811.20 (D) Regulations/9958
The Secretary of State to the Minister in Costa Rica (Scotten)
The Secretary of State refers to the Legation’s telegrams no. 153, of February 25, 1943, and no. 202, of March 9, 1943,34 with reference [Page 184] to the adoption of Decentralization Plan “A” by Costa Rica beginning April 1. In as much as the Board of Economic Warfare is coordinating procedure under the decentralization plan, these two telegrams were referred to that agency which has prepared the following reply:
“It was not considered expedient to carry out fully all suggestions set forth in the Legation’s telegram no. 153 as the adoption of such procedures may well upset the cargo programming to Costa Rica or cause many hardship cases to importers in that country or to exporters in the United States.
“It is suggested that you inform the Oficina de Defensa Económica that the BEW procedure during the ‘interim’ period of Decentralization, April 1 to June 1, 1943, will be as follows:
- 1.
- Except in unusual cases, no individual export license applications will be approved unless accompanied by either: (a) Import Recommendations, or by (b) Certificates of Necessity, for allocated materials, or by (c) Certificates of Essentiality for non-allocated materials.
- 2.
- The Oficina de Defensa Económica will be informed, via the Mission, of all individual export licenses issued but not accompanied by one of these documents. We do not anticipate many such cases.
- 3.
- Commodities now under general license will continue to be exported under general license until June 1st, as provided by Current Export Bulletin No. 80,37 and will be certified for freight space without the necessity of any of the documents mentioned in paragraph (1) above.
- 4.
- On and after June 1st, 1943 when Plan ‘A’ goes into full operation, all materials will be under individual license and all applications for export license must be accompanied by Import Recommendations. On that date all general licenses for shipment to Costa Rica will be cancelled, including GIT (except Canada) and the special general license provisions for medicinals, with the exception of General License GUS, Shipments Valued at $25 or Less, Personal Baggage, General License for Ship’s Stores, return of empty containers, photographic films, plates and paper, technical data, newspapers and publications, as set forth in Comprehensive Export Schedule No. 11.37
- 5.
- The BEW will give consistent consideration to any special requests made by Costa Rica, such as indicated in the second paragraph of your telegram No. 153.
“We trust that these arrangements will be satisfactory to Mr. Fernandez.”38
“Timing schedules, estimates of supply, and recapitulation of outstanding tonnages were recently forwarded. It is expected that the stenographer requested will leave for San José about April 15. She is Miss Elinor Waltman who has been engaged in consignee control [Page 185] work in the Board of Economic Warfare. It is believed that her acquaintance with this work will more than compensate for the fact that she will not be in San José by April 1 as requested by the Legation.”