825.00/1407
The Ambassador in Chile (Bowers) to the Under Secretary of State (Welles)
Dear Mr. Welles: Since there are a number of things outstanding concerning which piecemeal it has not been possible to get a very positive picture, I asked Rossetti,50 Pedregal and Schnake51 to lunch on Tuesday at my house, along with Brooks52 and Lyon,53 for a general survey. After lunch I told them the purpose of the meeting, asked them to forget diplomacy and protocol and to speak out frankly, as I would, to the end that we may all know precisely where we stand. They expressed themselves as pleased.
1) I brought up the matter of the Defense Loan and expressed surprise that so much time had expired since our proposition was made without a definite answer, especially in view of the insistence of Escudero54 of an emergency need. I said that I suspected that the gift of $35,000,000 had convinced some sceptics in the Senate that there must be a trick somewhere, but that the defense of the continent was of interest to us and that our contribution is not just to Chile but to the common cause of defense. Rossetti admitted that there were some sceptics in the Senate. He said that two days before our Government had made a new proposition which Michels55 is sending by plane. Knowing nothing about this new proposition I could say nothing. He implied that his plan is to so word the proposition that on the face of it, it would appear that the value of the fifty million in material is but fifteen million.
[The remainder of this letter is concerned with matters not related or only indirectly related to the Lend-Lease discussions.]
With warmest personal regards, I am
Sincerely yours,
- Juan B. Rossetti, Chilean Minister for Foreign Affairs.↩
- Oscar Schnake, Chilean Minister of Public Works.↩
- Clarence C. Brooks, Commercial Attaché↩
- Cecil B. Lyon, Second Secretary of Embassy.↩
- Gen. Oscar Escudero, Chief of Staff of the Chilean Army.↩
- Rodolfo Michels, Chilean Ambassador to the United States.↩