Office of the Historian

740.00115 European War 1939/7127: Circular telegram

The Acting Secretary of State to Certain Diplomatic Representatives in the American Republics 41

Washington, September 27, 1943—6 p.m.

Following is from Department’s secret instruction of September 20, 6 p.m., to Panamá, Bogotá, San José and Ciudad Trujillo.

“The Department is glad to state that the negotiations with the German Government for the release of the officials of Colombia, El Salvador, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Dominican Republic and of the United States who were seized by the Germans on French territory and taken to Germany as hostages have now reached a point where it appears that an agreement will be quickly reached if the Department is in a position to offer the German Government, in return for the officials referred to, the handful of German and Vichy French officials now in our hands, together with those of the non-official Germans brought to the United States for repatriation before the exchange agreement collapsed who are still willing to go to Germany.

Before the Department delivers to the German Government this Government’s reply in this matter, it desires to obtain from four of the American republics their consent to deliver to the Germans if necessary certain German nationals whom they deported to the United States for repatriation or internment. The Department is seeking the consent of the governments in question and confidently expects that in the interest of hemisphere solidarity it will shortly be forthcoming.”

All the four countries concerned have now given the United States Government full authority to include in the exchange the German nationals they deported to the United States with the exception of Panama, which, having no officials in Germany and no other German non-officials available to exchange for its non-official nationals in German hands, has expressed the desire that a corresponding number of the Germans it sent here be held against the repatriation of the few Panamanians in question.

B[reckinridge] L[ong]
  1. Sent to the Ambassadors in Brazil, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Peru.↩