856B.20/41a: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Venezuela (Corrigan)
93. From the Under Secretary. Both the Secretary of State and I have discussed with the Netherlands Foreign Minister, Dr. Van Kleffens, the question of Venezuelan participation in the operations to take place in Curaçao and Aruba.
As a result of these conversations Dr. Van Kleffens informed me the day before yesterday that he would be willing to recommend to his Government, first, that the Netherlands Government invite the Government of Venezuela to participate in a manner identic with that employed in the case of the Dutch invitation to Brazil regarding Surinam and, second, that there would be unwritten “gentlemen’s agreements” between the Netherlands and Venezuela, providing (a) that the Venezuelan mission to the islands would not remain permanently in the islands but would go back and forth from time to time, and (b) that the Venezuelan Government would agree that an officer of the Dutch forces in the islands would be permitted to proceed occasionally to Caracas or to other points within Venezuela in order to give to, or receive from, Venezuelan officials intelligence information of interest to the two countries.
I immediately reported my conversation to Ambassador Escalante who expressed his entire satisfaction with the solution suggested. At my request he then visited the Dutch Foreign Minister and an agreement was reached between the two of them.
Escalante has now reported this to his Government and Van Kleffens has forwarded his recommendations to his Government which will, of course, be approved.
[Page 73]Escalante has requested that you inform the Foreign Office confidentially of this message. [Welles.]