862.20210/2035
The Department of State to the Argentine Embassy
Memorandum
Reference is made to the Memorandum left by the Ambassador of Argentina with the Acting Secretary of State on October 10, 1942 with regard to certain statements made by the Acting Secretary of State in an address before the National Foreign Trade Convention on October 8, 1942.
The Memorandum in question states, among other things, that the Argentine Ambassador has been instructed to indicate that the Argentine Government has learned of the aforesaid statements with profound displeasure since they are not consonant with the state of relations between the two countries and because they do not specify concrete cases and therefore only constitute unfounded assertions.
In reply, it may be recalled that the Foreign Ministers of the Twenty-one American Republics at Río de Janeiro in January 194268 took certain decisions because they recognized that, in view of the aggression committed against the hemisphere by the Axis powers, there should be a rupture of all relations, diplomatic, financial and economic, and a severance of all telecommunications between the American republics and those powers.69 That decision was taken because the American republics realized from the experience of the European neutrals overrun by the Axis and from the perfidious activities of the Japanese in Asia and in Pacific areas that the mere existence of the aforesaid relations and communications was a guarantee that they would be used and abused, under the direction of the diplomatic representatives of the Axis powers in complete disregard of the norms governing the conduct of such representatives in international law, to further sabotage, espionage and other activities directed against the lives and properties of the nationals and governments fighting for a cause which the American republics have embraced, by their official acts, as their own cause.
In view of the fact that the Argentine Government, simultaneously with the delivery of the Memorandum of October 10 by Ambassador [Page 232] Espil, made a public statement setting forth most of the considerations contained in the Memorandum, and specifically questioning the existence of widespread Axis espionage groups in Argentina, the American Ambassador in Buenos Aires has delivered to the Argentine Foreign Minister a statement, a copy of which is Attached,70 summarizing certain information which has come to the attention of the Ambassador regarding Axis espionage rings operating in Argentina.
The information contained in this statement describes in some detail the activities of four groups of German espionage agents, all of which now appear to have their headquarters in Argentina. Approximately thirty agents have been identified. There is no doubt from the messages which have been intercepted, a number of which are included with the statement, that these groups are intimately connected with the German High Command from whom they receive their instructions. In addition their connections with the German Embassy in Buenos Aires through the offices of the Military and Naval Attachés, who took an active part in the direction of these groups, have been well established.
The activities of these groups consist principally in the gathering of information either locally or from agents in other American republics and the transmission of this information to Germany. Among the subjects treated in radio messages which have been intercepted are the following: arrivals and departures of United Nations’ and neutral shipping, including war vessels of the United Nations; reports on United States armament and industries and on the military and naval activity of the United States and Brazil; weather reports; movements of United States aircraft, both military and commercial; information on United Nations’ bases in the Caribbean. Of particular significance were intercepted messages disclosing discussions as to possible methods of sabotage of United Nations’ shipping through activities in the port of Buenos Aires, with obvious peril to the port itself.
The attached statement describes activities undertaken by Axis agents in Argentina prejudicial to the security of the American republics as a whole. Since it is of vital interest that information concerning such activities be made available to the governments and peoples of the American republics, the Government of the United States feels free to make such distribution of the present memorandum and its attachment as it may deem desirable.