725.00/34
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Acting Secretary of State
The Ambassador of Chile called to see me this afternoon at his urgent request.
The Ambassador told me that President Ríos had called him on the telephone that afternoon at three p.m. and that the Ambassador’s conversation with the President had been rendered almost impossible through the interruptions of the censorship officials, who had prevented the Ambassador from speaking on any of the important and urgent subjects which it was necessary for him to discuss with President Ríos. I expressed to the Ambassador my profound regret and told him that I would have an immediate investigation made since there was not the slightest justification for any official of this Government to interfere with the conversation between the Chief Executive of an American Republic and his diplomatic representative.
The Ambassador said that, owing to the attacks made upon him in Chile under the instigation of Dr. Barros Jarpa, his Foreign Minister, he, the Ambassador, had yesterday cabled his resignation to President Ríos and had informed the President that he felt that the office of Ambassador in Washington should be placed at the disposal of the President. He said that President Ríos had telephoned him in order to let him know that he was not accepting his resignation, that he had his entire confidence and he desired him to remain in Washington.
The Ambassador expressed the belief that Dr. Barros Jarpa would be forced to resign in the immediate future and that, presumably, a full Cabinet reorganization would take place. He said that President Ríos had made it clear to him on the telephone that he desired to break relations with the Axis powers.
The Ambassador then inquired whether I did not believe that President Ríos intended to break relations with the Axis, had he undertaken his trip to the United States, upon his return to Santiago. I replied that I had no doubt that this was the desire of President Ríos but that of course the Ambassador would remember that upon very many occasions in the past this Government had been advised to the same effect and that, nevertheless, regrettably enough, no action had been [Page 215] taken. I said furthermore that it had generally been understood in Santiago in the early days of this month that the Chilean Government believed that it would be very difficult for any action of the nature of breaking relations with the Axis to be taken immediately after the return to Santiago of President Ríos due to the fact that if it were taken immediately after his return it would be interpreted as action taken under pressure from the United States. To this, the Ambassador made no reply.
I then stated that I had noted with considerable surprise during the past few days official allegations on the part of the Chilean Government that the statements which I had publicly made in my address in Boston47 should have been conveyed to the Chilean Government through diplomatic channels, and also that this Government had never advanced to the Chilean Government any concrete evidence that Axis activities in Chile were being carried on which were detrimental to the defense interests of the United States and the other Republics of the Hemisphere. I said that these statements seemed to me inexplicable in view of the fact that as far back as the 30th of last June the Government of the United States, through Ambassador Bowers, had furnished Dr. Barros Jarpa in writing a very lengthy and complete relation of the information in the possession of this Government concerning Axis activities in Chile,48 pointing out that these activities involved the sending of the most dangerous information regarding ship movements from South America to the United States. I stated that again in August supplementary evidence had been presented and that this action had been repeated even later. I said the facts therefore were that upon three occasions this Government had informed the Chilean Government precisely and in detail of these facts through the diplomatic channels, and that consequently, the Chilean Government not only had the facts four months ago but that the diplomatic approach had been used three times without any results forthcoming until exactly the time my address was delivered.
The Ambassador expressed great surprise and said that he had never known this before. He asked why I had not informed him. I said that I was frank to confess that I had assumed, when he was in Santiago in August, that these facts had been brought to his personal attention by his own Government inasmuch as this was one of the most serious problems under consideration by our two Governments, and that I had also assumed that Ambassador Bowers had discussed this question with him. I said that I believed that these assumptions were valid assumptions on my part but that I of course regretted now that the question had not been raised in conversations between the [Page 216] Ambassador and myself. In any event, I said, his Government had been in possession of these concrete facts and it was all the more regrettable for that reason that Dr. Barros Jarpa should publicly and officially state that no concrete evidence had been presented to the Chilean Government.
The Ambassador talked for the better part of an hour and he concluded by expressing his belief that the whole problem would soon be satisfactorily solved and that the foreign policy of Chile would be modified as soon as the Cabinet change took place. He expressed great chagrin over the attitude taken by the press in the United States and I merely remarked that I felt the Ambassador knew this country so well that he must realize that when the people of the United States were engaged in a desperate war such as this, they could not take lightly the threat to the safety of the whole Hemisphere which resulted from the situation I had set forth in my address in Boston. I expressed the earnest hope that the difficulties of the moment would soon be past and that the relations between our two countries would continue to be as close and understanding and cooperative as it had always been the desire of this Government and of myself personally that they should remain.