810.154/3204
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Adviser on Political Relations (Duggan)
The Nicaraguan Ambassador44 stated that he had instructions from President Somoza to request the Department’s assistance in the following:
The War Department was using in Nicaragua a considerable quantity of road-building equipment for the construction of the Pioneer Highway. With the cessation of work on the Pioneer Highway this equipment is standing idle. Although the War Department may have plans for its disposal, the Nicaraguan Government would like to secure it for use in Nicaragua, principally on the Inter-American Highway but also for the Rama road. Since the machinery is now in Nicaragua the Government believes that its disposal there is the simplest and most efficient way of the Government’s getting the new machinery that it needs for highway construction.
The Ambassador then stated that General Somoza hoped that the purchase of this machinery could be included within the Nicaraguan lend-lease allocation.
I told the Ambassador that while I was not informed as to the details of the arrangements of the War Department for disposal of road-building equipment which was being used for the construction of the Pioneer Highway I would immediately go into the matter. I said that if the machinery was to be sold I saw no reason why the Nicaraguan Government should not have an opportunity to buy it.
I informed the Ambassador that I saw little hope of transferring the machinery to Nicaragua under Nicaragua’s lend-lease allocation. I told him that in the first place the War and Navy Departments, with the support of other departments of the Government, had limited the lend-lease allocations for the other American republics strictly to armament and military equipment. Although from time to time inquiries similar to that now being made by the Nicaraguan Government had been raised, the decision had always been contrary to including the delivery of nonmilitary items within the lend-lease allocations. There was a new factor in this particular situation, however. The War Department had determined that the completion of the Pioneer Highway was no longer necessary for reasons of security. No lend-lease items could be transferred until the War and Navy Departments had certified that the acquisition of these items by the Government to which they were being transferred was necessary to the defense of [Page 98] the United States. How could the War and Navy Departments now certify that this was necessary when the War Department had just stopped construction of the Pioneer Highway since it did not consider it any longer vital to our security?
The Ambassador expressed keen disappointment at what I said with regard to the scant possibility that the machinery could be transferred within Nicaragua’s lend-lease allocation. He went into a long peroration about the friendship of General Somoza for the United States, the cooperation of Nicaragua with the United States in the war, et cetera, et cetera.
I told the Ambassador that I would look into the matter but that I was distinctly not optimistic.45
- Guillermo Sevilla Sacasa.↩
- The Ambassador was informed December 23, 1943, by the Assistant Chief of the Division of the American Republics (Cabot) that the machinery might be purchased by Nicaragua and rented to the Inter-American and Rama Projects, or the larger part of the machinery could be purchased with funds allocated for the construction of the Rama Road, and title allowed to remain with the United States.↩