710.Consultation (3)/314: Telegram
The American Representative to the Third Meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the American Republics (Welles) to the Secretary of State
[Received 8:20 p.m.]
8. I had interviews yesterday, among others, with the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of Peru, Paraguay and Bolivia. All three delegations will support a declaration for the rupture of relations with the Axis62 although the Peruvian Foreign Minister is obviously lacking in enthusiasm.
The Foreign Ministers of all of the Caribbean, Central American and northern South American Republics are vehemently of the opinion that the destiny of the hemisphere should not be determined by the veto power which the Argentine Government apparently desires to exercise. This tendency, of which you personally saw so much at the Lima Conference, is stronger today and is I think uncontrollable.
The Chilean, Uruguayan and Argentine Foreign Ministers arrived this morning. Aranha is still of the opinion that Argentina can be brought into line but from the public statements already made by Dr. Ruiz Guiñazú and from the intemperate declarations he has made to the Peruvian and Paraguayan Foreign Ministers, of which they informed me yesterday, I am decidedly less optimistic in this regard than Aranha.
Aranha is making every effort to force an immediate agreement for the settlement of the Peru-Ecuador boundary dispute.63 At a conference at which he and I met yesterday with the Peruvian Foreign Minister, the latter indicated that his Government was now willing to agree to a far more equitable and generous settlement than Peru had up to now given any indication that she would be willing to accept. The Ecuadoran delegation has informed me that it will not attend the sessions of the conference unless an agreement, at least in principle, is found before the opening session tomorrow.
- In his address at the opening session of the Conference, Under Secretary of State Welles emphasized the danger to the American Republics which lay in the ability of Axis Embassies and Consulates to communicate war information to their home offices. For text of address, see Department of State Bulletin, January 17, 1942, p. 55.↩
- Concerning this dispute, see bracketed note, p. 268.↩