed by direction of the President to seek an immediate reply.
- September 5, 1 a.m., p. 813.↩
- See Foreign Relations, 1940, vol. v. pp. 2 ff.↩