810.74/628: Telegram
The Ambassador in Argentina (Armour) to the Secretary of State
[Received 10:55 p.m.]
2389. In a very outspoken talk with Gache this evening I told him that I was amazed to learn, in spite of the assurance given me by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and by the Minister of the Interior to the effect that the use of cipher and code will be prohibited for radio messages outside of the continent, that the Government was now considering permitting these. Gache very much on the defensive said that the plan was that such messages would be restricted as to number of words permitted but that the Minister felt to forbid them completely would run counter to the international policy hitherto followed by the Government. To this justification point of view I replied by asking what interpretation my Government could be expected to place upon their having agreed to forbid cipher messages prior to having full knowledge of the extent of Axis espionage activities and now having through Napp’s confession10 learned, if they had not known it before, of the full complicity of the German Embassy, decided to permit them. The Minister had, I said, himself shown me the figures of numbers of cipher groups sent by the three Axis Embassies and told me that on the basis of these alone the decree as originally drafted was necessary. The Minister of the Interior had volunteered to me that with the extensive use made of the code by Axis Missions there was no need for them operating clandestine stations. I asked to see Guiñazú but was told he would prefer to discuss the decree with me after it has been signed and he had it in [Page 176] definite form. On my insistence that the main reason for seeing him was to make my Government’s position clearly known to him before the decree was issued in final form he promised to try to arrange a meeting for tomorrow.