817.154/236
The Nicaraguan Minister for Foreign Affairs (Argüello), Temporarily in Washington, to the Under Secretary of State (Welles)
Excellency: I have the high honor to acknowledge the receipt of your courteous note of the 8th instant, in which Your Excellency is pleased to advise:
[Here follows in substance the above-mentioned note, printed supra.]
In reply I am much pleased to advise Your Excellency that my Government accepts the valued offer made to it in the communication to which I am replying and expresses its appreciation to the Government of the United States which, upon this occasion, reveals once more its good will and high spirit of cooperation in solving the highly important problem of joining the Atlantic and Pacific regions of Nicaragua.
At the same time, I am pleased to advise Your Excellency that my Government, consistently with its international policy, and deeming, like Your Excellency’s Government, that this route toward the Atlantic side of Nicaragua will have great strategic importance, is immediately offering it for the use of the defense of the United States of America in the conflict in which our countries now find themselves engaged.
I avail myself [etc.]
[President Roosevelt on August 18, 1942, authorized an allotment of $4,000,000 from the “Emergency Fund for the President, National Defense, 1942 and 1943” for constructing the highway from San Benito to Rama. An agreement for this undertaking was entered into on November 20, 1942, between the Republic of Nicaragua and [Page 576] the Public Roads Administration; the text of the agreement (not printed), was transmitted to the Department by the Public Roads Administration under covering letter of November 25, 1942 (817.154/260).]