810.74/339a: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Chile (Bowers)
680. Your 881, June 2, 6 p.m.28 The telecommunication circuits that Chile is maintaining with enemy territory are being used to transmit to the Axis vital information from all parts of the hemisphere regarding movements of ships, individually and in convoy. We have confidential information to bear this out. This may result in a situation in which political considerations will have to be weighed against paramount military considerations.
The Chilean Government should immediately be impressed with the serious view which this Government takes of a situation in which nations that have solemnly agreed to stand together in the joint defense of the hemisphere operate and insist upon maintaining facilities whereby the enemy is enabled to destroy the lives and property of citizens of the American Republics and to interrupt lines of communication indispensable to their common defense. Shipping no less vital to the survival of Chile than to that of the United States is being lost every day because the Chilean Government has failed to cut off the channels through which the Axis is given information without which it could not successfully maintain this attack on the vital communications of all the American republics. The prompt action whereby 19 of the republics have already severed direct communication with Axis territory is in large part nullified by the failure of Chile and Argentina to do likewise.
The Department is now considering the possibility of bringing about action the result of which would be to have the Consortium in which the British and United States interests are dominant and the I. T. & T. subsidiary in Argentina abandon their circuits with the Axis. Were the Chilean circuits to be abandoned, how great do you think the possibility is that the Chilean Government would then proceed to operate the circuits itself or to transfer them for operation to other private interests?
Please telegraph the Department your views both with respect to further action that might be taken to induce the Chilean Government to abandon these telecommunication circuits and with regard to the [Page 122] probable attitude of the Chilean Government should the companies take independent action in order to shut down these circuits.
- Not printed.↩