800.85/770a
The Secretary of State to the Argentine Chargé ( García Arias )
Sir: Reference is made to conversations and arrangements between the Governments of the United States and of the Argentine Republic which have taken place over the last fifteen months with respect to the placing into operation in inter-American services of enemy vessels. During this period, and principally through the intermediary of the Inter-American Financial and Economic Advisory Committee and in accordance with its plan of August 28, 1941,56 there have been placed into effective service practically all of the enemy vessels in Argentine ports.
Paralleling the discussions and action relating to the immobilized vessels directly the subject of the Advisory Committee’s plan, my Government has taken up with your Government the question of the vessels Buenos Aires, Comodoro Rivadavia and Madryn owned by the Argentina Nueva Compañía General de Navegación, c/o A. M. Delfino y Compañía, Florida 439, Buenos Aires. This company and these vessels have been included both in my Government’s Proclaimed List of Certain Blocked Nationals and the British Statutory List and the vessels have consequently been considered by my Government as enemy vessels.
The United States Embassy at Buenos Aires addressed notes to the Argentine Foreign Office relative to this matter on May 27[21] and June 25, 1942.57 These communications pointed out that it was the view of the United States that in putting these vessels into service all connection with the former ownership should be severed and any proceeds or funds arising there from should be effectively blocked for the duration of the war, in accordance with Resolution V of the Third Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs at Rio de Janeiro.58 Resolutions VII and VIII of the Inter-American Conference on Systems of Economic and Financial Control at Washington in July 194259 reiterated the policy laid down in Resolution V.
On August 12, 1942 the Embassy at Buenos Aires informed the Department that an arrangement had been made to sell the Buenos Aires to the S.A.D.E.I.60 with effective blocking of the proceeds in the Bank [Page 417] of the Argentine Nation, and recommended that the vessel be deleted from the Proclaimed List. On August 14, 1942 my Government took action ordering such deletion to be published in the next supplement of the List.
With respect to its notes relating to the Comodoro Rivadavia and the Madryn, which vessels present an entirely parallel case, the Embassy at Buenos Aires received no reply until on September 12, 1942 the press of Buenos Aires reported the purchase of these vessels by the Argentine Navy and State Merchant Marine respectively, the purchase price of 6,400,000 pesos being turned over in free funds to the former owners. The Embassy subsequently received an informal confirmation of these press reports, but to date has received no reply or statement from the Foreign Office.
The Government of the United States is constrained to point out the obvious implications of such payments of free funds to persons, whom it considers as of enemy status and as inimical to the security of the Hemisphere, and to state that it deems such actions to be inconsistent with the Inter-American Resolutions referred to above and with the spirit of the plan of the Inter-American Financial and Economic Advisory Committee, which it recognizes does not apply directly to the two vessels in question. It accordingly requests that the Argentine Government take appropriate steps effectively to control the funds in question.
Accept [etc.]
- For correspondence concerning the resolution and plan of this Committee in 1941, see Foreign Relations, 1941, vol. vi .↩
- Neither printed.↩
- For correspondence concerning the meeting held January 15–28, 1942, see pp. 6 ff.; for text of Resolution V, see Department of State Bulletin, February 7, 1942, p. 124.↩
- For correspondence concerning the Conference, see pp. 58 ff.; for text of Resolutions VII and VIII, see Pan American Union, Congress and Conference Series No. 39: Final Act of the Inter-American Conference on Systems of Economic and Financial Control (Washington, 1942), pp. 19 and 21, respectively.↩
- Sud Americana de Exportación e Importación, S. R. L.↩