837.51/2862: Telegram
The Chargé in Cuba (Briggs) to the Secretary of State
[Received 8:16 p.m.]
98. For Walmsley.49 The Minister of Hacienda,50 López Castro51 and Subsecretary of Defense, Perez Benitoa will leave Wednesday morning by airplane for Miami probably [apparent omission] the Cuban Embassy of the exact hour of arrival in Washington).
The Minister of Hacienda wishes to take up the various financial matters under study by our Treasury officials and also final conclusion of the 25 million dollars credit operation López Castro participating in the latter negotiation. According to the Minister of State52 the Cuban Government will seek certain changes in the current credit draft but Cortina expressed the opinion that no changes in principal are contemplated and that he hopes final agreement can be reached within a very few days.
López Castro has been instructed urgently to supplement Concheso’s53 representation concerning shipping and will also desire to discuss sugar.
The Subsecretary of Defense has been directed by the President to endeavor to expedite delivery of at least some of the material now on order (please see my telegram No. 74, February 21, 3 a.m.54).
- Walter N. Walmsley, Jr., Assistant Chief, Division of the American Republics.↩
- Oscar García Montes.↩
- Cuban Secretary of the Presidency.↩
- José Manuel Cortina.↩
- Aurelio F. Concheso, Cuban Ambassador in the United States.↩
- Not printed; for correspondence on the problems of hemisphere defense, see pp. 253 ff.↩