832.24/634

President Roosevelt to the Under Secretary of State (Welles), Temporarily at Rio de Janeiro10

Welles: Your 21:11 Tell President Vargas I wholly understand and appreciate the needs and can assure him flow of material will start at once. He will understand when I say there are shortages in a few items which I do not trust to putting on the wire but which are soon to come into production. I want to get away as soon as possible from token shipments and increase them to a minimum of Brazilian requirements very quickly.

Tell him I am made very happy by his splendid policy and give him my very warm regards.

I will send list of immediate shipments in separate code message.

Roosevelt
  1. This communication written in the President’s own hand appears to have been transmitted to the Adviser on Political Relations (Duggan), who made the following notation: “Unable to reach Mr. Welles or anyone on his immediate staff, I telephoned the President’s message to Mr. Caffery [Ambassador in Brazil]. Mr. Caffery stated that he was going to join the President [of Brazil] and Mr. Welles in a few minutes and would therefore have an opportunity to give the message to Mr. Welles.”
  2. Dated January 18, 6 p.m., p. 633.