Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1942, The American Republics, Volume V

835.741/20

The American Embassy in Argentina to the Argentine Ministry for Foreign Affairs¹⁴

Memorandum

The Embassy of the United States of America acknowledges the receipt of the memorandum dated December 4, 1942, from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship,¹⁵ relating to the control measures affecting telecommunications as contained in the Argentine Government’s decree of December 2, and desires to make the following observations on the subject:

Article 1 of Resolution XL adopted at the Third Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the American Republics at Rio de Janeiro refers to the closing of “all radiotelephone and radiotelegraph communications between the American Republics and the aggressor States and all territories subservient to them, except in so far as official communications of the American Governments are concerned.”

The Argentine Government would have gone a long way in complying with Resolution XL by prohibiting the exchange of all coded messages between Argentina and the aggressor states and their satellites. In fact, it was the understanding of this Embassy that such a prohibition was planned by the Argentine Government when the December 2 decree was being drafted.

However, the effectiveness of such a prohibition will be largely vitiated if all diplomatic missions are to have the privilege of sending 100 coded words daily, bearing in mind that this privilege apparently is accorded not only to the diplomatic representations of the Tripartite Pact but also to the representations of other countries temporarily under the domination of the Axis powers.

When it is considered that all of the other American Republics have prohibited the transmission of coded messages to these aggressor states, and that virtually all of the American Republics have severed such telecommunications altogether, the 100-word privilege for code and the apparent lack of restriction on plain language messages still leaves ample opportunity for the transmission of communications which “impair or endanger, directly or indirectly, the security of the American nations, or which may be contrary to the defense thereof”, notwithstanding Article 5 paragraph 3 of the Argentine Government’s December 2 decree.

This Embassy is in complete agreement with the desirability of establishing efficient control over the transmission of private international messages, by whatever system of telecommunication, but wishes to point out that it remains possible for Axis banking institutions, mercantile establishments, and even private individuals to transmit subversive information by disguising it in the form of innocuous messages.

The memorandum of December 4 from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Worship envisages the “total suppression of secret language if in the use of such privilege there is evidence of abuses or transgressions affecting the security”, but adds that the Argentine Government has no proof of such transgressions. In the meantime, however, the charges made by the judicial authorities of the Argentine Government against Axis agents, in which at least one member of the German diplomatic mission appears to be definitely implicated, would seem to indicate that there are additional and sufficient reasons for further implementing Argentine telecommunications control in still closer adherence to Resolution XL adopted at Rio de Janeiro.

Buenos Aires , December 11, 1942.

14. Copy transmitted to the Department by the Ambassador in Argentina in his despatch No. 7779, December 17; received December 26.
15. Not printed. A copy of this memorandum was transmitted to the Department by the Ambassador in Argentina in his despatch No. 7644, December 7. It noted that the decree allowed the foreign embassies a daily minimum of code words for transmission and justified this provision as a privilege that had always been “the essence of diplomatic status”. (835.741/18)